Game On (31 page)

Leaving the hotel was like walking a gauntlet, especially with Luc regarding her so. She could see in her peripheral that his jaw clenched and relaxed like he was chewing on annoyance.

“Let’s walk,” she suggested, bursting through the lobby doors into the morning sunshine. The Mall was only a few blocks away and she needed to be physical, blow off the fury gnawing her insides.

What she really wanted to do was to run, to feel the pavement slam against the soles of her feet, to sweat all the ugliness out of her system, to get as far away from Luc as fast as possible. Instead, she walked quickly, hoping to stay a few feet ahead.

He kept up, his long-legged strides moving purposely beside her. They didn’t speak, didn’t banter. Indeed, all his energy seemed spent on brooding while hers was spent in keeping herself calm and rational and not giving in to the urge to beat her fists against Luc’s solid chest, claw his perfect face, and scream, “Why? Whywhywhywhy! Why did you go to her? Aren’t I enough for you? Aren’t I
good
enough for you?”

Some small voice in her head said it couldn’t be true, that Luc wasn’t the kind of person that Val was suggesting, but that part of her was drowned out by the other louder voice that shouted,
“You selfish little girl. Thought you had him, didn’t you? Well, you don’t bloody deserve him!”

She wanted so badly to confront him, but she couldn’t. What if, instead of denying it or giving her a valid reason for seeing his ex-lover without telling her, what if he looked at her pityingly and shrugged. What if all those things she pictured them doing were true?

As long as she kept it inside, she could pretend Valentina was full of shit, the encounter never happened, there was no dead-of-night visit, no kiss, no disrobing, no…everything that came after. And to have to say the words aloud, “Did you…” in a voice that would surely ring with whiny humiliation, would be like handing Valentina her dignity on a silver platter.

She walked blindly, seething, fretting, replaying her conversation with Val on auto-loop, changing her response every time but never coming out the victor. The only positive outcome had her hanging up the moment she realized who it was. If only…

When she finally clued into her surroundings, Clara found herself at the Vietnam Memorial Wall, a hauntingly beautiful piece of black rock inscribed with the names of those fallen. It seemed endless, the list as well as the monument, growing taller next to her as the path sloped into the ground. She stopped at its deepest and highest point, where the wall corned into a ninetyish-degree turn. It was eerily quiet, as if all the noise in Washington stayed a respectful distance. It was disturbingly peaceful, this place that represented war, death, the end.

The end.

She couldn’t ignore it anymore. Their relationship, measured in days, weeks, cities, had come to a premature end thanks to Valentina.

A weary sigh escaped her lips.

Clara obviously meant nothing more to Luc than a business-class fuck buddy and, really, she hadn’t expected more, had she? They’d joked from the beginning about it being a game, complete with rules, though neither had acknowledged the countdown clock. So the buzzer had gone a few seconds early. Big deal. Best to call it off now and declare Luc the winner.

The etched names blurred as she focused on her own reflection in the granite. You couldn’t see both at the same time; one either honed in on the letters of the names or adjusted to see a larger vision of their own reflection. It was almost as if these loyal and selfless young men were trying to disassociate from her, knowing her greatest flaw was their greatest strength. Clara felt petty and stupid for obsessing over the heart of a man she’d known only a month in the presence of the dead, the brave, the valiant.

“You’re crying.” Luc came up beside her.

She wiped the dampness from cheeks with the back of her hand. “So many, so young. A terrible waste, and for what?”

“For a political ideal, for their families, for their country. Over fifty-eight thousand,” he said with an unbelieving shake of his head.

“Such a great sacrifice,” she sighed.

“A sacrifice for the greater good, I suppose,” Luc said.

For the greater good
. Luc had taken a fat yellow highlighter to her biggest flaw. Her selfishness would never allow her to look at the greater good, never allow her to consider anything or anybody past the good of her own nose.

He reached out to take her hand, she saw this in the reflection, but before his fingers could make contact, Clara walked away; away from the fallen, away from the judgmental self that stared back at her in the obsidian-like granite, away from him.

Chapter 34

“Y
ou going to tell me
what’s up?” Luc asked when he caught up with her.

“This is your party. You tell me,” she said.

“That’s not what I meant. You’re irritated, and I’d like to know why. Was it the phone call?”

