Yo Ho Ho, page 9
"I'm picking 13 again," she said as she handed over some money to Charlie.
Bob groaned from his seat. "Every year, Maxine. Nothing original."
She just shrugged and smiled, watching as Charlie coordinated the bets and took everyone's information down.
"Wheels up in five, everyone!" announced someone from the Pirates' personnel.
That was their cue to start heading out. Charlie scooped up the cash into an envelope, stuffing his bet sheet in with it. The crew grabbed their bags and headed out, following two hungover-looking players out the door.
"Hey, Max."
She turned to see Jake lugging his suitcase in one hand and his camera case in the other.
"Need some help?"
"I'm good."
He left his suitcase in the pile of luggage being checked for the flight. He could buy new clothes in a new city if he had to. The camera was valuable and always came with him. As they headed up the stairs together, he leaned in closer to her.
"Listen, I talked to a few of our producers at the station," he said quietly. "I really tried to work on them, but we're in a hiring freeze so I don't think we have an opening for you."
Max gave him a tight smile. "It's OK. You didn't need to do that, but I really appreciate it."
Jake gave her a small tap on her back. "We all wish we could fix this for you."
"It's the industry, right?"
"Yeah."
They stopped at the top of the stairs leading into the plane. "But seriously, Jake. Thanks for checking on that for me."
Jake quietly nodded and followed her in. Most of the players had already taken their seats. They may have been hungover, but they weren't going to risk missing the flight. She mentally took a note of how many pairs of sunglasses she saw as she walked through, hoping it would give her a better idea if she made a good bet this year. Some of the players still had their sweaters on from the night before. Alex, for example, was already passed out, mouth gaping open, sunglasses on, and "Jingle my balls" proudly displayed on his green and white sweater. Max figured he had probably slept in the same clothes he wore to the party.
Next to him was Logan who seemed to be brighter eyed and reading something. He looked up at her, just a quick glance before his eyes turned away and back to what was sitting in front of him. She took a deep breath and tried to suppress whatever she wanted to say or however she wanted to feel about him this morning. It would just be better that way.
But as she walked by, she saw what he was reading: The sports section of the Detroit Herald with her story on the cover.
Max turned quickly to stare ahead as she continued her trek down the aisle of the plane. She put a lot of effort into making that story great and making Logan look like a nice player that kids looked up to. So what if he was a condescending jerk? She was still a professional who wrote honest stories, and she would do that until they took her computer away from her.
In two weeks.
She hated having an expiration date on her job.
The media guys settled into their seats in the back with only Charlie missing. Max took a quick glance to see him flirting with the flight attendant up front. This was what he did every year as his cover for counting sunglasses on players right until the door closed. In all these years, the players had never figured out that the media guys made this bet. It was better to keep it a secret so the team wouldn't try to throw the bets one way or another.
There was the little sound of a ding before the flight attendant announced that the door to the plane had been closed. "Please take your seats. We'll be taxiing shortly."
The guys all settled in, waiting for Charlie to come back with his verdict. It didn't take long before the blogger began to walk down the aisle, envelope of cash in hand. He turned to make sure none of the players were paying attention to the guys in the back. Then he held up the envelope and smiled.
"This year, there are 13 players wearing sunglasses," he said quietly. "Our winner is Max."
There were subdued cheers and congratulations from the crew in the back as Max took the envelope from Charlie's hand.
"I guess that lucky 13 finally paid off for you," Bob said from across the aisle.
"I guess so."
Charlie took a seat next to her and gave her a quick congratulations as the plane started to pull away. "You almost didn't get that, you know."
"Really?" Max asked.
"Just as the door was closing, Logan slipped on a pair of shades. You owe him."
Max laughed a little, trying to be polite as she quickly slipped the cash into her bag and looked out the window. She finally had something break in her favor, which was the first time that had happened in a while. Definitely the first time it had happened since she found out she was losing her job. But why did the deciding factor have to be Logan Moore?
Chapter 13
Max took another sip of her tea and stared down at the pool from her hotel room window. Her hair was still wet from her swim, her leggings and long-sleeve t-shirt cozy but not too cozy. There was something soothing about being able to swim outside at eight o'clock at night, especially when the weather was warm. Detroit couldn't even compete with the weather in Florida at this time of the year. There was just no comparison.
Max was thankful for a night like tonight. With so much craziness and stress in her life, she needed to have one calming night like this. No columns to worry about, no deadlines to hit, no hockey to watch and write about.
Of course by February, she would probably be desperate to write any kind of hockey story about any kind of hockey game. The season was always tough to get through, especially in the dead of winter, but it was still OK to be frustrated right now. It may be the last time she could experience something like that. It's why she had a swim and pulled on some comfortable clothes. She needed to do what she could to enjoy the last few weeks of her job.
