“So he walks out and you walk in, right through that cloud of smoke, catcalls and dirty jokes. Scan the room a couple times, find a seat right next to mine…”


She stood in the entryway to the lounge. Given that it was midweek, it was still pretty crowded, and her standing there looking for Darcy attracted some eyes. She ignored all of them, the pit in her stomach growing more and more intense. Was this stupid? Yes, yes, yes. At this point, Charlotte knew she still had an out. She could pretend like she never showed up. Except even now that option was taken away.

Darcy was tucked away at a table in the corner, and Charlotte spotted him just as she was turning to leave. He offered her a gentle smile and she felt she now had no option but to go up to Darcy and confront the matter at hand. They didn’t hug or anything as she approached the table, and Charlotte set her cell phone face up on the table before she crossed her arms on it.

“You want a drink?” He asked, nearly halfway out of his seat, anticipating that she’d say yes.

“No,” she stared at him. As he sat back in his chair across from her, she mumbled, “thanks.”

He smiled, trying to break the awkward tension between them after not seeing each other or being in contact for several months. “You look great,”

“Darcy,” Charlotte took a deep breath. “I’m with someone. I’ve been with him for a few months now,”

Darcy clasped his hands on top of the table and leaned forward. He nodded his head, “why’d you show up here?”

She raised her eyebrows and shook her head gently, trying to figure that out for herself. “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. Maybe I should’ve,”

He didn’t say anything, because really, what was he supposed to say? If anything, her being here and not going to sleep with him was cramping his style. He could’ve been hitting on some other girl to be with for tonight, but instead he was here with her.

“What’s his name?” He grinned.

Charlotte rolled her eyes, “you don’t care.”

Darcy chuckled, “that’s true.” He ran his fingertips over the wood table, “you know, you never told me anything about yourself. I think all I know is your name… and only your first one.”

“That’s the point,” she stared at him, “we were only fucking each other."

“Certain aspects of my life are so readily available to you because of the internet. I think you should give me at least that information,”

Charlotte studied his face, thinking about how much she would actually tell him. When she really pondered how many things she knew about Darcy, she became aware that it too was very little. “Charlotte Mickelson, twenty-four, filmmaker… And I wouldn’t be able to estimate my yearly salary. It’s not a lot,”

Her phone began to buzz on the table. When she looked at it and saw Travis’ name, she flipped her phone over. Charlotte looked up at Darcy and saw him looking at her phone too, quickly flicking his eyes up to meet hers. They didn’t say anything to each other, a silent agreement that Travis calling once wasn’t anything to talk about. It was one call.

“Do you want to get a room?” He asked quietly. Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, and it was then Darcy realized that his intention had probably been received differently than how he actually meant it. “So we can speak more privately,” he glanced around. A few people at different tables nearby were staring at them. Being so close to Anaheim, more than a few of them knew that Darcy and the team were in town to compete against their beloved Ducks.

“I’m not going to sleep with you,”

“I don’t want you to,” he insisted and stood up beside the table. “Can we agree that while we shared two previous nights that were phenomenal, we can just be friends now? Get to know each other on some higher plane that doesn’t involve sexual favors,”

“My boyfriend wouldn’t like it,” she murmured matter-of-factly.

“The guy at North End didn’t like it either, but you still left with me.”

Charlotte smiled. So he remembered that? Something so insignificant and puny, and yet it stuck out in his memory. That’s what ended up making her agree to get a room with him to talk. As they walked back to the lobby, Charlotte made sure he understood that while she was agreeing to go upstairs with him, she was not agreeing to anything more than chatter. Darcy nodded and remained clear on those conditions.

He approached the man at the front desk and asked for a room, fishing his wallet out of his pocket in search of his credit card. After he set it on the counter in front of him, Darcy looked back at Charlotte.

“How many nights will you be staying?”

The concierge’s voice startled them both, and Darcy looked back at him. “Just one,”

The man flicked his eyes to Charlotte and then gave Darcy a knowing glance, to which Darcy ignored entirely. “Room 1409, check out is at ten,” he placed two keys in front of Darcy, along with his credit card.