“Can’t a girl have a bad day? Maybe I’m PMSing. Can we leave it at that?”

“No,” he said and picked up his pace to keep up with her.

The first two days in Washington had been filled with sightseeing and fine food. They’d laughed their asses off the night before while writing the critique, using their words to snipe at each other’s intellect while praising the cuisine. Their columns had such amazing rhythm, a synergy that could only be credited to their real-life chemistry. So for Clara to change her act so abruptly and behave completely out of character left him confused and angry.

The telephone call, which he’d never have known about had he not forgotten his wallet, had him burning with curiosity. He hadn’t overheard much, only caught the tail end of what appeared to be an intense conversation. Her responses were short, angry—
you’re lying
and
what do you want from me
—and he replayed them over and over in his mind, wondering to whom they were directed and what they meant. And why the hell did he feel nauseous about it, for God’s-damned-sake? He had enough to worry about today without this shit.

They didn’t linger by the Reflecting Pool, nor at the large phallic thingy, as Clara had called the monument. She seemed impatient and antsy, had lost the insatiable curiosity for all things American and, worst of all, her spark. God damn it to hell, he wanted to gloves-off clock the bastard responsible for taking it away.

“Can we try this again?” he said again when they got in the taxi. “What’s going on with you, Clara?”

“Nothing.” She smiled but it didn’t reach her cheeks, let alone put the brightness back in her eyes.

“I’m not blind, love. Or stupid, remember?”

Again, she gazed through him as if he were nothing more than a spectre, and forced a patronizing grin.

“Can we cut with the pretend amusement?” Luc pressed his fingers into the side of his knee. The dull throb wasn’t helping his disposition.

“I’m just not prepared to discuss this at the moment,” she said.

“Here we are, the phone booth,” said the cabbie as he pulled up to the curb.

“Later, then,” Luc said, impatience making his words angrier than he intended. “After we’re done here, Clara, I expect some answers.”

“We’ll see,” she said, sliding out of the backseat.

He watched puzzlement cloud her face when she looked up at the sign for the Verizon Center. “Isn’t this where—”

“Yup. My old team is in town for tonight’s game against the Capitals. They’re practicing right now so I thought...” He shrugged.

“And you’re okay with being here?”

He took a deep breath and reached for her hand, relieved that she didn’t pull away. “Uh-huh.” It was only a small lie. “As long as you’re with me.”

Every step toward the building became slower, more difficult. He should have told the taxi to wait.

Panic attacks are funny things. They toy with you first, taunting you from the shadows of your mind like some kind of horror movie monster calling,
I’m cooooming
, as your logic center screams,
get back, please-please-please, just leave me be.
The cold sweat begins to form on your forehead and upper lip, your heart starts to hammer, your ears buzz like your senses are trying to escape your corporeal self, then someone like Clara snaps you out of it with a “Do I smell okay?”

And it all just stopped. He squeezed her hand to acknowledge gratitude that she’d never know she deserved. “Lovely. An entire basket of laundry-fresh towels.”

She looked at him like she was having her own brand of panic attack. “I wish you’d told me we were coming here. I feel horribly unprepared.”

“What’s to prepare?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Something. Look at their stats, maybe? Put on perfume.”

Luc slowed and pulled her up against him, or tried to, but her body felt as tight as a compacted spring. “Hey, relax. It’s not like you’re meeting my parents. And do you have any idea what a locker room smells like? Even on your dirtiest, nastiest, just-walked-through-a-bog-then-bathed-in-sour-milk day, you’d smell and look like sunshine to these guys. Trust me.”

“Trust you,” she echoed in a hollow tone. She gave her hair a toss and asked, “Are you sure
you’re
okay being here?”

“I think so,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head before she could pull away. “I’m not sure yet, but it feels…okay. Up until last week, I never thought I’d be able to set foot in a place like this again—and for the big, crowded games, definitely not—but it’s nice to know I can get some face-to-face interviews, catch pre-game practices, that kind of thing.” Before the shadow monsters hurled more taunts, he slipped his arm around her waist. “And someday, when I have sons of my own, maybe I’ll actually get to take them to their games. You gave me an incredible gift,
mon amour
. Thank you.”

He expected her to squeeze him back, maybe lean in for a kiss, so when she looked away, it stung.

