I understood his point. He’d heard me tell him day after day that I hadn’t spoken much with my coach. “I’ll figure it out, I guess.”

“You need any help?”

He didn’t go out often, and I realized he’d already gone above and beyond by calling me. I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I can get him in somewhere.”

“Call me if you need me though, okay?” he asked.

I reached forward and pulled at his shirt cuff. “I will. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He grinned, taking a step back. “See you.”

“Goodnight,” I called after him before getting in my car and watching him go back inside the bar.

A single rough snore from the backseat reminded me of the treasure I had there. What in the hell was I going to do with him? Take him home?

It didn’t even take me five seconds to decide that was a shitty idea.

I didn’t know him. He wasn’t my friend. How weird would that be for him to wake up on my sofa in an apartment of a player he’d spoken to once?

One quick search on my phone later and the input of my credit card information, and I was driving down the dark dead streets toward the closest hotel. It took five minutes to get to the chain hotel, another fifteen minutes to check in because my discount reservation hadn’t gone through yet, and then I was back at the car, eyeing what had to be close to two hundred pounds sprawled out on my backseat.

Thank God for squats and deadlifts.

It took a whole bunch of huffing and puffing, breaking out into a sweat, slapping at his cheek in hopes of reviving him futilely, and dropping the F-word every five seconds before I had his arm over my shoulders, my arm around his waist, and a barely conscious man trudging along besides me.

“Come on,” I pleaded with him as we hit the stairs what felt like thirty minutes later.

I was dying. Dying. And that had to say something because I had full-sized women who jumped on top of me, and had me helicopter them around.

Fuck me.

Every other time I’d ever done this, I always had help.

By some miracle, the room assigned was right by the stairs.

His sleepy face was shuttered, and I slowly let him slide down the length of my side to sit on the floor. I opened the door, held it cracked open the back of my foot and snuck my arms under his armpits to drag him in.

I sure as hell did drag him in, his long legs and feet extended out in front of him. Three huffs and a rough hoist later, I pulled him onto the bed and set him on his side with one knee cocked up and his top arm extended across the length of the mattress. I peeled one eyelid open to make sure, what? I wasn’t sure. I stuck a finger under his nose to make sure he was breathing evenly. And then I watched him for a solid thirty minutes, sitting in the chair just to the side of the bed. I’d been around enough over-drinkers in my life, and he wasn’t giving me the impression he was going to puke up blood or anything.

Now what?

The idea of staying with him didn’t seem like a good one. I wasn’t sure how he’d react in the morning and, frankly, a part of me didn’t want to find out. I took a breath and searched for one of those complementary notepads some hotels provided. Sure enough, across from the bed, bingo.

Dear Kulti,

I tore it up.

Kulti,

I tore it up again.

Fuck it. I scribbled a message that was longer than I expected, pulled the forty bucks I had stuffed into my bra out, and set the note and the money on the nightstand next to him.

Then I looked back at the armchair with resignation. I wasn’t going home tonight and I damn well knew it. If I left, I’d stay up worried the whole night. Obviously, I only had one choice: stay in the hotel room for at least a few hours and then get the hell out of there before he knew I was there.