Page 11 of A Loser by Christmas
End? I don’t think it’s even the beginning, and it isn’t what he promised.
Worry that he’s changed his mind about placing the speedboat order tightens my chest all over again. Or perhaps this breathlessness is down to wanting to know so much more about him. Like why the fuck he tracked me down for what sounds like the opposite of a rescue mission. And why he watched enough of my footage to know I’m decent at the wheel when the rest of the world only remembers the one time I almost sank my true love in the English Channel. Most of all, I wantto know if he pressed Pause like Lito whenever seawater left my shirt transparent.
Of course he didn’t.
His silence means I keep talking, piecing together potential reasons. “I don’t know much about hockey, but it seems like you’ve got it all. Luck has always been on your side, like getting headhunted?—”
“Scouted.”
“Whatever. You got noticed despite having virtually no track record. And every contract you sign blows the last one out of the water. You break records.”
His head dips.
I keep going. “And you have a ton of contracts for brand deals. Then there’s that luxury apartment you share with your girlfriend.”
His head rises.
“That isn’t true.”
“Yes, it is. I saw the pictures. Your place is swanky.”
“No. I didn’t mean about my apartment. I meant that I don’t live with anybody.”
That isn’t what the article suggested under a photo of a woman with hair as black as mine partying while swamped by his hockey jersey. “Whatever you say.” I set my GoPro running, red light blinking. “Just hurry up and tell me the truth before my nuts really do freeze off.”
He reaches over, and for a split second I assume he’ll grab my camera and toss it in the water. He doesn’t. Warm fingers find the gap where my borrowed shirt gapes at the collar. “Youarefreezing. What happened to your jumpsuit and jacket?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
He huffs. “Listen, I... I can’t tell you everything. Not without an NDA.” He huffs again for long enough that the air cloudsbetween us, a fog bank that clears to show him focussed on my camera. “Turn that off, and I’ll tell you what I can.”
Of course, I don’t press Pause on my camera. I don’t even pretend to by only stopping its red light from blinking. “This is what I do. Take me or leave me.”
Once I do steer us to shore and moor us, he chooses the leave option.
At least, that’s what I assume when he slings his suit carrier over his shoulder and strides off.
Calum turns just as abruptly. “You coming?”
I hurry then to keep up with his long-legged pace. One brisk walk later, I’m out of breath, and about out of patience, when he stops dead.
We’ve reached South Kensington, near the end of a row of the tall townhouses this borough is known for. Ahead, a restaurant is visible. Light spills out in a golden reminder of an incubator that I hope to fuck isn’t baking my egg solid. That’s where Calum suddenly decides to take his sweet time by walking slowly until we’re almost opposite plate glass windows beneath sparkling signage.
Penny’s.
He doesn’t cross the street to enter that restaurant. Instead, he backs into an alley. “Come with me.”
I do, which proves that my danger radar isn’t working. It can’t be if I think following someone withbrutalas part of his nickname spells safety for me. And if I needed any more proof that I’m still wired to act first and think second, like my grand-mère always suggested was a family trait I inherited, it’s right here in me hurrying after him so fast that I almost trip over my own feet.
Calum demonstrates the lightning-fast reactions that scored a kid from Cornwall a fortune across the Atlantic. He catches me and he doesn’t let go. We’re as close now as when I almostcrushed an egg between us, then he gets even closer. He leans in as if worried a passing late-night Christmas shopper might overhear this secret.
“I want out of my contract.”
I guessed that much already. “Why?”
“Because I’ve got a chance at a better deal for me long term.”
“Better for you?” He already has a contract worth millions. “Better in what way?”
