Page 39

“It’s an airplane, Max, not Starbucks, and I’m capable of surviving one bad cup of coffee.”

“You're not going to drink it.”

“Why not?”

“Because you hate it.”

A strange expression moved over his face, and for once I couldn't read it.

Ash had always been difficult to understand from a distance because he deliberately kept everything locked down, but once you learned his tells, they were surprisingly obvious. The slight pull at one corner of his mouth meant he was amused but pretending not to be. His left hand curled when he was angry, while fear made him unnaturally still.

This was something else entirely.

“You remembered how I take my coffee.”

The words were quiet enough that the engine noise almost swallowed them.

“Black, one sugar.”

He held my gaze for another long moment before nodding. “Yeah.”

I caught the flight attendant as she passed and asked for one. Ash didn't object, and something as ridiculous as remembering how he took his coffee shouldn't have felt like winning anything.

It did.

We landed in Denver shortly before seven, and I knew we had a problem before we'd even made it through the private terminal.

There were more reporters waiting behind the barriers than there normally would have been after an away playoff game, particularly a loss that hadn't been remarkable beyond being ugly, and the moment I stepped into view, the noise increased.

Cameras swung toward me as reporters began shouting over one another.

“Max! Any comment on Melanie Carter's allegations?”

“Did you invite her back to your apartment?”

“Were police called?”

“Is the team investigating?”

“Have you spoken to Carter since the incident?”

My body reacted before my brain caught up, every muscle tightening as microphones appeared between the barriers and camera shutters started firing.

I'd been doing this long enough to know the rules. I had to keep walking, give them nothing useful and make sure I didn't let one careless expression or three harmless words become tomorrow morning's headline.

Kinkaid was ahead of me talking quietly to security while the rest of the team moved toward the waiting cars, but the questions followed me anyway, overlapping until individual voices became almost impossible to distinguish.

Someone wanted to know whether Melanie had permission to be inside my home. Another demanded to know whether I was denying her account, while a third voice rose above the others.

“Were there other women, Max? Has this happened before?”

That nearly made me turn around.

Not because there was anything I intended to answer, but because I knew exactly what they were asking me to become.

A story.

They weren't interested in a man whose privacy had been violated or whose home had been entered without permission. They wanted a pattern they could build if they asked enough questions and found enough photographs of me leaving enough bars with enough women.