Nothing but Trouble

* * *

Chelsea sat at Mark’s desk, bored and answering e-mails while he was at some big meeting at the Chinooks’ offices. He hadn’t told her what the meeting was about, and she didn’t have any idea when he’d return. She leaned her head back and glanced up at the different photographs and posters of him on the walls. Her gaze settled on the picture of him holding the puck with “500” written across it. A few days ago, he’d told her it was the puck that had scored the five hundredth goal of his career. She’d smiled like she’d understood the importance of that, and he laughed because she didn’t have a clue.

“That’s one of the things I like about you,” he’d said. “You’re not impressed by money and fame.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She’d thought about the bonus. She’d thought maybe she should tell him about it, but it didn’t seem like the right time. Not while he was talking about her not being impressed with money. “I’d love to be so famous that movie roles are written just for me,” she told him instead.

“That’s different. That’s being motivated by what you love to do, not by the money and fame that it might bring. I know a lot of guys who’ve chased money and fame when they should have been concentrating on playing better hockey.”

She’d looked around his house. “You were never motivated by money?”

He’d shrugged. “Maybe a little in the beginning. But it was usually a mistake.”

Money had motivated her in the beginning, but she couldn’t call it a mistake. Not now. She’d fallen in love with him and there was no going back.

She rose to her feet and walked toward the photo. She moved through a sliver of light pouring through the closed drapes, and she raised a hand to the cool glass. She looked into Mark’s smiling face and smiled herself.

Her fingers slid across the smooth surface, and her whole body felt alive, happy. There was no going back to those days when she thought he was a colossal tool. Too late. She loved everything about him. She loved the sound of his voice and his laughter. She loved the way he smelled and the touch of his hand on her arm or the small of her back. She loved how she felt when he looked at her or simply walked into a room. She loved that his hard shell contained a soft heart.

She didn’t know how he felt about her, though. Oh, she figured he liked her. Of all the people with whom he could have chosen to share his night with the cup, he’d chosen her. But like wasn’t love. She knew he liked having sex with her, but sex wasn’t a commitment.

She lowered her hand to her side. Fear knotted her stomach just below her happy heart. She was giving serious thought to changing her whole life for a man who liked her. She’d never changed for a man, and she ran through a mental list of all the reasons why staying in Seattle was a good plan. Reasons that had nothing to do with Mark.

She liked Seattle. She liked the feel of it and she liked the cooler weather. She liked being close to her sister and she liked the few local commercials she’d acted in. Maybe she’d try out again for a role in local theater.

Not Oklahoma! though. She couldn’t sing, and Mark clearly hated musicals. She smiled, but her amusement was short-lived. She had to tell him about the bonus. It had been weighing on her mind, and she knew she had to tell him. Hopefully, once she explained it, it wouldn’t be a big deal. The money had nothing to do with her feelings for Mark. She’d agreed to the bonus before she’d even met him. She’d fallen for him despite her attempts not to, but lately the money had begun to feel like a deep secret she was keeping from him.

Motion in the doorway caught her eye and she turned. Mark stood there watching her, one shoulder shoved against the frame, and her happy little heart swelled at the sight of him.

“I didn’t hear you drive up.”

He crossed his arms over his wide chest, and his gaze raked her from head to toe. “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money. You’re good, Chelsea. Maybe even worth it.”

She didn’t think he meant it as a compliment, and it felt liked she’d been stuck in the chest with a pin. “Are you talking about the bonus?”

“Yeh.” He didn’t look angry. Which was good. “I just had it explained to me.”

“I was going to tell you.” No, not angry. Just closed off like before, but she could explain. He’d understand. “I was just waiting for the right time.”

“A good time would have been the day you showed up on my porch. Get it right out in the open. Or if that just wasn’t a good time, how about all the other times I assumed you were here because you wanted to be here? How about all the times I made an ass out of myself for thinking you’re someone you’re not?”

“I’m the same person today that I was yesterday.”

“I don’t know who you are.”

“Yes you do.” She moved toward him. She could explain. Make it all okay. She was good at making everything okay. “I should have told you. I wanted to, but I guess I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand. I understand that you think I’m a sucker.”

