Page 124 of The Player

And it all just kept going. On the bed, Phallon was wailing at the guard crouched in front of her that Nicole was crazy, that Nicole had attacked her, that she wanted her arrested. The guard in front of Nicole had his hand on his radio. Drew was still cussing him out, Mr. Kiernan was still yelling, and Mrs. Kiernan had Drew by the chin, trying to turn his face toward the light so she could see the cut while he kept jerking away from her.

Out in the hall, the man in the undershirt had come down to the doorway with a couple of other guests, telling them he was the one who’d called security.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Nicole didn’t take her eyes off that bathroom door the whole time Phallon was behind it. Security had sent her in there to get dressed, and Mrs. Kiernan stood guard outside it until Phallon came out. When she finally did, she had her coat buttoned all the way up to her chin and every bit of that makeup scrubbed off her face.

“How’d you get into this room, miss?”

Phallon looked at the carpet.

“Door wasn’t forced, and he says he didn’t let you in.” The guard held out his hand. “So if you’ve got a key, I need it. You can give it to me, or I can call NYPD and let them sort it out.”

She dug it out of her coat and handed it over, a key card in a little paper sleeve with Drew’s room number written on the front.

The guard turned it over in his hand. “Where’d you get this?”

Phallon started crying again and wouldn’t say. But that was a good fucking question. The guard put the card in his own pocket and said he’d be taking that up with the front desk. Funny how she quit talking about having Nicole arrested after that.

Then the big one turned to Drew. “Mr. Kiernan. She was in your room without your permission, and she put her hands on you. You want us to call NYPD and press charges?”

“No.” Just like that. He didn’t even lift his head.

“Drew,” Nicole said.

“It’s a scratch.” He waved a hand at his face without looking at anybody. “She’s a girl, man. I’m fine. I just want her out of here.”

They walked Phallon out with her bags. At the door, she turned around and looked back at Drew one last time, waiting for him to look up. He didn’t. Good. Then she was gone.

Mr. Kiernan rolled Nicole’s suitcase in from the hall without anybody asking him to. He told Drew to call if he needed anything, anything at all, and to drink some water. Mrs. Kiernan filled the ice bucket and wrapped some ice in a hand towel, but when she tried to hold it to his cheek, Drew pulled his head back. “Ma. Stop. I’m fine.” He took it out of her hand and set it on the nightstand without using it.

On her way out, Mrs. Kiernan stopped in the doorway and glared at Nicole. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Then the door closed behind them, and it was just her and Drew.

It was dead quiet. And the whole room still reeked of that girl. Nicole would’ve thrown the window open if hotel windows this high up opened, and she was pretty sure they didn’t. And there was his shirt, balled up on the floor by the bathroom door where Phallon had dropped it.

Her hand was throbbing. Her knuckles were red and starting to swell from Phallon’s mouth, and the three scratches across the back were already crusting over. She’d never punched anybody in her life, and she’d done it twice tonight, and she couldn’t make herself feel sorry about either one. Not even a little.

Drew picked up the towel full of ice his mother had left on the nightstand and held it out to her without a word. The same ice he hadn’t let anybody put anywhere near his face. Nicole took it, pressed it to her knuckles, and went to the window.

She stood there holding the ice to her hand, looking down at the cabs still crawling along like nothing had happened. Behind her, Drew was sitting on the edge of the bed. She didn’t have to turn around to see him. He was right there in the glass, bent forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, rocking a little. Every so often he froze, like he was trying to get the room to hold still.

She’d been standing there ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. She hadn’t checked. Now that it was quiet, everything she’d outrun in that hallway caught up with her.

He hadn’t done anything. She knew that. She’d heard him tell Phallon to get out and let go and put her clothes on. She’d watched him turn his face away. He’d been off somewhere trying to drink away the worst night of his life, and Phallon had talked her way into his room and climbed into his bed all on her own.

And somehow that didn’t make it better. It made it worse.

Because if he hadn’t done anything, then this was just what happened. Nobody had to cheat. All it took was a girl who wanted him bad enough and somebody at a front desk who’d hand her a key. And this was only college. In April, Drew was going to the NFL. Road games. A different city every other weekend. A different hotel, a different front desk, a different girl who’d cry pretty for somebody with a key. And Nicole would be somewhere else, calling a room that just rang and rang.

This was why they’d agreed to end it come spring. She’d been in deep even then, and it had still sounded like the right thing to do. Tonight showed her exactly why. Never an athlete. Never the girl at home waiting by the phone, never the one who found out last. Never Tiffany. Never her mother.

And here she was, standing in a hotel room in New York City with her knuckles bleeding and blood drying on his face and that girl’s perfume all over his bed, and she wasn’t going anywhere.

That was the part that scared her.

“Nicole.”

She didn’t turn around.