The pool also allowed her to avoid people she didn't want to deal with: Hockey players — or at least one in particular. Some of the players and media guys had invited her to go drink in the hotel's bar with them, but she politely declined. She didn't want to be around them tonight. Max could go down another night, but just not this one. She couldn't handle the questions about how she was doing or if she had figured out what she was doing next. It was just too much for her right now.
She also couldn't handle Logan Moore. His comment to her in the parking lot yesterday still bothered her. Did he really need to remind her that she wouldn't have a job for much longer? And did he need to do it in such a demeaning way just to get a date?
Although Amanda was also right. She needed to take a chance and be happy in whatever way she could. But the problem was she had no idea what that happiness would look like. Would a new job make her happy? A new relationship? She didn't know. So maybe it was good that she was by herself in her own hotel room, looking out over Florida with some time to think about what was out there for her.
She kept coming up with different ideas, new things she could do or places she could go. But there was one constant in all of her thoughts: Logan Moore. Her mind would drift to a new job and she would think about how it would affect her relationship with Logan. She thought about maybe traveling somewhere like she always said she would and she could see Logan at all of those places with her. He had infected her mind and was inserting himself everywhere.
Her thoughts were broken by a knock on the door, and she checked the clock on her nightstand. It was just a little past nine o'clock — way too early for the guys to be back from the bar. Max set her mug down on the dresser and padded over in her bunny slippers to check the peephole and see who was on the other side.
Logan Moore. He really had begun to infect every part of her life.
Max opened the door slightly. "Logan."
"Hey, can you let me in?" he said quietly.
She shook her head. "That's not a good idea for so many reasons."
Logan looked down the hotel's hallway in both directions. "Max, there's no one around. Please just let me in."
He looked different. Gentle and open. Max was going to roll her eyes at him, tell him to go away, but there was something in his face that made her want to open the door for him. So she did.
Logan quietly slipped in and Max quickly closed the door behind him. She was able to really look at him now that he was standing tall in her hotel room. Black track pants with the Detroit Pirates logo that all the players owned. A black t-shirt that was tight across his chest and arms, making her wish she could run her hands over her body. A bucket of ice in one hand. She watched as Logan's eyes roamed down her tight leggings before landing on her slippers.
"I'm going to miss seeing those on the road," he said with a slight smile.
Max rolled her eyes and gave him an exasperated sigh. "What do you want?"
"I uh…" He shifted nervously on his feet, the ice bucket moving with him. "I know you said you like to work with a drink sometimes so I brought you some ice."
He actually remembered a conversation they had.
But she stood her ground. "I also said I never wanted to see you again."
A look of remorse crossed Logan's face. "Yeah, could we talk about that?"
Max closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her head falling slowly as she began to stare at the ugly hotel room carpet. She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to have this conversation with him again.
"Max, please."
She looked up to see him staring back at her, pleading with not only his words but his eyes. He screwed up yesterday, really screwed up, but he seemed to realize that he was wrong. Maybe she should give him another chance, but not too much of a chance. She didn't need him to end up in her bed again.
Even though he was in her hotel room — alone — in track pants and a t-shirt.
Max sighed and took a deep breath. "Yeah, sure."
She pushed past him, her shoulder brushing up against his chest. Damn, he was hard. His chest, that is. Max physically had to shake her head to clean out the dirty thoughts that were running through it.
She grabbed the chair next to the desk, feeling more comfortable sitting there with Logan in the room. He put the bucket of ice down on the dresser and, with no other place to sit, took a spot on the edge of the bed closest to her.
There was Logan Moore, in her hotel room, on her bed. Max kept thinking about Amanda's words from the night before. "Take a chance on being happy." She couldn't do that with Logan, at least not before she heard what he had to say.
Except he didn't seem to have anything to say. Instead, he just sat there staring down at his feet. For the first time in a long time, Logan seemed to be at a loss for words. The last time Max saw him like this was back in May in a locker room after the team eliminated from the playoffs. It was a heartbreaking loss for all the players, and it was heartbreaking for Max to see them like that. Even though she was supposed to be a non-biased journalist, she knew this team. She knew how hard it was for them to take that kind of loss. She wished she could have given every single one of them a hug and comfort them.
Logan shifted slightly on the bed, his eyes staring down at the floor, his shoulders hunched over.
"Logan?"
His body stiffened slightly, but his eyes stayed focused on the ground. "Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out how I want to say this," he said quietly.
"Don't want to offend me by saying something stupid again?" Max joked.
Logan looked up at her, his eyes dark and serious. "No," he said. "I don't want to do that again."
She could feel her chest tighten and her breath hitch before he finally broke his gaze away from her. What the hell was that about? Max thought he was just being a jerk yesterday in the lot, thought he was being his normal jackass self. There was no way she could've been wrong about that, right?
Wow. Maybe she had been wrong. But could Logan really change overnight? Because yesterday, he was standing in a parking lot yelling at her, telling her he was glad she wasn't going to have a job for much longer.
