Body Check (22 page)

After she was sure she had been seen by all, she made a small plate of hors d'oeuvres, poured herself a well-deserved glass of champagne, and crept upstairs to her old boudoir, fully intending to reappear after she'd had a small taste of peace and quiet.

The room hadn't changed since she'd last occupied it as a teenager: same canopy bed with matching dresser and armoire, same plush white carpet. The back of her door was still covered with a collage of Playbills from Broadway shows she had attended, and the plump, pink silk divan she used to carelessly toss her clothing over still sat in the corner by the built-in bookcases. This was the room in which she used to dream. How fitting, then, that sitting here now on her marshmallow soft bed, her thoughts strayed to Ty.

She was angry with him for oh-so-many reasons: his stance—non-stance—on Lubov; his refusal to give two minutes of time to the men who signed his checks; his kissing her at the party. She shouldn't have let him do it. Instead, she should have made a great show of pushing him away. Everyone around them thought his grabbing her was a joke, but they both knew better. He said he wanted to show her what she was missing. Did that mean he was missing it, too? Or was he just trying to get under her skin?

She used to scoff at friends who claimed to miss their lovers to the point of actually aching. Now she knew they weren't exaggerating. She ached for him, ached so badly that she fantasized about putting anger aside and confessing to him she didn't care where he stood on the Lubov case, she simply couldn't go one more day without feeling his body next to hers. After the Christmas party, she had picked up the phone at least half a dozen times, but each time she chickened out. The prospect of rejection was too devastating to contemplate, the depth of her own need a source of shame and weakness to her.

Miserable, she drank deeply from her flute of champagne. She wished Theresa were here. Janna had invited her, but apparently, not being with the family on Christmas Eve was tantamount to treason among the Falconetti clan, and she'd had to decline.
Theresa is doing pretty well considering,
Janna thought. She suffered from sporadic panic attacks and nightmares now, but her therapy really seemed to be helping, and she was as determined as ever to take the Lubov case to the bitter end if need be. Were she in that position, Janna didn't know if she'd be keeping it together as well. She decided to call the Falconetti house to wish them a Merry Christmas, but just as she picked up the phone on her nightstand, there was a small knock on the door, and Wills popped his head in.

“Hiding?”

“For a bit.” Janna replaced the phone and patted the space beside her on the bed. Wills entered, quietly closing the door behind him. He was flushed and bright-eyed, making him look younger than his twelve years.

“Have you been sneaking sips of dad's ‘Hop, Skip, and Go Naked' punch?” Janna questioned suspiciously.

“Mom let me have a glass,” he replied defensively, flopping down beside her. “Whazzup?” he asked as if she were one of his school friends.

“Things are fine. How about you?”

“Okay. I'm kinda—”

He began coughing, a deep, rattling cough that he'd been battling all day. Janna gently patted him on the back until he returned to himself.

“Should I get you some water?” she asked.

Wills shook his head no.

“That cough sounds awful,” Janna noted with concern.

“It's just a cough,” Wills pointed out testily. “It's not a big deal.”

“If you say so. But you sound like a dying goose.”

Wills made a face and plucked a pig in the blanket from her paper plate. “How are the Blades?”

“Fine.”

“How's Ty Gallagher?”

A big fat jerk
. Janna reached for a cracker slathered with brie and took a bite. “He's okay.”

“Skyler says he's gay.”

Cracker crumbs flew indelicately from Janna's mouth as she choked. “What?” she barely managed to croak as she wiped them away.

“Sky says he's gay. She said they went on a date, and he would barely even kiss her when most guys fall at her feet and are all over her. She said it's obvious he's gay.”

“I see.” Janna bit her lip, barely able to contain her laughter.
Oh, boy, baby sister, are you ever wrong on that score
. It made her happy to realize Ty had been telling the truth when he claimed he hadn't slept with Skyler—though why it should matter to her now, she didn't know. “What do you think?” she asked Wills.