He grabbed both of them and led Charlotte to the elevators, pushing the button and waiting to get inside until he began to speak to her again. It wasn’t that he hadn’t realized that the concierge gave him a look. He saw it. It was a look he got from a lot of hotel staff across the country when he got a room with a girl. Only tonight, that look was for all the wrong reasons. This room wasn’t going to be used the same way the other rooms had been.

Charlotte insisted on unlocking the hotel room, and Darcy stood behind her as she slid the key card into the lock. It took the strength he had to resist the urge to kiss her neck. Before he could have made a move even if he wanted to, Charlotte danced into the room, looking around the suite. Darcy went straight for the mini bar and chose a bottle of wine. He grabbed an corkscrew and two glasses, and then turned to find Charlotte already out on the balcony.

Once out there too, he sat in one of the chairs and placed the bottle between his legs, and began the process of uncorking the bottle. When the cork slid out, he poured a hearty amount of wine into both glasses and set one in front of the chair across the way, awaiting Charlotte. She turned back from looking out at the view, and saw the setup, sighing at the glass she saw for her. She really didn’t want to drink tonight; and surely not wine.

Before they could even start back up on their conversation, Charlotte’s phone rung again. And again, they both saw it was Travis. She turned it face down on the patio table.

“I’m in the presence of a great filmmaker?” He mentioned, offhand.

She smiled and took a sip of the wine. “Trying to be. Right now I’m just a producer’s bitch,” she smirked at him and in return, it got a boyish grin back from Darcy.

“How long’ve you been at that?”

“Two years,” she set her glass in her lap. “I got it right out of school. Actually just quit… or took a little hiatus… I produced a film. Well a short. It’s only twenty-five minutes. I don't know if it’s any good. I think it’s pretty good. At least from the last cut I saw.” She paused and looked up at Darcy, “sorry, I’m rambling.”

He shook his head, unphased, as though he was actually interested in hearing her stream of consciousness. “Congratulations. I imagine that’s a lot of work, so you must be pretty proud.”

Charlotte ran her fingertip over the rim of her glass, “it is a lot of work.”

“Your boyfriend must be proud too,”

She shot him a wounded glance. “I don’t tell him about it,”

“Why not?” He took a sip of his wine, and looked down at the glass.

She put serious thought into answering his question. There were a lot of reasons why she didn't talk to Travis about her film. But maybe the biggest reason, “he’s jealous.” Now would be the time to switch the subject, she figured. To learn something about him. But what? “What about hockey?”

He grinned and crossed his ankle over his opposite knee, “what about it?”

“I don’t know. Anything to change the topic,” Charlotte admitted.

Darcy complied and licked his lips, “I don’t know, I… I’ve played my whole life. I left home at fifteen and lived with a billet family so I could play. I worked my ass off in dead end leagues so I could keep playing. And now in the NHL, I just play as much as they’ll let me.”

“What about girlfriends?” She pressed, bluntly.

“What about ‘em?” He smiled and giggled.

“Have you had them?”

He smiled and took another sip of his wine, looking upwards to try and prolong giving away too much information. When he finished that glass, he cleared his throat and looked at Charlotte again. “I’ve had two serious girlfriends. One from sixteen to nineteen. We broke up because she was going off to school, and I was off doing hockey… And the other from twenty-one to twenty-five. And we broke up because, uh…” he scratched his head and then poured himself another glass of wine, “she broke my heart.”

Charlotte stared at him and trying to comprehend that someone would and could break his heart. It seemed absurd. By the everything about him, she assumed Darcy was just a typical bachelor athlete. “What’d she do?”

He looked at her again, wondering why she was asking such invasive questions. In any event, he decided to answer them anyways. “She was cheating on me with a guy in Minnesota that I thought was my friend. I had bought her a ring and everything.”

“Did you beat that guy up?”