She shook her head. “I’ve never thought that.”

“I used to see ulterior motives from a mile off, but when you showed up, my life was such crap that I wasn’t thinking straight. You used your body like a high-class hooker and I fell for it. I was a sucker.”

Her feet came to a sudden halt in the middle of the room, and everything in her body stopped too. “What? I didn’t use my body. It’s not like that at all.”

“It’s exactly like that. You needed ten grand to get your surgery. I am just a means to get what you want.” He straightened. “You didn’t have to fuck me, Chelsea. You didn’t have to go that far.”

She gasped and shook her head. “That isn’t why I had sex with you. I tried not to, but… ” She lifted a hand, palm up, then dropped it to her side. “I tried to keep it professional.”

“You didn’t try that damn hard.”

She couldn’t argue with that. She hadn’t tried that hard. “In the beginning, I was here for the bonus. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money. Maybe not to you, but it is to me.” She pointed to her chest. “I didn’t ask for the bonus. The Chinooks offered, and I jumped at the chance. I’m not going to apologize for that. In the beginning, I did stay for the money. You made my life difficult, but that’s not why I slept with you and that’s not why I’m still here.”

“Then why are you still here?”

She looked at him standing there. Closed off to his anger and to her. She loved him. She loved him more than she’d ever loved another man. “Because I got to know you and you began to mean a lot to me.” Her heart was breaking, and there was nothing she could do but tell him the truth. The terrifying truth. “I love you, Mark.”

He laughed, but there was no pleasure in it. Then, finally, she saw some anger in his eyes. Cold, stony anger. “Nice touch, but I’m not a sucker. At least not today.”

She’d just bared everything to him, and he didn’t believe her. How was that possible? Couldn’t he see how much the truth hurt? “It’s the truth. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, but I did.”

“You expect me to believe that?” His jaw clenched. “Now? After everything?”

Anger and hurt and desperation coalesced in her stomach and chest and pinched the backs of her eyes. Tears pooled along her bottom lids, then slipped over her lashes. “It’s true.”

“The tears are a nice touch. You’re a better actress than I thought.”

“I’m not acting.” She brushed the moisture from her cheek. The sick feeling in her stomach was far too real. He had to see that. She had to make him hear and believe her. “I love you.” She pointed a finger at him. “You made me love you even when I knew it was a really bad idea. You made me love everything about you.” She dropped her hand to her side as another tear rolled down her cheek. “You made me love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my whole life.”

“ife

He shook his head. “Right.”

“It’s true. Being with you these past few months has meant a lot to me. Please, believe me.”

“Even if I believed you, it doesn’t matter.”

It had to matter. She’d never pleaded with any other man. “I love you.”

He looked into her eyes and pounded the last nail into her heart. “I don’t love you.”

The air left her lungs as if he’d hit her and she turned her face away. He didn’t love her. She’d known he didn’t, but hearing it from his own mouth hurt more than she’d ever imagined. “I knew you’d hurt me,” she whispered through her pain. Raw pain and rage, at him and herself, swelled so big she couldn’t hold it in. “I was right about you from the beginning. You’re just another celebrity who thinks he can use people.”

“Sweetheart, you used me to get your hands on ten thousand dollars.”

“I told you it wasn’t like that. I’m not a user.” She looked back up at him. At angry brown eyes set in his face that she loved with her entire broken heart and aching soul. “But you are. You mess with people’s lives, then move on with your own. You don’t care. All you care about is getting what you want.” Her hands curled into fists. She wouldn’t hit him. No, but she wanted to. “You’re no different from every other celebrity I’ve worked for. You’re selfish and spoiled. I let myself think you were different.” She swallowed hard, past the bitter lump in her throat. “I let myself forget who you really are. You’re the man who insulted me the first day we met. You’re just a colossal tool.”

He laughed again. The same bitter laugh as before. “And you just said you love me.”

