Page 29 of Hard Hitter
“But you’re still young!” Georgia squeezed her hand. “Five years from now you could have a husband andtwokids. Lots of people don’t have kids until their thirties. This isn’t 1950.”
“I’m just so annoyed with myself. When I teach a yoga class, I’m standing there asking everyone in the room to become mindful of their surroundings. But it turns out I wasn’t doing such a great job of that myself.”
“I don’t know,” Georgia said kindly. “You got the hell away from him the moment it mattered most.”
“That’s what Patrick said.” Below them a whistle blew on the ice, and another drill started. Ari watched the captain skate. There was no hesitation when he powered down the rink. Were his strained muscles better? Or was the man just stubborn?
“So, wait,” Georgia said, nudging her. “Back up a second. You stayed with Douliein his apartment?”
“Sure? Where else would I stay with him?”
Georgia’s eyes danced. “See, thisisgossip! Nobody has ever been to O’Doul’s apartment.”
“What do you mean, nobody? I have.”
“I know! But he’s never invited his teammates over. Ever. What was it like in there? Castro has this theory that O’Doulhas a sex dungeon that he doesn’t want anyone to see. They tease him about it sometimes, but he doesn’t react.”
Ari laughed for the first time all day. “That’s ridiculous. O’Doul’s place is lovely. It’s a loft space, though. All one room. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t like to entertain? The bed is right there in the room.”
Georgia tossed her chopsticks into her empty carton and frowned. “Maybe the secret chamber is hidden behind a bookshelf. There could be a special brick—push it and the wall swings open.”
“That must be it,” Ari joked, and Georgia gave her a smile. Hell, she was pretty sure there were secret places—in O’Doul’smind. He seemed to keep a pretty tight lid on himself, and again she wondered why.
Today wouldn’t be the day she learned, though. O’Doul was not on her schedule for massage that afternoon. Maybe the trainers believed he was recovering. That was good news for the captain, but as she worked through a long afternoon treating five other players, she found herself thinking about him, anyway.
“You’re marrying me someday, right?” Castro asked as she massaged his instep.
“Mmm?” she asked, shaking off her private thoughts.
“Just my usual proposal,” her client said. “But you seem distracted today. I’m gonna get offended.”
She patted his calf and asked him to flip over, which he did without hesitation. All her clients were easier to treat than O’Doul. But none were as interesting.
After a long afternoon at work, Ari spent a few minutes texting with Maddy. She told her about the brick through the window, and apologized profusely for any drama that might come her way.Please be vigilant,Ari begged.I’m trying not to be paranoid, but the man is pissed at me.
I’ll keep my phone charged,Maddy promised.Don’t worry about me.
She did, though.
That night, Ari fell asleep easily in the hotel, safely three hundred miles away from Vince. The next morning she conducted an eight o’clock yoga session in the hotel health club.
Every yoga class had a different rhythm, and that morning the players seemed to bring a lot of nervous energy with them into the room. It was game night, and they were under so much pressure to make the play-offs.
As she paced the front of the room asking for different poses, they watched her with intense eyes. So she gave them an ambitious yoga experience to feed and center all that energy, with a fast flow including lots of chaturangas. Then she brought them into eagle pose and made them hold it for several minutes.
When it was over, she had two dozen men dripping with sweat, lying in corpse pose for their final breathing exercise, and probably cursing her name.
As they shuffled out afterward, Patrick gave her a wink. “Trying to kill us today?”
“That wouldn’t be good for my job security,” she pointed out. “I’m only trying to make it possible for you to rest before the game.”
“I think it worked.”
“Go right upstairs and nap,” she ordered.
He gave her a warmer smile than she’d ever seen on his face. And then he went.
***
