“Van?” I say tapping the screen of my phone as if it could bring him back. But all I get is a Skype message saying our conversation has terminated. “Shit.”
I flop back on the bed, completely naked. The air con is set to freezing, so I climb under my covers feeling a mixture of elation and terror. Surely he didn’t mean it? There’s no possible way he just . . . It’s too soon. He was caught up in the moment, and the excitement of today’s win.
I grab my phone and try calling a bunch of times, but it goes to voicemail, so frustrated and wired, I switch off the lights. I don’t sleep, though, and sometime two hours later in the dead of the night as our bus flies along dark highways toward Grand Forks, I get dressed and quietly tiptoe from my room to make a hot tea with honey. I think about Van, and how every second since we met has been one huge learning curve. It’s been one surprise after the other, and tonight is no different.
I sit at the small table and scroll through my messages. Nothing.
The curtain above Lana’s bed rustles, and she pokes her head out. She might be in satin pajamas with an eye mask pushed up on her forehead like a headband, but she’s wide awake and the glow from her laptop illuminates her bunk. On most tours, the talent gets their own bus, but that seemed like an awful waste, and I don’t feel right about making her sleep on one of the other buses for the roadies. They’re all really good people, but Lana isn’t the kind of woman who can share close quarters with men who don’t get the chance to shower every day.
“Sorry.” I smile apologetically. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. Have you—”
“Van proposed.”
“What?”
“I . . . it was weird. We were Skyping and . . .” I’m sure she doesn’t really want to know the details, but given my lack of experience with men, I feel like this is an important one to not leave out. “We were . . . fooling around via Skype and—”
“You were what?”
Shit. I forgot about her ‘no nudity near any devices with a Wi-Fi connection’ rule. It’s something she’s drummed into me from day one. Don’t be one of those idiot girls with nudes or a sex tape to haunt me. I took that rule one step further and wore boy shorts under every skirt because I did not need a wardrobe malfunction.
“Er . . . we were Skyping.”
“Naked?”
“Yup,” I say quietly.
“Oh my god, Stella.”
“It’s okay. No one could see it; he was in a cubicle.”
“You were sex Skyping an NHL player in a public restroom?” A teeny tiny wicked vein pops out in her forehead, and I’m pretty sure I can hear teeth grinding. Yep. Definitely grinding her teeth.
“Chamomile?” I ask offering up my tea to the slaughter.
She snatches the cup from my hands, and I rise and walk over to the kitchen counter to make another. “It’s not like it was just any NHL player, you know? It’s Van.”
“Who has a reputation longer than the Declaration of Independence.”
I flinch. “Okay, well, yeah, maybe his past isn’t so great, but we’re moving past that.”
“Have you checked his Instagram feed tonight?”
“No.”
“Honey, I think the last thing you need to be worried about is a half-baked marriage proposal. I think you and Van have bigger things to discuss.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There were photos.”
Dread fills me, and I swallow hard. I’m almost afraid to ask. “What kind of photos?”
“Photos with bunnies, I guess. Look, I didn’t want to say anything because I know how these things come across. When I was with Drew the football hookers were everywhere, and he always swore it was worse than it looked.”
“And he was cheating on you.”
She nods. “That doesn’t automatically mean that Van is—”
“Show me.” Van wouldn’t do that. Right? I mean, why would he propose marriage if he was getting busy with whatever little puck bunny came along? “Show me, Lana.”
She grabs her laptop and rests it on the table between us. I sit down heavily on the seat and scroll through his Instagram feed. There’s a bunch of photos of him and Eli celebrating, and the rest of his teammates drinking, but then there’s a shot of him cannonballing into a pool, and several more of Eli and Torres posing in front of it.
I shake my head and stare at her in confusion. “These don’t look like anything suspicious.”
Lana sighs and taps one photo to enlarge it, and there in the pool is Van . . . with a topless woman wrapped around him, and her lips on his. “No. This . . . this could have been taken a long time ago. Before he ever met me.”
Except the caption reads “Gonna win us a trophy. #stanleycupplayoffs #calgarycrushers #suckitsens.”
“Oh my god.” Sick to my stomach, I cover my mouth and run for the bathroom. I make it just in time for my tea, and anything else I downed tonight, to reach the bowl, and not puke all over the floor. Lana holds my hair back, and I shoo her away as bile coats my throat and burns like acid. Hot tears stream down my face as I hug the tiny toilet bowl and sob.
“You need to call him.”
“No!”
“Stella, you have to call him. You need to hear it from his mouth.”
“I think the evidence speaks for itself. I just can’t believe I fell for it. I fell for Canada’s biggest player, and I got played.”
“Oh, honey. I wish he’d been different. I wish you hadn’t made the mistakes I made. I wish you’d never crossed paths with an athlete. They’re no good at relationships.”
“Yeah, well, more fool me for wanting something real that existed outside the spotlight. I guess now I know better. I can’t ever have that.”
“Sure you can, but maybe right now you just need to be concentrating on you and your career.”
“Because I haven’t done that for the last ten years?” I slowly pick myself up off the floor and brush my teeth, and then I leave the bathroom for my bed.
“Stella, you’re not going to disappear on me again, are you?”
“No. Last time I ran I landed in a player’s lap. I’m done running.”
“You want me to release a statement? This picture has kind of broken the internet.”
“No, I just want to go to bed and forget Van Ross ever happened,” I say, and close the door to my room.