The most agonizing part of it all was that she did love him. No matter that he didn’t love her. She meant nothing to him. He’d pursued her, got her in bed, and now it was over. “And you always said you don’t play unless you can win. Congratulations, Mark. You win. I lose.” Everything.

He shrugged. “The Chinooks don’t know you slept with me, and I won’t be the one to tell them. You only have a few weeks until your contract is up and then the money is yours. You’ve earned it.”

She turned back toward the desk and grabbed her purse. Her throat got tight, hot, and she pushed past him on her way out the door. The last thing she wanted to do was break down in front of him. The last thing she wanted to hear was more of his laughter.

Somehow she managed to make it to her car. Her hands shook as she shoved the key into the ignition. She half expected him to run after her and tell her to come back. That he believed her and he’d only said she meant nothing out of pain and anger. That they could work it out, but that was the gullible side. The side that had wanted to believe falling in love with Mark would work out in the end. The other side, the rational side, knew that he wasn’t coming after her. Knew she’d lost more than ten thousand dollars. She’d lost something more important than money. She’d lost her dignity and her heart.

Tears stre“1emamed down her face as she drove the short distance to Bo’s apartment. Once there, she locked herself inside her room and let all her hurt and anger wash through her. By the time she heard Bo’s key open the front door, her chest hurt from crying and her eyes were scratchy and red.

“Chels?” her sister called out.

Chelsea didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone, but it was a small apartment and her sister would find her. “In here.”

Bo stood in the doorway, took one look at her, and asked, “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Chelsea didn’t know where to begin.

“Did Mark Bressler do something to you?”

Leave it to her twin to narrow it down without Chelsea having to say a word. She looked at her sister, and a tear slipped from Chelsea’s eye and dropped onto the pillow.

“What did he do?”

Nothing. Besides make her fall in love with him. She supposed she could make up a lie, but her sister would know, and Chelsea was too drained to think up anything believable. “I fell in love with him. I tried not to, but I did.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t love me. In fact, he doesn’t care about me at all.”

Bo sat on the bed. Chelsea expected criticism. Waited for a lecture on how her impulsiveness always got her in trouble. How she never learned. Instead her twin sister, the other half of her soul, the dark to her light, climbed into bed and spooned her. Let the warmth of her body heat up the cold places. Her life was in pieces. An absolute mess. There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t love Mark, and she didn’t know how she was going to get through the next few hours and days and weeks. She wanted the pain to go away. She just wanted to be numb.

But three days later, her emotions were still raw, and she couldn’t seem to stop her tears from falling. Her life was in turmoil, and the thought of living in the same state as Mark, and perhaps seeing his face in a crowd, was unbearable. Yet at the same time, the thought of leaving Washington, and perhaps never seeing his face in a crowd, was just as unbearable.

She went through the motions of living. Of checking out help wanted ads. Mostly she ate junk food and watched junk TV.

“Georgeanne Kowalsky has a catering business,” Jules told her over dinner Thursday night at a sports pub on Twelfth Street. Jules seemed to favor sports pubs, which was okay with Chelsea as long as he didn’t start spouting stats. “At least she did a few years ago,” he added. “I could call her and ask if she needs help.”

“How much does it pay?” she asked as she dipped a fry into ketchup. She knew her sister and Jules had taken her to dinner to try and cheer her up. It really wasn’t working, but at least the sports programming on the numerous flat-screen televisions filled any awkward silence.

“I’m not sure,” he answered, and reached for his fork. “Probably more than you’re making right now.”

Which, of course, was zilch. She needed the money. She had enough for first and last month’s rent, plus security deposit, on a studio apartment, but she needed more. Especially if she d“ciaecided to move to Los Angeles.

“Maybe wear your Gaultier tunic for the interview,” Jules suggested. “And brush your hair.”

“I think you’d be great at it,” Bo encouraged. She took a crouton off Jules’s salad and popped it into her mouth. The two were already at the sharing food stage. She and Mark had never shared food. Licking champagne from each other’s bodies didn’t count.

“Maybe I can do some catering.” As long as it had nothing to do with catering to celebrities and athletes. And as long as she didn’t know what she was going to do with her life.