Wills shrugged. “I don't think he is.”

“How come?”

“ 'Cause that time you took me to the rink? He kept checking out your boobs.”

“Wills!” Janna exclaimed, mortified.

“Well, it's true,” Wills protested. He crammed another pig in a blanket in his mouth. “It doesn't matter what he is, anyway. He's just great.”

“Yes, he is,” Janna agreed quietly, suddenly filled with sadness. Obviously, she was having a minor nervous breakdown. One minute she was about to bust a gut laughing at Skyler's assumption that lack of attraction to her equaled homosexuality, the next she was about to weep. And why? Because she'd killed a casual sexual relationship with a big dumb jock that never would have gone anywhere anyway?
Puh-lease
. She had an extreme case of the holiday blues, that's all. Another glass of champagne and she'd find herself sobbing to “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.”

“Whatcha lookin' so serious for, squirt?” Wills grabbed her in an affectionate headlock and gave her a noogie.

“Don't
you
call
me
squirt,” Janna warned with mock seriousness, backing out of his headlock and retaliating by mussing his hair, which she knew he hated. “What do you say you and I go back downstairs?”

“It's boring down there,” Wills lamented. “Plus Dad won't take off the CD by that dead guy.”

“So we'll sneak into the kitchen and steal some cookies. You know Mom won't be putting them out until the bitter end.”

“I thought you wanted to hide.”

Janna shrugged, moving toward the door. “Can't hide from yourself.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Let's go downstairs.”

 

 

 

 

New Year's Eve.
Was there any night more laden with expectation?

Slumped on his couch channel surfing, Ty wondered just how he was going to ring out the old and bring in the new. It was the first time in years a game wasn't scheduled, and he didn't quite know what to do with himself. He was used to being out there on the ice, in front of an unusually tanked up and rambunctious crowd.

Afterward, he'd attend a small party with the coaches, players, trainers and their wives and girlfriends. Or, if the game were away, he'd board a chartered plane bound for home, the “party” taking place as players roamed the aircraft's aisles drinking champagne from clear plastic cups and toasting each other. But instead he was here, all alone. On the biggest night to party in the greatest party city in the world, his plans consisted of—what? Lumbering into the kitchen for another Perrier?
Christ
.

Truth be told, he had been invited to a bunch of parties. Some of the guys were going for a quiet dinner in Brooklyn at Dante's, the restaurant Michael Dante's family owned, and others were having casual get-togethers in the city, but he needed a little break from the boys, especially after being on the road with them the past week. He'd gotten a few invites to some swanky “do's”, too—a couple of them being thrown by folks he didn't know from Adam, but who knew an A-list guest when they saw one. But he was in no mood to do the monkey-suit routine.

That left a standing invitation to go out for a nice dinner with Kevin and Abby, but having just spent Christmas with them, he didn't want to wear out his welcome. Christmas had been great, it always was, but this year he had felt somewhat awkward being there, like he didn't belong. Christmas was a time for families, and much as he and Kevin were like brothers, the fact remained that the Gills were one unit. He was good old “Uncle Ty,” the bachelor. The same role he'd played for years. Maybe that's why this Christmas had left him feeling depressed. It was the first time he really had a sense of what he might be missing by making hockey his first love rather than a real, flesh and blood woman.

Which meant he had to rustle up
something
to do tonight or else he'd wind up on the ledge. No way was he going to sit home alone like some pathetic, lonely loser. He reached for his address book and flipped it open. The first name and number that he saw was Linda B.

Linda B . . . He wracked his brains . . . Who was Linda B? He looked down to check his notes beside her name. “Likes limos,” was all it said. So much for Linda B.

Next up was Christie. That was it, just Christie. Ty paused thoughtfully. He remembered Christie, all right. Who wouldn't? Perfect body, long dark hair, a real she-devil.
Mmm, Christie
. Maybe he'd call her. But first he'd examine his other options.

