Page 3 of Conrad

“I thought that went great.” Felicity Grant stood in the hallway, holding two cups of coffee, wearing an earbud, her blonde hair cut short, an athletic build. She’d played women’s hockey at the U of M and of course knew the sport well enough to talk shop with the players. Now, she shoved a coffee into his hand. “Just breathe.”

Conrad headed down the hallway toward the greenroom. “None of those questions were in the preinterview chat.”

“He does that.” She followed him inside and stood at the open door as he grabbed a couple wet wipes and ran them over his face. Makeup coated the cloths, and he scrubbed under his chin, hating how it’d stained his dress shirt.

“I’m never doing this again.” He threw down the wipes and grabbed his coat, headed for the door.

Felicity put out her hand and even stepped in front of him. “Yes, you will.” She arched a brow. “Attendance is down, and a little goodwill from our starting center doesn’t hurt. You were handsome and fabulous, and who cares what Ian says?—you got our message out. Live above it.”

“I hate the press. Torch wasn’t even dating Jasmine?—”

“Drama sells.” She lifted a shoulder.

His gut tightened. “Wait—you didn’t . . . I mean . . .” He met her eyes. “You weren’t the one who called the cops that night, right?”

Her mouth opened. “And possibly get you pulled over for DUI?”

“I don’t drink.”

She smiled.

He frowned, narrowed his eyes. “That photo with her made me shut down my Instagram account.”

“I know. I set up the new one, remember?”

He did know. “Just—no drama tonight, okay? I don’t even want to be there.”

“You have to be there. It’s required in your contract.”

“I just . . . are they really auctioning offdates? C’mon—the 1990s called, and they want their charity gimmicks back.”

She laughed. “It’s not a date. It’s a seat at the table. Calm down.”

“It’s hard to stay calm about being property.” He stepped past her, headed down the hall.

“You’re a professional athlete,” she called after him. “Of course you’re property!”

He took a sip of the coffee, made a face, and dumped it into the garbage on his way out of the building. The Charger sat in the lot under a dour, gray mid-February sky, the air brisk, the snow piles grimy. Winter refused to surrender, a forecast of snow and ice over the next week, which made it überfun to live in Minnesota.

He got in, turned the car on, and let the motor rumble a moment, the heat turning him from ice-cold to warm.

Maybe he should visit his sister Austen down in the Keys during his next bye week.

The sun hung low, casting late-afternoon shadows over the river as he drove out of the city, into uptown, and to his remodeled mid-century-modern home on W 24th, near Triangle Park in South Minneapolis.

Black exterior, angled roofline, too many floor-to-ceiling windows, and inside, despite the hardwood flooring and beamed ceiling, the place felt too austere, too modern.

Another yes he should have thought through.

He pulled into the underground garage, got out, and took the elevator up to the main floor. Amber sunlight streaked the white wooden floor, the bouclé sofa, the concrete countertops. He picked up a remote and shut the shades to the street, then voice activated his audio system.

He had his shirt unbuttoned and off, sprayed on stain remover as Tommy Emmanuel came on, plucking out a rendition of “How Deep Is Your Love?” on his acoustic guitar.

Breathe.

The sunlight had found Conrad’s master bedroom through the transom windows, but the picture window (covered in a one-way film that his brother Doyle had helped him install) overlooked the back of his property and Cedar Lake, still snow-covered.

Any day the cold would break, and the thaw could turn the ice on a lake deceptively lethal, cracking and snapping as the currents beneath awoke. But for now it was a glistening, brittle beauty under the twilight hues.

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