Page 17 of How to Puck Your Boss (L.A. Hawks Hockey #3)
Chapter Ten
W as it a stewardess?”
“No.”
“A pilot?”
“No.”
“A female customs agent?”
“Dude, bro, bra, Dax, you’ve been bugging me for days, stop asking!”
“Just tell me who you fucked, and I won’t have to anymore!”
Jack snorted loudly and hit the edge of the boards with his stick before stepping onto the ice. He always did that before a game. It brought good luck. Unfortunately, it didn’t shut Dax up.
“Oh, come on!”
“No.”
The Hawks fans, who were outnumbered at the Arizona Wolfs’ stadium, screamed their hearts out as the team took their first warm-up lap. Dax, however, was still talking to him over the din.
“Man, Jack! You’ve been ridiculously secretive lately. I bet you’re still seeing that woman! Where were you last night if not with the stranger?”
God, he wished it were true. He wished he had spent last night in Penny’s bed and not in a stuffy room with a stern-looking nurse who kept telling him how expensive a room in her residence was and asking a window with a garden view was really needed, in his case.
A man with dementia that advanced would hardly notice if he was looking at concrete, after all.
Jack had wanted to tell her that he didn’t care about anything, that he just wanted to pay and then have nothing further to do with it. But he couldn’t. Because, damn it, he should be a better person. He owed it to himself to be a better person, no matter how hard it was.
“What don’t you understand about the phrase one-night stand, Dax? It was a one-time thing,” he growled, annoyed. “Now concentrate on the game, damn it. If we don’t win the next four, it’ll be almost impossible to make the playoffs.”
Annoyed, Dax furrowed his brow. “I’m well aware of that. And I could concentrate a lot better if you hadn’t given me that riddle!”
“What riddle?” came a voice from his right. It was Austin Fox, whose eyebrows, which were surely raised, couldn’t be seen under his helmet. “I like riddles.”
Oh, shit. The last thing Jack needed was another friend poking his nose into his business. “Not this one,” Jack answered roughly. “Because it’s about how Dax manages to keep a woman like Lucy. And he was about to go into every last sexual detail.”
Dax snorted loudly and the captain frowned.
“I don’t think anyone will ever solve that riddle,” he said, shaking his head. “We had bets on how long you two would last, but we all lost. No one gave you more than six weeks.”
Dax gave him the middle finger. “Thank you for your confidence!”
Fox shrugged, unimpressed. “I trust you on the ice. Speaking of on the ice: How about it, Dax? For once, could you refrain from punching every opposing player who looks at you wrong? If we get fewer penalty minutes today, we might even win the game.”
“It’s not about the looks, it’s about the words,” Dax replied, defending himself. “If someone calls Lucy a slut, they have to pay.”
“Do you know what Lucy would say to that?” Jack asked. “That you’re a chauvinistic idiot.”
Dax’s jaw tensed and Fox seemed to realize that he was about to throw another punch, so he hastily added, “It doesn’t matter. Just behave yourself. You and Charkov need to pull yourselves together today. You didn’t exactly cover yourselves in glory during the game against the Snakes last week.”
“Why are you telling us and not Jack?” Dax asked aggressively.
“Because I never have to worry about the Saint! He just beats the puck.”
Jack grinned. “It’s the truth. I have better self-control, Dax.”
“The only thing you have is my fist in your face.”
Fox sighed. “A good first step in the non-violent direction, Dax.”
Dax nodded proudly. “Thank you.”
Jack snorted but was quite happy that Dax seemed to have forgotten their original conversation.
“West, you’re taking the face-off today, okay?” Fox changed the subject and pointed to the middle of the rink, where an opposing player was waiting.
“All right,” he replied before they briefly skated back to the players’ bench, slapped each other, and listened to Coach Gray say a few last motivational words.
He babbled something about the Wolfs’ weak defense – as if Jack didn’t know all about it – but Jack didn’t quite hear the rest because he was distracted by movement above their heads.
