Page 19 of How to Puck Your Boss (L.A. Hawks Hockey #3)

Chapter Twelve

W hat the hell did Penny want with that clown?

The thought was still on Jack’s mind when he returned to the hotel two hours later. He hadn’t been in the mood for the strip club that Leon had recommended.

Freddie Cravitz was the biggest nerd on earth, and insecure, to boot.

That much had become clear to him during the last hundred and twenty minutes.

The guy was so incredibly nice that Jack couldn’t even hate him, which was annoying because he had prepared himself for that when he noticed him right away at the table with Penny.

He couldn’t help it. She was a damn magnet that he couldn’t resist. He heard her voice, her laugh, her sigh… and his eyes had found her.

Oh God, he was obsessed, wasn’t he?

And not with hockey, but with a woman! That was more than worrying.

Frowning, Jack raised his eyes and stared into the mirrored elevator wall. Perplexed, he blinked and leaned forward, shocked to see that his cheeks had turned pink. Oh, shit, he wasn’t obsessed. It was much worse. He had a crush. On his boss.

“Fuck,” he whispered, rubbing his face.

This was bad, very, very bad. The last time he had a crush on a groupie who collected jersey numbers was when he was twenty-one.

But he had been young and stupid and starved for affection.

He had just received his first check and his siblings weren’t speaking to him, so he had confused sex with love and…

well. He had gotten over it quickly. He wasn’t that young anymore and he certainly wasn’t stupid — but shit, he wanted Penny.

“Fuck,” he repeated softly.

The elevator stopped and he got out. Nervously, he undid the top button of his shirt, the collar of which had grown uncomfortably tight in the last few seconds, and stopped dead in his tracks. He wasn’t alone in the hallway.

In front of him was an alpaca, an alpaca that was inserting a bill into the snack machine before pulling out a pack of M&M’s.

He blinked several times and tilted his head in confusion. Okay, if you looked more closely, it was a human. It was Penny, to be exact. But she was wearing white wool pajamas with hundreds of alpacas or llamas printed on them with a matching hood on her head complete with fluffy ears.

She looked like she had escaped a zoo. And before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “Cute.”

Penny flinched and turned in shock. Her gaze found his face and her cheeks reddened so quickly that Jack grew dizzy watching it.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, shocked. “I thought you were all getting drunk in some strip club? It’s ten o’clock! You shouldn’t be back yet. No one should be back yet.”

Jack suppressed a grin and tilted his head to the other side before slowly inspecting her outfit, only to see the color of her cheeks turn from raspberry red to a dark crimson. “Is that why you dared to step out into the hallway in the form of your favorite animal?”

She narrowed her eyes and glanced briefly at the pack of M&M’s in her hand, perhaps gauging how much it would hurt if she threw it at him.

Finally, she replied in a deliberately cool tone, “Don’t be silly, my favorite animal is a boa constrictor.

I often think about strangling people!” She looked meaningfully at his neck.

He chuckled softly. “Do you often daydream about killing people?”

“Oh, more and more often these last few weeks. And you still haven’t told me why you’re back! Why aren’t you pressing your face into Candy or Tiffany or Strawberry’s cleavage? They must miss you.”

“Jealous?”

She snorted. “Of a boa constrictor, yes. Because if I were one, you would no longer be standing there with that stupid grin on your face, avoiding my question.”

His stupid grin grew a little wider. “I didn’t feel like going. You can’t get the glitter out of your hair for weeks,” he said slowly and let his gaze slide over her again.

Goodness, even her feet were in matching plush slippers.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he asked, and by God, why did she still look sexy? That shouldn’t be possible ! But her hair was curling out from under the hood and whenever he provoked her, she licked her lips…

“I get cold easily,” Penny replied, defending herself. “California in January is much colder than Argentina.”

“Aha. You look like you’re about to perform at a children’s birthday party.”

“Strange. And I thought I looked like I was about to punch a hockey player in the face,” she replied, unmoved, before turning her back on him and feeding the machine another dollar bill, this time for a Twix.

Jack knew she was suggesting he move on and that he should use the opportunity to disappear into his hotel room. He couldn’t, though. Instead, he said, “Aren’t you worried about getting crushed by that thing? The odds are 1 in 12,400.”

“That applies to beverage vending machines,” Penny answered absentmindedly. “But seriously, you remembered that?”

