Seduced by the Game (39 page)

My fingers dig into her
soft flesh, holding on to her tightly as I pound away, moving in and out of her
as fast as I can go. She tightens around me, and by sheer dumb luck we come
together in a sweaty mess of contorted bodies. We collapse on the bed, drunk, exhausted,
and sated. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out for the night.

* * * *

When I wake up in the
morning, I wake up alone. At first, nothing seems wrong or out of sorts because
my head is killing me and I have the worst hangover I’ve ever experienced. All
I can possibly care about at that moment is drinking some water, popping a
handful of ibuprofen capsules, and crawling back under my covers. I check out
the time on the clock and deem that it would be best to consume my remedy and
try to sleep some more, so that’s what I do.

Except that plan kind of
backfires on me. I can’t sleep even when the Motrin kicks in, because I
remember that I told Bryan to sleep here with me instead of go back to the
townhouse. And that he did more than just sleep here—he slept
with
me.
Lord knows I’ve never crossed that boundary before, sleeping with someone I
work with, and I have no idea what ramifications will come from my actions. The
most important thing, though, is that I’ve got to find out Bryan’s opinion on
the whole matter. Will we chalk this up to a drunken mistake, or is it more
than that? And, regardless of the answer to that question, what will we do
about our working relationship?

If I’m being honest with
myself, I certainly wouldn’t mind doing that again. Not the getting drunk first
part, but the sex with Bryan part. It had been a long, long time since I had
sex that good and a while since I had had sex, period. Sex was like fast-food:
when I first stopped having it, I missed it. But the longer I went without it,
the more I forgot what it was like so I didn’t crave it as much anymore.

It was just too hard to
try to make a relationship work when the guys I met were all intimidated by my
job as well as by the Dallas hockey players themselves. Any potential boyfriend
would be worried either that the guys would come after him if he broke my heart
or that there was something going on between me and at least one of the guys,
like they couldn’t trust a woman who could work with a bunch of hockey players.
But I always had a strict rule about being professional and not dating
absolutely anyone I worked with. Well, at least I did. Now I’m not so sure. I’m
awfully confused now.

My alarm goes off, and I
force myself out of bed, still feeling like hell. I shower and get ready for
work. It’s supposed to be another warm day, so I’m left with the problem of
trying to find something to hide the bite mark on my neck. Of all the things
that I remember about last night, being bitten isn’t one of them. I choose a
scarf to strategically cover the bruise and hope that no one questions my
wardrobe selection during this February heat wave.

When I get to work, Adam
is waiting for me outside my office. He asks me what the plan is for Detroit.

“I don’t know,” I tell
him, opening my office and sinking into the seat behind my desk. I still feel
like hell, and Adam is too much to handle sometimes when I’m completely sober
and alert. “Why?”

“I’m just checking. I want
to know what time I need to catch the flight.” He’s smiling from ear to ear.

“That’s great news, Adam!”
I respond as enthusiastically as I can muster considering how badly my brain
hurts. “It’ll be great to have you with the team again.”

“Yeah, I’m really excited
about it,” he begins to ramble. At some point, though, I tune him out. It’s not
that I don’t care, because I do—I’ll be really glad to see lucky number seven
back out on the ice, and we need all the intangibles that he brings to the
team. When he notices that I’m no longer listening attentively, Adam asks, “Are
you okay, George? You seem...I don’t know, off or something.”

I mumble, “Sorry. I’m
recovering from last night.”

“Yeah, you were pretty
drunk,” he laughs. I try to laugh, too, but I can’t. “I’ve never seen you like
that before. It was kinda funny, I have to admit. Stock is pretty rough
looking, too. I don’t know which of you is worse, but at least you don’t have
to skate this morning.”

Frowning, I don’t say
anything more. I feel bad for Bryan because I can tell that he desperately
wants to make a good impression on his new team—and he obviously didn’t feel
like he was successful in doing that last night since the team lost—and showing
up for practice hungover couldn’t really help his cause. Then again, I think to
myself that maybe if he had stayed the whole night at my place instead of
leaving at some point, he would have gotten more rest and might be less worse
for wear.

“You sure you’re all
right?” Adam asks me again, a glint of concern in his eyes. It’s weird, seeing
that expression from him.

“Yeah, sure,” I tell him,
crossing my fingers behind my back so he can’t see. Southern women don’t lie.
“I’m just out of it.”

* * * *

When I wake up in the
morning, I feel pretty good. I’m in a warm, soft bed with a beautiful woman.
Her naked breasts press against my arm and her leg is entangled with mine. Ask
any guy: there’s nothing better than this.

I roll over, wanting to
nuzzle my face in that mess of brown, curly hair. But her dark hair throws me
for a loop—Corinne’s hair is blonde and straight. This isn’t Corinne.
Shit
.
This is George.
Shit fuck!

Not only did I just have
sex with someone involved with my new team, which could severely compromise the
opportunity I’m supposed to have out here, but I also just cheated on my
girlfriend. One night away from Corinne, and I sleep with someone else. I feel
horrible. I
am
horrible. After all the persuading it took to have her
come with me to Raleigh, I screw it up.

The last thing I want to
do is tell her and feel the wrath of her reaction, but it’s the first thing I
do as I leave George’s apartment. I leave as quietly and as stealthily as
possible because I can’t face George until I talk to Corinne. It’s early in
Raleigh, but I know it can’t wait.

“Bry? What’s wrong? Is
everything okay?” she asks immediately, knowing that something is wrong if I’m
calling so early. There’s tension in her voice, maybe annoyance or worry—I
can’t quite tell for sure.

“No, Cory, baby, I’m
sorry. I fucked up,” I confess in the cab, not even caring that the driver can
hear me at my worst.