It was the intrusive flash of a red jacket behind the glass of the VIP lounge.
He recognized men in suits…and a single woman in a red coat.
He knew it was Penny without seeing her face. He recognized it by the way she squared her shoulders, how she reluctantly shook her head as if she was sorry she couldn’t nod.
He hadn’t seen her in six days and strongly suspected she was avoiding him.
He couldn’t say for sure, but she seemed to have personally visited every other player to “get to know them better.” According to Dax, Moreau had explained to her that he’d want to get to know her better if she became a puck — while Leon Alvarez claimed she had to be a stripper to interest him.
Both had made her laugh, which confused the players, because they were meant as insults.
Penny Clark, however, didn’t seem to be someone who could be easily brought to her knees or offended.
Unless you asked if she was crazy.
Which Jack had unfortunately done.
As soon as the words had left his lips, he knew he had said the wrong thing. Her eyes had gone black and the cold shoulder that followed was something he had only received from Dax, and that had lasted a decade. But all he’d said was the truth. She was a little crazy, in the best way.
His eyes wandered over her figure…and met her eyes. Or maybe not. It was hard to tell from that distance, but the tingling sensation on his neck and the heat in his chest…he just knew she was looking back.
He raised his hand intuitively.
It was a stupid gesture because only idiots or fifth graders waved. So he swiftly pulled it back down — hitting his helmet with a smack of leather against plastic.
“Did you want to say something?” Coach Gray asked irritated.
“Lucy’s not here anymore, dude. You don’t have to report in,” Leon Alvarez jumped in.
“Um, sorry, I stretched my arm,” he said hastily.
“Did you?” Gray looked at him worriedly.
“The fabric over my arm,” he corrected himself.
“What?” Fox scratched the back of his neck, confused.
Oh, damn it. The last time he had used such a stupid excuse was when he had assured his mother that he was making balloon animals with the condoms in his nightstand.
Thank God the referee signaled them to enter the rink at that moment.
He flipped down the visor on his helmet, hit the boards with his stick one last time, and took a last look up into the VIP booth. Penelope was still standing at the glass, a gaunt, red-haired man talking to her.
Jack gritted his teeth. Of course. Obviously, some sleazy guy would start coming on to her at the first opportunity. He hadn’t believed Penny was the kind of woman who would be open to such advances. Now she was throwing her head back and laughing and…well, he had picked her up in a bar, hadn’t he?
Never mind. He looked away abruptly. She could talk to whomever she wanted, do whatever she wanted. Ignore him as much as she wanted. He was only interested in the game. Penny had been just a fleeting mistake.
He rolled his neck, which was suddenly strangely tense, and skated to the blue circle in the middle while the others took their positions.
Andre M?kel? was the opposing player he was challenging in today’s face-off. Jack knew M?kel? well. He had played briefly for New York when Jack was still a rookie. Off the ice, they liked each other quite well. But off the ice was off the ice.
“Well, West?” the Finn greeted him. “Why haven’t you had that monster of a nose fixed yet? Your visor isn’t even on properly.”
Jack snorted and pressed his blades harder into the ice to get a better grip while one of the referees placed the puck between them.
“Someone with a face like you, Andre, should know better than to insult strangers.”
Andre grinned. “Will God now spite me with lightning, Saint?”
“You should be more afraid of me than God,” Jack replied softly.
“Oh, please, you’re the weakling of the league. Too nice and too harmless to scare anyone. Your parents must have raised you too well.”
Jack smiled slightly. His parents hadn’t raised him at all.
“If only you played half as well as you bullshit, Andre, you might stand a chance,” he replied calmly.
His opponent narrowed his eyes but didn’t get a chance to answer because the starting horn sounded and Jack’s arm shot out and secured the puck…and then all the talk and posturing was jettisoned from his mind.
There was only his team and the ice, and he did what he did best: win.