Darcy chuckled and shook his head. He took another long sip of wine. “He couldn’t have coerced her into his bed unless she’d already been looking for a way out of mine.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped because Charlotte’s phone began vibrating again. She flipped it over, and just as quickly, put it back face down on the table. “Why are you dodging his calls?”

She looked at him plainly. If he was being so honest about things, she could do the same. “Because I lied to him about where I was, and told him I was working on a cut of the film.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because I knew he wouldn’t ask questions if I said it was about the film. And because I wanted to see you; see if you looked like you were doing okay.”

Darcy smiled, “do I look like I’m doing okay?”

Charlotte shook her head and grinned softly, “you look like you need sleep.” They laughed together quietly, and she took a small sip of wine. “If I ask you something, will you answer honestly?”

“As opposed to how I’ve answered every other question tonight?” He played and winked.

She agreed that he was right about that. She could always give him that; that through everything, and every interaction they ever had, he’d always remained honest. “Did you sleep with anyone else after you left town?”

Darcy squinted his eyes. He wasn’t sure why she was asking, mostly because it wasn’t like her answer to that question would’ve been no. She had a boyfriend now. “Yeah,”

“How many?”

He figured this was the real question she wanted to know. The previous one was just setting up this inquiry. Darcy cleared his throat again and took a moment to think. “Four… five…”

Charlotte smiled weakly and nodded. “Was I as insignificant as every other girl, after your girlfriend broke your heart?”

Or maybe this was the question she actually wanted to know. But still, he was confused. Why did she want to know if she was happy with her boyfriend. Darcy shook his head as a response and set his wine glass down on the table between them.

She looked back out at the view to distract herself a little. Looking at him was going to be dangerous for her. And as Darcy poured her a second glass of wine, she knew she wasn’t going to be driving anytime soon. Charlotte immediately took another sip of her new glass. She needed it.

“It would’ve been unfair to expect that those two nights would lead to anything more. For both of us. You would’ve been worried that I was hooking up with girls while on the road, and I would’ve worried that you’d grow tired of the schedule the NHL has forced me to keep. And neither of us would be happy in a long distance relationship.” He waited and smiled, “those two nights with you were… spectacular. And I tried to recreate that on the road with other girls. Because at the end of the day, you’re in California and I’m in Minnesota.”

She understood that more clearly than she hoped to. “So we’ll just fool around whenever you’re in town,”

Darcy shrugged and sipped his wine. “Well not now since you’re dating that guy. Although if I can be real with you… anytime I’ve tried to avoid a girl, it usually meant it wasn't going to work out anyways. If that guy’s not making you happy, leave him. Life’s too short to be in a bad relationship.”

“Thanks for the life advice,” she took one more sip of wine. “I probably shouldn’t drink anymore of this. Gotta drive home tonight.”

“You can stay here,”

Charlotte shook her head insistently.

“I’m getting a car back to Anaheim. Coach has us on a hotel curfew for playoffs,”

“So you paid for a room knowing you wouldn't be staying the night in it… or doing much of anything in it?” She tried to hold back a smile. This was a gesture. A grand gesture. Dropping money on something he wouldn’t get much value out of.

“I drank wine in it,” he grinned. “If I can’t fool around with you, I at least wanted to be able to speak privately to you. Everyone down there knows why I’m in town; I didn't want to be around that.”

Darcy insisted for a while afterwards that Charlotte use the room for the night. As he put it, there was no sense in letting the perfectly good room go to waste. He had already dropped money on it, so it wasn’t like anyone else was going to get the chance to use it tonight. Charlotte didn’t want to take him up on the offer, but when her head began to ache from the wine, she knew she wasn’t going to make it home.

Darcy left shortly after, and Charlotte tucked herself in bed with her phone beside her. Travis called one last time, and again, she let it ring. Knowing she wouldn't be home tonight wasn’t going to ease his nerves about anything.

Notes

"Lonely Eyes" by Chris Young.

I hope y'all are enjoying this story because I know I'm enjoying writing it. I finally feel like I'm back on the wagon with writing.

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