“What happened?” She
pauses, and when I don’t respond right away, she presses, “Come on, tell me.
What is it?”

“I’m sorry,” I repeat.
“But I...I had sex. With someone else.”

She isn’t really angry or
even disappointed with my actions or me. I could have been able to handle that,
I think, if she had blown up at me or started crying over the phone. No,
instead she’s resigned. Corinne sighs heavily into the phone and asks, “Who was
it?”

I don’t want to make
excuses for myself. I’m not going to tell her that I was sad or upset or
miserable at having to be in Dallas, or even that I’m struggling to cope or
deal with being traded. But most of all I don’t want to drag George into this.
George has done nothing but nice things for me and treated me with sympathy
without making me feel ridiculously pathetic, and she doesn’t even know that I
have a girlfriend. She had no part in this, so I’m not going to implicate her.
“Someone I met yesterday. I’m really sorry, Cory, I want you to know that I
feel horrible about this.”

Corinne pauses for a long
time. Finally, she tells me, “I need some time to think things out, Bryan. I’ll
finish things up here for you but... I don’t know if I want to move to Dallas.
I don’t know if I can do it.”

The things she says to me
ring in my ears. “What?” I’m stunned. “You don’t want to be with me?”

“I would like to be with
you, Bryan, but this is all so much. I moved with you to Raleigh because you
asked me to, but I don’t like it here. And I don’t know if I can just pick up
and follow you around wherever you get traded. And, to be quite honest with
you, I don’t know how I feel about having to move to Texas.”

“It’s...nice,” I say to
her. Not that I really know; I haven’t seen much of the city.

She huffs, “I don’t know
anyone in Texas.”

“You’d know me,” I say
quietly, avoiding noticing that the driver’s looking at me in the rearview
mirror.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve been
thinking a lot about this since Monday and especially since you left yesterday.
You’re so serious about the game now that you’ve gone pro, and it’s stopped
being fun for me. I love you, Bryan, I love you lots, but I don’t know if this
is really working out for me anymore. Things have never been as good as they
were in college, and I think you know that, too.”

Yeah, I know that. Life
was different after Corinne had graduated from UND, but I figured our
relationship had changed because we were maturing and becoming adults and
that’s what adults do.

Now I have a brand-new
opportunity for me in Dallas, and I have to seize it. This is important; it’s
my future. It’s not an easy transition, but trades take time. I’ll mesh with my
new teammates. It would help to have my girlfriend with me, but not if she’s
going to be upset and hold a grudge against me, like I’m forcing her to come
with me. Especially since she’s already made it clear that she wasn’t happy in
Raleigh, either.

Corinne promises me that
she’s going to think about the move some more and call me in a few days when
she makes up her mind. However, I don’t hold out any hope that her decision is
going change. I know it won’t. She also tells me to contemplate where my
heart’s at, because she thinks I don’t really love her if I cheated on her on
my first night away from her in Dallas. I assure her that I do in fact love
her, but I don’t tell her that I think we’re not “in” love anymore. We just
didn’t realize it until now. Maybe we can salvage our relationship though;
we’ve been together for five years, and I’d hate to waste that. I try not to
think about all that during practice, because I need to focus on what’s
happening on the ice. After practice, I head into a lot of meetings with
different coaches to learn all about the Dallas system.

When that’s all said and
done, I’m mentally exhausted. I really want to go back to the townhouse, but I
have another stop to make. I head down the hallway toward George’s office even
though, after the morning I’ve already endured, it’s the last thing I want to
do. But I have to.

* * * *

There’s a soft knock on
the door. “Come in,” I say, knowing before the door even opens that it’s going
to be Bryan. I’ve been bracing myself all morning—especially when I knew that
their practice was over—for this confrontation with him. But I’m still not
prepared, although I don’t think I ever would be.

He pokes his head in
sheepishly and offers me a shy smile. “Hey. How’re you feeling this morning?”

“Not so good,” I tell him
honestly. My head’s still throbbing, and now my stomach’s in knots from worry
and anxiety.

“I brought you some
Gatorade,” he tells me, placing the yellow bottle on my desk for me. It’s a
nice gesture, to bring me something to make me feel better, but it says a lot
already that he doesn’t hand it to me. He sets it down on my desk so I have to
pick it up. I already feel like I know where this is headed. In some ways, I’m
relieved, but in other ways, I’m sad—and also, I feel like I should have known
this was going to happen since he wasn’t there when I woke up. I mean, men
don’t usually run out of my bed first thing in the morning; southern men are
more chivalrous and respectful than that.

“Thanks, that was nice.” I
twist off the cap and take a few gulps. It’s a peace offering, and I accept it
to show him that we’re okay and we’re going to get past this. Because I can
tell he’s feeling remorseful about what happened, I decide to make this as easy
on him as possible. “I’m sorry about last night, Bryan. It shouldn’t have
happened. That was so unprofessional of me, to think I could let you stay at my
apartment. I should have made the cabbie drop you off first, to make sure you
got back to your own place all right—”

“No, I’m sorry,” he
interrupts me. “I took advantage of you. You were drunk.”

“You were, too.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “But I
should have known better.” Lord knows I don’t understand what he means when he
says that; we both should have known better than to mix pleasure with business.
His eyebrows furrow together and his posture slumps. His voice changes, and I
can barely hear him. I know before he speaks that he’s utterly ashamed of
himself, but I don’t know why that is until he tells me. “This morning, I had
to tell my girlfriend what happened.”

Oh my God. He has a
girlfriend. Bryan had an affair, and I was the other woman. My stomach twitches
and rolls in my torso. It’s everything I can do to not throw up that yellow
Gatorade. My eyes close, and my hands clutch my desk for support. I might as
well be on a roller coaster. “Oh no, I’m sorry—”