Chapter 14 Property of Matthew Eriksson Hailey

Chapter 14

Property of Matthew Eriksson

Hailey

It’s a few minutes before eight o’clock when I pick up an envelope from the will-call window at the arena. I expect to find a ticket inside, but instead it’s a plastic card with my name on it in shiny letters.

For the use of HAILEY TAYLOR EMERY , it reads.

Below that it says, Property of MATTHEW ERIKSSON .

How oddly they’ve phrased it. Property of . I know they mean the card, but it sounds like they’re referring to me. There’s also a creamy business card that reads only, Suite 7 .

“Good evening, miss,” a guard tells me when I show him the card. “Enjoy your evening.”

“But I don’t know where I’m going.”

“Ah.” He smiles. “First time? You’ll need to take the escalators in that direction.” He points. “Your card will activate the turnstile. Then read the plaques on the doors. If you’re spending time with the WAGs, you should know that the strawberry daiquiris are strong.”

“Thanks,” I say, hoping it will make more sense when I find the right spot. I get on an escalator, which slowly lifts me away from the madness in the rest of the arena.

Since leaving Matt’s apartment earlier in the day, I feel I’ve done a first-rate job of pretending that everything is normal. It isn’t though. Stopping by Matt’s apartment for earth-tilting sex is not normal. Even if I kissed him goodbye and nonchalantly pulled on my clothes again, my inner Hailey was still chanting, Oh. My. God. And, Did that really just happen?

In the office, Jenny swarmed, trying to get the story. But I didn’t yield. I need a little time to make sense of the day’s events and how I feel about them.

And then there was Tad! He stuck his head into my office late this afternoon. “So you’re, like, dating Matt Eriksson?” he asked tentatively.

“I…don’t really know,” I admitted. Even though I just had naked, dirty sex in his bed after our coffee date . “I’m a little confused about the whole thing.”

Tad laughed. “Hope you figure it out then.”

So do I.

As the escalator climbs higher, I try to see today from Matt’s perspective. We’ve been on one date, where we made out at an opera and in the back of a hired car. Then he cooked me dinner, and we were interrupted before he got the big payoff he was probably expecting.

So today he came looking for it. I gave it to him. And tomorrow at five in the morning, he’s headed to the West Coast.

It’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll still be interested in me when he returns to town after his trip.

The escalator takes me to a long curving corridor. Then there’s a turnstile in my way. I wave the plastic card with my name on it, and the glass barrier slides aside to let me pass. I follow the corridor. Elegant wooden doors every twenty feet or so, each with a brass plaque. The first ones I pass have the names of financial institutions on them. Suite 7 though, is labeled WAGs .

Beside the door is a card scanner, the sort you might see outside a hotel room. I hesitate there, wondering who is seated inside and whether they’ll think I’m imposing. That sounds awkward. But it’s two minutes to eight, and the thought of missing the start of the game is a great motivator. I wave the card in front of the scanner, and the door clicks open. I glimpse several women standing in the open space, backlit by the glare of the rink beyond.

To my dismay, a dozen heads of shiny hair swivel in my direction all at the same time. Yikes.

“Hi, there,” I say with a smile. The truth is that I’m not actually a shy person. Not unless Matt Eriksson is in the room. A room full of strangers doesn’t really scare me. But this room is paneled in walnut and softly lit by shiny sconces on the walls. There’s a thick oriental rug on the floor beneath my feet. And facing the rink are three rows of generously sized plush chairs. A bar and buffet line the wall beside me.

This place is seriously kitted out for the wives of the team, and I’m not sure why Matt sent me here.

“I’m Katie Hewitt!” a woman says, bounding toward me. “Welcome to the WAGs box. You’re a guest of…?” The room is silent, and all the women are listening for my answer.

“Matt Eriksson.”

There is a collective intake of breath.

“He, uh, donated his seats to the dog rescue. So he told me to watch from here. If that’s okay,” I add stupidly. But they’re staring at me with fascination.

Katie is the first to shake off her apparent surprise. When she claps her hands together, I swear an entire jewelry store’s worth of diamonds flashes in front of my eyes. “Matt? That sneaky Pete! I didn’t know he was seeing anyone!”

“We’re…uh…” I realize I can’t finish the sentence. I have no idea what we are.

“Have you known him for long?” she tries.