Dieu
, he was so stupid, showing her his vulnerability like this, clinging to her like some kind of drowning man to a rope. No wonder she looked away. She was probably embarrassed for him. He released his hold and stepped ahead of her, using the sharp end of the humility blade to stave of the panics.

“We’ll just watch from here until they’re done,” Luc said, leading her up a few stairs into the first row of seats.

Whatever bothered her seemed to ease after a few minutes of watching the players run drills. Her shoulders didn’t appear as hunched, and her face softened.

“It’s not as much fun without the rock music blaring,” she said, referring to the music they played during games.

“Or the pumped up organ music.”

“That too,” she said. “Hey, do you guys fight in practice as much as you do in games?”

“No. No reason to.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I mean, come on, grown men, grabbing each other’s shirts like bullies, punching on each other’s faces. Why? What’s it all about? I asked Riley, and he says it’s testosterone, but I think you all just want to rest for two minutes in that VIP box over on the other side.”

Luc laughed. Only Clara could come up with that. “No, it’s not like that. And there really is a reason. Reasons, in fact.”

“I’m waiting, and it better be damn convincing or I’m going to annihilate you on the blog tomorrow.”

“Sometimes it’s strategic—you just need to change the tempo of the game, like if your team is scored on, you pick a fight to get them to lose their momentum—”

“That’s a rather juvenile approach,” she interjected. “Why not just try harder?”

“Hold on, I got more,” Luc said, giving her hair a playful tug. Anything to touch her, to make some kind of physical contact with her. He wanted to clear the strained air around them but wasn’t sure how.

He was hoping for reaction, a smirk, hair toss, but nothing came. So he cleared his throat and continued, “Touching my goalie is a big no-no. Gotta protect your goalie at all times. Someone gets in his face, he needs a lesson.”

“That actually makes sense,” she conceded. “What else?”

“If you get a guy who’s usually not a fighter picking a fight, you can bet it’s something personal, like you got hacked on or trash talked.”

“Trash talked?”

“Yeah. I’m sure I don’t have to give you an example of the shit guys will say to each other to distract them. Things about your wife, you sister…just use your imagination. And sometimes it’s just because the other team is playing dirty. If you can’t do it with the puck, do it with your fists.”

“And we’re back to juvenile again.”

“Not really. The original reason for fighting is to give payback where the refs couldn’t or wouldn’t. That goes back to the moral fibre thing. There are certain codes in hockey, any sport really. Big guys don’t go after little guys and spearing and butt-ending are bad form, so if a player does these things and the refs don’t see it, the other guys will get back at the offender.”

Luc flexed his knee a couple of times to alleviate the burning sensation in his muscles. “Look, they’re about to wrap up. Any other questions before we go down?”

“Puck bunnies.”

“What?”

“Something you mentioned once, and I didn’t ask for clarification. But it made me picture dust bunnies hiding in the corners of the rink.”

“Ha! No. Puck bunnies are girls that like to hang around hockey players. Like groupies.”

“Oh!” Clara said, her cheeks reddening as the corners of her mouth turned down. “Like the C/Kaitlyns.”

“Exactly.”

“And you guys,” she said, cocking her chin toward the players. “You like that kind of thing? Hoards of girls all around you?”

“Before the game, they’re annoying as hell.”

“And after? Easy sex?”

“I can’t speak for us all, but most guys just want to relax and have some beers. Or maybe that’s a Canadian thing.” Luc chuckled. “I guess for the young guys it’s handy, but really, Clara, once you realize that everyone else has done her, the shine wears off.”

“And you…with the C/Kaitlyns?”

“Never!”

Her eyebrows shot up in disbelief, her mouth in a tight, grim line.

“Bean! I’d never had invited them for lunch if I had. I can’t believe you’d even think that.
Dieu!
”

Luc led her onto ground level, into the area reserved for players. He loved the arena from this perspective: bigger, brighter, and like being at the bottom of a very big bowl. The scrape and swoosh of blades cutting across the ice, the rack and clack of wooden sticks, pucks hitting the boards with such speed and power, he felt it in his bones, and amidst the sharp retorts of the coach’s whistle, there were shouts of “Biscuit!” and “Luc!” as they noticed him standing in the players’ box.