He was also a hockey player who was amazing when it came to skates and sticks and checks and pucks. He wasn't as good with words. Max once listened to him struggle to answer a simple question after a game. Five minutes of "um" and "uh" as he described a boring run-of-the-mill goal after a particularly tough match-up. Seeing him struggle with stringing some words together wasn't new to her. Hearing him say something that non-sports types would call "stupid" was pretty typical. But to have him sitting there, on her hotel bed, staring at nothing as he tried to get his thoughts together… Well, that was definitely new, and it was making Max feel unsure about the whole situation.
She watched Logan finally take in a deep breath and turn his head to look at her, his brown eyes dark and warm.
"So I read your article before the flight this morning. It was…" He took a deep breath and gave her a small smile. "It was really good, Max."
For the first time since he got there, Max could feel some of the nervous tension leave her body. "Thanks."
"I mean, really, it was awesome. I loved the quotes that you used, and the photos were so cool. It just turned out really great." But then his smile faltered a bit, his eyes pulled slightly away from hers to stare at the wall as he nervously fidgeted on her bed. "Why did you do that?"
Max gave him a perplexed look. "Why did I do what?"
He turned back to her with almost a pleading look on his face. "Why were you so nice to me?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Was I not supposed to be nice to you?"
"Max, I said some pretty horrible things to you in at the rink yesterday."
"So?" she asked. "My assignment was to write about your time with the kids, and that's what I did."
"Right," he said quietly. "And you once again were a professional who did her job."
"Is that a problem?"
"No!" He shook his head vigorously. "I mean, no," he said a bit calmer. "I guess I forgot that you were there because you were doing your job. Lately, my brain has had trouble remembering the line between your job and you with all the… you know."
His voice trailed off as he waved his hand in the air at nothing.
"I know," Max said quietly.
And she did. She really did. There was nothing normal about what was going on in her life right now. She just didn't realize that maybe it wasn't her and her co-workers who were the only ones being affected by what was about to happen.
"I'm sorry I got so emotional yesterday. I didn't mean to imply that I was happy that you were losing your job."
Max nodded, swallowing the lump forming in her throat as she forced herself to look away. She was going to try desperately to hold on to whatever emotion was trying to break free. Instead, she stared at the ceiling for a minute, collected herself, and looked back at him. Her eyes matched his again, and he gave her an awkward smile.
"I'm really not happy about your job, Max. I mean that," he told her. "But I've been thinking a lot about the fact that the one thing keeping me from you is going away. My words just came out all wrong, so I'm sorry."
There was a calm silence that filled the room and Max didn't know how to fill it. Sometimes there were no words, even for a woman whose job was to write them every day. Sometimes there was nothing that could really be said — or nothing she wanted to say. Because to be honest, she felt the same way about Logan. She had tried to deny it. She had spent the past year pushing her feeling aside and reminding herself that she didn't have a chance with him. Even if she did have a chance, even if there was some way he saw her differently than his normal conquests or differently than all those women who would throw themselves at him in Detroit, even if all that was gone, she still had her job.
But sitting here, in this hotel room with Logan, it was really starting to sink in. What the hell was she going to do next? The times she had really let herself think about it, it was only for a little bit, only for a quick "what if." Because really thinking about what would happen next meant she really had to accept that her job was going to be gone.
"Max?"
She looked up at Logan and felt a tear roll down her cheek. She hadn't realized she had pushed past the point where she couldn't keep her emotions in check anymore. There was a reason she was trying so hard to not let him see her like this, and that reason was clear as he sat there in front of her.
"Please don't look at me like that," she said as she hastily wiped away the tear from her cheek.
"Like what?"
She looked down at her hands. "Like you feel sorry for me."
She could hear the bed squeak as he got up and walked over to her. He stopped and kneeled down in front of her, ducking his head so he was in her line of sight, and smiled at her.
"I just wish I could fix this for you."
"I don't need anyone fixing anything for me."
Logan gave her a small laugh. "Oh, I know that. You've made that very clear."
"When did I make that clear?" she asked.
He shrugged and put his hand on her cheek, using his thumb to wipe away the moisture still left there. "Every day," he said. "It's just who you are, Max. You're strong to the point of being stubborn. Like, really stubborn. You don't need any of us to hold your hand or boost your ego. You're fine on your own."
Max gave him a sad smile and turned her head, closing her eyes as she pressed her cheek into his warm hand. She could hear his breath hitch, reminding her that he still felt something for her. It just reinforced that she felt something for him too.
She had never forgotten their night together last year. After that, she had insisted they couldn't have a relationship, which seemed fine with Logan. She had seen him bring a girl or two back to his room on some of their road trips. She had also moved on with a boyfriend who liked her until she went on the road for work and then complained about not seeing her enough.
But this just felt good, and maybe that's all it would be — a nice feeling but nothing more. Logan was a hockey player, and Max was a writer, at least for a little while longer. Then they would go their separate ways and that would be it.
