Page 7

Three months later, and I still can’t wash Vegas off my skin.

Not that I haven’t tried. I’ve scrubbed myself raw with work, accepting a position at Northwestern that has me buried in research proposals and freshman statistics courses.

I’ve moved into a new apartment in Lincoln Park with roommates who don’t know about my spectacular fall from grace.

I’ve even gone on dates—nice, safe dates with nice, safe men who text back and have real names and boring jobs in finance.

They all taste like disappointment.

“You’re doing it again,” Leah says, dropping onto my bed where I’m grading papers on a Saturday night like the party animal I’ve become.

“Doing what?”

“That thing where you stare into space and sigh like a Victorian maiden.”

“I’m grading.” I wave a red pen as evidence. “This kid thinks standard deviation is a type of social media platform.”

“Bullshit.” She grabs my laptop, and before I can stop her, she’s pulled up my browser history. “Chicago Outlaws highlights? Since when do you care about hockey?”

Since never. Since Vegas. Since I started having dreams about forearms and tattoos and being pressed against hotel doors.

“My dad,” I say, which isn’t entirely a lie. “He just took a job with them.”

Leah’s eyebrows shoot up. “The Chris Clark is going to fix Chicago’s dumpster fire of a team?”

“That’s the plan, apparently.” I snatch my laptop back. “He wants me to join the performance analytics department.”

“And?”

“And I’d rather perform my own root canal.”

She studies me with the kind of focus that made her a great psychologist and terrible roommate. “This is about more than daddy issues.”

“Everything in my life is about daddy issues.” I close the laptop harder than necessary. “I’m not working for him. End of story.”

Except it’s not the end. He’s called six times this week, each voicemail more disappointed than the last. The great Chris Clark doesn’t understand why his daughter won’t jump at the chance to work for an NHL team, to apply her shiny new PhD to something “practical” instead of “wasting it on teaching.”

What he really doesn’t understand is that I’m tired of being an extension of his success.

“Come out with us tonight,” Leah pleads. “Sarah’s friend is having a thing in Wicker Park. There’ll be normal people there. Maybe even some who don’t know what standard deviation is.”

“Pass.”

“Chelsea.” She flops dramatically beside me. “It’s been three months. You can’t stay celibate forever because some Vegas rando ruined you for other men.”

“I’m not—” But I am. God, I am. I’ve tried to stop thinking about him, really tried. But every date feels wrong. Every touch falls short. It’s like my body is waiting for someone specific and accepts no substitutes.

“Fine,” I concede, because saying no requires energy I don’t have. “But I’m not staying late.”

The party is exactly what I expect. It’s too loud, too crowded, too full of people who peak at small talk. I nurse a beer in the corner, watching Leah work the room while I pretend to check my phone.

My phone buzzes with another call from my father. This time, I answer.

“Chelsea.” His voice is crisp, professional. Never just ‘dad.’ “I trust you’ve reconsidered my offer.”

“No.”

“The position won’t remain open indefinitely.”

“Good.”

His sigh could freeze Lake Michigan. “This stubbornness is beneath you.”

“This stubbornness got me a PhD,” I remind him. “On my own. Without your connections or recommendations.”

“And now you’re wasting it teaching undergraduates who can’t even… what was it?”

I cut him off. “I’m building my own career.”

“You’re hiding,” he counters. “From what, I have no idea.”

From you. From expectations. From hot and brute hockey players.

“I have to go,” I lie. “Papers to grade.”

“The team’s home opener is next week. You’ll be there.”

It’s not a question. It never is with him.

I hang up without answering and drain my beer in one pull. The party feels smaller, tighter. I’m halfway to the door when a hand catches my elbow.

“Leaving already?” The guy is tall, built like a—no. I’m not doing this. Not comparing every man to someone I knew for six hours.

“Early morning,” I say, gently extracting my arm.

“Let me at least get your number.”

He’s cute. Normal cute, probably with a normal job and a normal smile that doesn’t make my pulse race. This is what I should want. This is safe.

“Sorry,” I say, and mean it. “I’m not really available right now.”

It’s the truth, even if I can’t explain why. How do you tell someone you’re hung up on a ghost? That you wrote your number on a stranger’s arm and have been waiting for a call that never comes?

Back in my apartment, I pull up the Outlaws game on my laptop. They’re losing, badly. The commentators are brutal, dissecting every failed play. I should turn it off, focus on my actual life instead of this weird parallel fixation.

But I don’t.

I watch until the end, until the team skates off clearly frustrated. The camera pans across the bench, and something in my chest pulls tight. It’s ridiculous. There are how many NHL players? The odds of randomly seeing him on some team’s roster are astronomical.

Still, I find myself studying faces, looking for something familiar in the way they move.

“You’re pathetic,” I tell my reflection in the laptop screen.

My phone lights up with texts from Leah, asking if I made it home.

I send back a thumbs up and close the computer.

Tomorrow I’ll be better. Tomorrow I’ll stop checking highlights and looking for ghosts.

Tomorrow I’ll accept that Vegas was just Vegas.

It was just a beautiful anomaly that belongs in the past.

But tonight, I let myself remember. The weight of him above me. The way he laughed at my jokes. How he looked at me like I was something precious before falling asleep with his arms locked around my waist.

Did he even see my name and number? Does he think about that night at all, or am I just another notch in some player’s bedpost?

My phone rings again. Dad.

This time, I don’t answer.

But I know I’ll be at that home opener anyway. Not for him. Not for some job I don’t want.

Maybe just to prove to myself that I can be in the same building as professional athletes without losing my mind. That I can sit in those stands and not look for broad shoulders and dark hair and a smirk that dared me to misbehave.

I fall asleep with the taste of lies in my mouth and dreams of tattoos I never got to fully explore.

Somewhere in Chicago, a hockey team is preparing for another season.