I drop my keys on the granite counter and stare at my reflection in the black window. Still look like Dex Malone, professional hockey player. But Elliot’s words echo in my head: “You’re not that smart.” and “You’re too dense to see the problem.”
Fuck.
I pour myself three fingers of scotch and collapse onto my couch. The same couch where I’ve entertained a parade of women whose names I can’t remember, who took selfies in my bathroom and posted them with captions about “living their best life.”
My phone sits on the coffee table, screen lighting up every few minutes with new notifications. More messages from women who watched me get humiliated today and somehow found it attractive. More offers to “console” me, to “make me feel better,” to remind me why I’m still their “daddy.”
The thought makes my stomach turn.
I pick up the phone and start deleting apps. Tinder, Instagram DMs, the dating apps I can’t even remember downloading. Each deletion feels like removing a tumor.
When I’m done, my phone looks naked. No red notification badges, no constant buzzing. Just silence.
That’s when Elliot’s words really sink in: “That poor woman just sang beautifully at a charity event, and now she has to wonder if she somehow caused a professional athlete to have a public meltdown.”
Jesus Christ. Golda probably thinks it’s her fault. She did something amazing—something that reminded everyone in that arena that she’s talented and complex and so much more than just a hockey mom—and I turned it into a disaster.
She’s sitting at home right now, maybe replaying the moment, wondering what she did wrong. Wondering if she somehow embarrassed her son’s coach. Probably feeling guilty for something that was entirely my fault.
The scotch tastes like ash.
I’ve spent months thinking about what I wanted from her. Coffee dates, dinners, the satisfaction of being the guy who finally got the unimpressed woman to say yes. I never once thought about what she might want from me.
Or more importantly, what she didn’t want.
She didn’t want complications. Didn’t want drama. Didn’t want some hockey player making her life harder than it already is.
And what did I do? Made a charity game about my pathetic inability to handle being surprised by her depth.
My laptop sits on the coffee table, mocking me. On impulse, I open it and search for her name. “Golda Adler voice over.”
Her professional website loads—clean, sophisticated, showcasing commercial work for brands I recognize. There are audio samples, client testimonials, a brief bio that mentions her “versatile range and professional reliability.”
I click through her demo reel. Her voice fills my empty condo, selling breakfast cereal and luxury cars and pharmaceutical products, shifting seamlessly between warm and authoritative, playful and serious. It’s the same voice that sang today, just contained in thirty-second clips instead of soaring over an entire arena.
I scroll further down the search results and find something I didn’t expect—audiobook samples. Romance novels, historical fiction, mystery series. Dozens of titles with her name listed as narrator.
“The Duke’s Desire.” I click on the sample without thinking.
Her voice flows through my speakers, reading about ballrooms and stolen glances and a heroine who “felt her breath catch as the mysterious stranger’s eyes met hers across the crowded room.”
I buy it immediately.
Then I buy the next one. “A Lady’s Secret.” And the next. “The Rogue’s Redemption.”
By the time I realize what I’m doing, I’ve purchased seventeen audiobooks narrated by Golda Adler. Historical romance, contemporary fiction, even something called “The Vampire Detective Chronicles” that sounds absolutely ridiculous.
I don’t care what they’re about. I just want to listen to her voice without having to earn it through careful conversation and repeated rejection.
It’s pathetic. I’m a thirty-two year-old professional athlete buying romance novels because I’m desperate to hear a woman’s voice. A woman who won’t even have coffee with me, who probably thinks I’m exactly the kind of man she needs to protect herself from.
And she’s right.
I queue up “The Duke’s Desire” and settle back with my scotch. Golda’s voice flows through my speakers, professional and controlled.
“Chapter One. Lady Margaret had always prided herself on her composure, but as the mysterious Duke of Ashworth approached across the ballroom, she found her carefully constructed walls beginning to crumble...”
This is fine. Historical romance. Ballrooms and proper ladies. Nothing problematic about listening to Golda read about?—