Denise Duncan . . . didn't remember her and there were no notes. . . . Elul. Elul? He squinted at his own scrawly handwriting. “Israeli belly dancer. Talks a lot.”
Sorry, Elul. Tonight is not your lucky night
. Francois . . .”Thin, French, a biter.” Ty shuddered and crossed Francois from his book, wondering why he'd even included her in the first place. If he remembered correctly, he'd spent the week after Francois looking like he'd been attacked by a cheetah.

He sighed, and started thumbing through the book at random. He was about to give up when it fell open to a particular page. Ty looked down at the name and number written there, and a slow smile spread across his face. Of course. That's whom he'd call. He knew she probably wasn't even home, but what the hell? What was life without risk? And if she was home and said yes, well, he knew just what they'd do for fun.

 

 

“You're pathetic. Completely
and
utterly
pathetic.”
Theresa tsked.

Janna turned the volume of the TV up one notch louder. It was New Year's Eve, and Theresa was going out dancing with her brother Phil and a bunch of his friends. They had invited Janna, but she had declined, on the grounds she couldn't dance worth a damn. Really, she just wanted to hole up in the apartment and torture herself, imagining which supermodel Ty was wining and dining over a romantic, candlelit dinner.

“I'm sorry, I can't let you do this.” Theresa grabbed the remote and pointing it at the TV like a weapon, turned it off.

Janna sighed. “Theresa.”

“You don't think it's pathetic lying alone on the couch on New Year's Eve, watching
The Way We Were
?”

“I watch it every year,” Janna protested.

“Not alone on New Year's Eve you don't.” She tried wheedling. “C'mon, Jan.”

“Theresa, I told you. I'm just not in the mood to go out partying, okay?” She burrowed deeper beneath the comforter tucked under her chin and stared her friend down. “Now please give me back the remote.”

Theresa reluctantly handed it over. “I'm not in the mood either. But I'm going. This is all about that lunkhead, isn't it?”

“Lunkhead?”

“Gallagher.”

Janna switched the TV back on. “What about him?”

“You're pining for him.”

“I don't pine, Theresa.”

“Fine. Then you're moping.” She slipped on heels that had her towering over Janna like a building. “How do I look?”

Janna grinned up at her. “Great.”

“I can tell Phil to wait if you want to get dressed real quick and put on some makeup. He won't mind.”

“No, thank you.” She craned her neck to look past Theresa. “Now could you please move? Hubbell and Katie are about to meet for the first time.”

Theresa groaned in frustration and snatched up her beaded purse from the steamer trunk. “You are the most stubborn woman I've ever met.” She leaned down and gave Janna a quick peck on the cheek. “Remember, I'm crashing at my parents' house.”

“Have a great time.”

“You, too,” Theresa called as she hurried toward the door. “Don't eat too many Ring Dings.”

“I won't,” Janna promised.

She hit “pause” and watched Theresa go. When she heard all three locks on the door click into place, she settled back down and relaxed. Okay, so maybe she was pathetic. But so what? She could have done worse: she could have accepted Robert's invitation to attend an all-night reading of the poems of Leonard Nimoy. Besides, what was wrong with being alone on New Year's Eve? She hated all that false, manufactured gaiety, the pressure to have a good time. Having a good time should come naturally, it shouldn't be an obligation.

She turned her attention to her supplies on the steamer trunk/coffee table. Ring Dings, Krispy Kremes, Diet Coke. A copy of
Ghost
in case she wanted more tear-jerking amour after Redford and Streisand.
Theresa doesn't know what she's talking about. Pathetic? Club Janna is the place to be, baby
.

She plumped the pillows behind her, tore open the bag of Doritos, and hit “play.” No sooner had she made herself comfortable in optimal reclining-cum-dining mode than the phone rang. To pick up or not to pick up? A creature of habit, she picked up.

“Hello?”

There was a split second of hesitation on the other end. “Janna? It's Ty.”