Yes. He remembered everything. “Facts never hurt.”

She laughed mirthlessly. “No. But they don’t help, either.” She pulled her chocolate bar out of the machine, raised an eyebrow in his direction, and was about to walk past him when he instinctively stretched out his arm. His hand hit the wall, blocking her path.

He didn’t want to let her go yet. That was selfish and stupid, but the last few weeks had been shitty, and talking to her was even better than winning tonight — and that clouded his brain.

With fear, because it was absurd. With desire, because he knew what Penny felt like naked, pressed against his body.

With acute confusion, because this could only end in disaster.

He was used to disaster, though. His whole childhood had been one. Every relationship. Every affair. Everything . So, what the hell?

“So?” he asked casually as Penny frowned and stared at the arm barring her way. “How’s your first week going?”

“Oh, fantastic!” Her biting sarcasm would make vampires jealous.

“It’s always great to be ignored or insulted by a bunch of pro athletes.

I also enjoy the fact that the general manager doesn’t take me seriously, my brother thinks I’m going to give up at any moment, and you’re making my life unnecessarily difficult!

That’s exactly how I always imagined paradise. ”

“Well, at least you seem to have found a close friend.”

Irritated, she glared at him for a few seconds and then groaned in annoyance. “Oh God, are you talking about Freddie? Is that why you ambushed me here? Because some primitive macho gene tells you to be jealous, to mark your territory?”

Um, well, he wouldn’t have put it that way…

“Man, Jack, this is ridiculous,” she added matter-of-factly.

“Statistically, did you know that women are more jealous than men, but men are more likely to act stupidly when jealous? Okay, I made that last one up, but I’m certain it’s true!

” She rolled her eyes. “Freddie is the only guy who has been nice to me in the last few days! He deserves an award. And you don’t have to worry because, as you know very well, I don’t screw around with my employees. ”

Angry, Jack frowned. “I would have been nice to you if you hadn’t forbidden me!”

“I didn’t forbid you from being nice, I forbade you from flirting and looking at me like you were imagining me naked!” she protested. “I certainly didn’t forbid you from inviting me to the after-game party. So, thanks for excluding me tonight.”

“Hey, we don’t know each other, remember?” he said quickly, raising his hands defensively. “It would have been weird if I had asked you to come along.”

“Sure,” she replied dryly. “We wouldn’t want anyone to think you were being polite. That wouldn’t fit your image as a Saint at all.”

He sighed. “How am I supposed to keep track of all these stupid rules? I’m not allowed to look at you like you’re naked, but I’m not allowed to ignore you, either.

I’m not allowed to flirt with you, but I’m not allowed to be rude, either!

And why do I feel that I’ve done something else wrong these past few days, something that has nothing to do with these rules? ”

Penny pressed her lips together. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He snorted and leaned down to her. “Oh, come on. I’m not merely guilty of having slept with you, right?”

She said nothing.

“Fine, if you don’t want to talk, I’ll talk: Your plan isn’t working, Penny. It’s impossible to ignore you and impossible to forget you.”

“Because I’m so crazy, right?” she interrupted harshly.

Ah, yep. He had been right. His choice of words was still bothering her.

“Penny,” he said urgently, gently putting his arm around her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, okay? It just slipped out. And being crazy isn’t a bad thing.”

“Oh yes, Jack, in this world it is,” she replied irritably.

“Anything that differs from the norm is bad. Being a woman in a leadership position is bad. Forgetting one name out of the dozens of Hawks players is bad. Having a wild phase years ago is bad and liking you is bad too. So, stop making it difficult for me. It’s hard enough not to freak out and be labeled crazy again! ”

“Again?” he echoed, confused.

“Come on, didn’t you google me, Jack?” she said, annoyed.

He opened his mouth in surprise before slowly shaking his head. “No.”

She appeared to be genuinely baffled. “You haven’t read about all the crazy things I’ve done in the last ten years?”

“No,” he repeated, confused. “Should I have?”

She opened her mouth, blinked, and closed it again. “Well, I bet your teammates did, so if you wanted to, then…”

“But I don’t want to,” he said firmly. “Why should I look up information about you on the internet when I see you every day and can just ask you myself?”

She laughed and he felt her shoulders vibrating under his touch. “God, you are the crazy one here! You know that our agreement at the airport is no longer valid, right? We can find out who the other person is.”