For the first time that she could ever recall, she didn’t have a plan. Not even a vague one. She didn’t feel a burning desire for anything. The feeling of numbness she’d craved had settled about her and she didn’t have the energy to feel much of anything at all.

A commercial for athlete’s foot splashed across several of the flat-screen televisions, and she dunked another fry. She wasn’t going to get her breasts reduced. Something she’d always wanted, but she just really didn’t care now. Her agent called with walk-on parts in local productions, but she turned them down. She just felt… drained. Like her life had gone from a thousand vibrant colors to two shades of gray. Blah and blah-er.

Across the table from her, Bo and Jules laughed at something that was clearly an inside joke between the two of them. He whispered something in her ear, and Bo ducked her face and smiled. Chelsea was glad for Bo. Glad that her twin seemed so happy and in love, but a part of her wished that could be Chelsea too. She reached for her fork, feeling an odd mix of emptiness and envy.

Over Jules’s shoulder, a local news conference splashed across the screen. Chelsea glanced up as the television filled with the images of the Chinooks’ general manager Darby Hogue, coach Larry Nystrom, and Mark Bressler. Everything around her seemed to still, fall away as she stared up at the screen. The sound was off but the closed caption was on. Chelsea read the announcement that Mark had just signed on as the assistant coach to the Seattle Chinooks. He sat at a conference table wearing the charcoal suit and black dress shirt he’d picked out at Hugo Boss the day he’d threatened to have sex with her against the wall. The ends of his dark hair curled up around the bottom of a Chinooks’ ball cap resting on his head. His brown eyes looked out from beneath the dark blue bill, and her empty soul drank him in like cool water. His face was a bit tanner than it had been a few days ago. Probably from coaching Derek without his hat.

Bressler: “I’m honored to be given this opportunity. I’ve worked with a lot of these people for eight years, and I look forward to standing behind the bench as we make another run at the cup this season,” the caption read as he looked out at Chelsea from a dozen or so big-screen televisions.

Her heart squeezed and she set down the fork. Love and loss tore at her, and it felt like he was ripping her heart out all over again.

“What’s wrong?” Bo asked, then turned and looked behind her. “Oh.”

“He took the job,” she said just above a whisper.

“Yeah. This morning.”

On the screen, he reached forward and adjusted a microphone sitting on the table in front of him. His stiff middle finger pointed up as if he was flipping off the world. That same big, injured hand that had slid up her thigh and heated her up all over.

He’d accused her of having sex with him for the bonus money. He’d thrown her feelings for him back in her face like she was nothing, yet still her heart reacted to the sight of him. Still her body craved the touch of his hands.

“Are you okay?” Bo asked.

“Sure.”

The one person who knew her as well as she knew herself wasn’t fooled. Bo rose from her seat and moved beside Chelsea. “It will get better.”

Tears blurred her vision, and she tore her gaze from Mark’s image and looked into her sister’s face. “He ripped my heart out, Bo. How will it ever get better?”

“You can get through this.”

“How?”

She shook her head. “You just will. I promise.”

Chelsea wasn’t so sure, but Bo was trying so hard to convince her, Chelsea nodded. “Okay.”

“What can I do?” Jules asked from across the table.

“You can go kick Mark Bressler’s ass,” Bo answered.

Chelsea glanced at Jules’s face through her tears and almost laughed. He looked like a deer caught in the cross-hairs. “She’s kidding.” She didn’t want Mark hurt. Not even now. Not even after he’d hurt her so badly she could hardly breathe past the pain.

He’d taken the coaching job, and if she stayed in Seattle, she’d have to see him on the news. Standing behind the bench yelling at people. How was she ever going to get over her feeling for him if there was a chance she would see him staring down at her from dozens of televisions?

Chelsea brushed her cheeks. She needed to get out of Seattle. It was the only way to get over Mark. “Could you call Georgeanne Kowalsky tomorrow?” She needed a job, maybe two. The sooner the better. The sooner she got enough money together, the sooner she could move past the pain and loss. The sooner she moved past the pain and loss, the sooner she could get her life back. A life that had nothing to do with Mark.