“At least a year,” I say, wondering how to explain the odd beginning to our relationship. “He’s a client. I have a personal assistant company called Fetch…”

Katie’s eyes practically glisten. “And he fetched himself a girlfriend!”

I laugh nervously. “Not exactly—”

“Katie!” another woman chides. “That sounds terrible.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Katie insists. “Fetch is cool. I just used it for the first time last week to find my aunt some tulips to cheer her up. It’s hard to get tulips this time of year.”

“But not impossible,” I can’t help but say. “We have all the specialty florists in Toronto in our database.”

There’s an appreciative murmur. Something tells me these women receive a lot of flowers.

“Hailey! You’re back!” someone else says, and I turn my head to find Jess Canning, who swoops in to give me a hug. “I for one am not surprised to see you here. Girls, Matt was all over her at the opera.”

“Yikes,” I say aloud. I seem to be capable of anything when that man is nearby.

Katie cackles. “At least someone was having fun at the opera. Hailey, would you say you’re more of a hockey fan or an operagoer?”

“Hockey all the way,” I confess. “I’m more fluent in hockey.”

She beams.

“Let’s get you a drink,” Jess says, pointing at the refreshments. “We have all kinds of beer and wine. And Katie makes a mean strawberry daiquiri. But pace yourself, because if Matt scores tonight, you’ll be expected to do a shot.”

“I will?” I say with no small amount of alarm. I haven’t done shots since college.

“Sure, unless you don’t drink. This isn’t a sorority initiation.”

“It’s close!” someone hoots.

Having been warned about the daiquiris, I grab a beer. Katie opens it for me with shiny red fingernails, and then the girls steer me toward a seat. The national anthem is underway already. I feel tingly with excitement, and it has nothing to do with the earth-shattering sex I had a few hours ago and everything to do with hockey.

Because hockey.

There are a few more minutes to wait. They’re setting up a ceremonial puck drop on the ice. I sip my beer and receive a few more greetings from players’ wives. I’m good at remembering names—that comes naturally to me. But I wonder if there’s any point. These women are being awfully nice to someone who’s probably never going to repeat her visit to the most privileged spot in all of Toronto.

But I’m sure going to enjoy it while it lasts.

The door to the suite bursts open, and a short woman with curly black hair arrives like a windstorm. “Girls!” she shouts. “You’ll never guess who asked us for a pass tonight!”

“Was it Eriksson?” Jess asks with a grin.

The newcomer’s eyes sweep the room and land on me in my comfy seat. “Ah!” she says, tossing her purse onto a side table. “That’s what I get for being late to the party. Welcome, Miss Hailey! We’re happy to see you. That poor man needs someone to love him right.” She looks me up and down. “Are you up to the job?”

Gulp. Her stare pierces me, and I don’t know what to say. Loving Matt Eriksson sounds like the easiest job in the world, but I really can’t assume that I’m going to get the chance.

“ Estrella ,” Jess protests with a giggle. “We don’t interrogate people until their second visit, remember? Not until they figure out that we mean well.”

Estrella smiles. “Sorry. It’s just that he’s been through a lot.” Her gaze travels over my head to the ice. “Face-off time!”

My attention whips back toward the rink. The ref drops the first real puck of the evening, and that’s it. I’m gone. The WAGs and their questions fall away, and I’m lost to the tug of the game beneath me.

Matt is skating with Wesley and Riley tonight. They look on too, passing among themselves with barely a necessary glance. When a line is working well together, it’s instinctual. They sense each other’s situations effortlessly.

It takes a few shifts of hard skating to shake up Dallas. Our first couple of shots on goal are deflected. Then their defense makes an error around the seven-minute mark that changes the game. Riley steals the puck, using his considerable bulk to box out his opponents. He fires a nearly blind pass to Wesley, who fires it to Matt.

He shoots, and I hold my breath. The goalie dives for it, and my blood stops circulating.

The light on the net is quickly followed by my shrieks of ecstasy. “YEESSSSSS!” I scream. “Get used to it, Dallas!” I’m jumping up and down. The jumbotron zooms in on Matt’s handsome face, grinning behind the safety shield as his teammates congratulate him.

It takes a little more screaming to burn off my zeal, and then I flop back into my seat. My system is a little stunned at all this good fortune. Both orgasms and live hockey games are rare in my life, and having both on the same day is life-changing.

Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I look up to find Katie grinning at me. These women are probably used to having orgasms and hockey in steady supply. The cushy seats and beers are just icing on their gourmet cake of life.

“Here’s your shot!” Katie enthuses. She hands me a shot glass with salt around the rim and a wedge of lime.

Still high on Matt’s goal, I toss it back, bite the lime, and smile. The room promptly erupts with glee.

But we have a game to watch, and I’m all business.

The speed of play increases down on the ice. I can grudgingly admit that Dallas is a great team. The next portion of the game is tense and nonscoring. I forget my beer and everything else. When there’s less than a minute on the clock, Dallas makes one more rush. I hold my breath again as Matt steals the puck. He can’t get the pass off before a Dallas player reaches him, and the asshole uses a cross-check that stuns me.

“Did you fucking see that?” I shout, leaping to my feet. “Hey, ref! Clean your glasses, or I’ll come down there and do it myself!”

Estrella whoops from behind me. “Ladies, we have ourselves a hockey fan!”

I spin around. “Did you see that? He raised that stick high enough to play a game of limbo! Asswipe.”

There is laughter, but I’m still seeing red.

“Breathe, Hailey,” Jess says as the announcer begins to speak. “They gave the jerk a penalty.”

Indeed, the offending player is making his way to the box. Matt skates off unharmed.

I sit down, and play resumes for only a few seconds before the buzzer sounds for the end of the period. Jess gets up to refill her drink, then flops beside me again and leans in with a smile.

“You’re a blast,” she tells me. “Are you coming to the next home game?”

Discomfort ripples through me. “I don’t know,” I admit, because I guess it all depends on whether Matt wants me to. I lower my voice and add, “I’m not really sure what’s going on with me and Matt, if I’m being honest.”

Either I don’t speak quietly enough, or these women have superhuman hearing, because Katie Hewitt speaks up from the other end of the row. “You’re his girlfriend,” she says with a grin.

I’m even more uncomfortable now. “I’m not. I mean, we haven’t had the are-we-dating conversation yet.”

Katie rolls her eyes. “Of course you’re dating.”

I frown. “Why are you so sure of that?”

She waves a manicured, diamond ring–laden hand around the lavish private box. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

It can’t possibly be that simple.

Can it?

***

Hailey: Good game! I’m sorta plastered because of you.

Matt: Yeah? I knew it would stink not to be able to see you again tonight. Did you do shots for me?

Hailey: Yap.

Hailey: Yurt.

Hailey: YES. Stupid phone.

Matt: :)

Hailey: Problem. Maybe. I mean, not for me. But maybe for you. A problem, I mean.

Matt: Um, help me out here. What?

Hailey: Tonight your teammates’ WAGs informed me that I’m *your* WAG.

Matt: They did, huh?

Hailey: Ya. Apparently it’s a big deal that I watched the game in their box. Why didn’t you warn me?

Matt: Honestly, didn’t even think about it. Just wanted you to see the game.

Matt: They didn’t freak you out, did they?

Hailey: Not really. But…

Matt: But what?

Matt: ?

Hailey: I guess I am wondering what it means. Ugh. I’m being a girl, aren’t I?

Matt: It’s OK. Girls are hot ;) Especially when they’re sorta plastered. Do you really want to have THE TALK over text?

Hailey: I didn’t say I wanted THE TALK!

Matt: “I guess I am wondering what it means” = THE TALK. What do you want it to mean?

Hailey: I don’t know. Drunk person here.

Matt: Do you like me?

Hailey: Hell yes!

Matt: And I like you. We’re dating, right?

Hailey: Yes.

Matt: So that was easy, right?

Hailey: Are we just dating each other?

Matt: Ah, gotcha. You want the E-word.

Hailey: Echo? Earwax?

Matt: Exclusive.

Hailey: I wasn’t even thinking about that. But…now I am. Are you seeing anyone else?

Matt: Nope. And neither are you. Because we’re exclusive.

Hailey: LOL Is that so?

Matt: Abso-fucking-lutely. My flight gets in at 7 tomorrow. Dinner and sex around 8? Stay loose, rookie. The coach needs you limber.

Hailey: Wow. Okay. I’m free then. Anytime, really. For that. I’m going to go now before I latherblather or sluttyflutter. Night!

Matt: I don’t know what that means but I like the sound of that second one. Night!