Page 4

ELLIETTE

The next afternoon

“ L isten, sweetheart.” Oisín O'Rourke set my resumé aside and leaned forward, folding his beefy forearms across the desk. “It’s commendable, you clearing so many rounds of interviews before landing in my office, but I really don’t think this is the job for you.”

Adrenaline coursed through my veins. With the patronizing way the boar was looking at me, it was fight or flight time. Fortunately, I’d expected his response, and I was prepared.

First step, level the playing field by picturing my one-man audience in his underwear, and?—

Swallowing down the sour taste in my mouth, I realized my mistake and canceled that plan. On to step two: adopt assertive posture.

I mirrored the way he’d lain his forearms on the desk and leaned forward. Not looking too eager or too desperate. The goal was confidence. Fake it til you make it. “With all due respect, you’re entirely wrong about me. ”

His bristly eyebrows shot halfway up the broad expanse of his forehead.

“I am perfectly trained for this role,” I continued, taking advantage of his surprise, “and I have experience.”

“Not with a professional sports team you don’t.”

“The subject matter is irrelevant. You’re not hiring me as an analyst. You’re hiring me to create scroll-stopping images and engaging captions.” I intentionally used the you’re-hiring-me expression as a subliminal plant.

“Hmmm.” He picked up my resumé again. “Ms. Rogan, it says here that your last employer was a bakery.”

“A bakery that sold out of pumpernickel every day. Do you know how hard it is to sell out of pumpernickel?”

He cocked his head and furrowed his forehead. “Do you think it’s to your advantage to compare my team to a loaf of bread?”

“Hire me, and I’ll compare your team to a chocolate-filled croissant.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, heat crept into my cheeks. Baked goods weren’t part of my carefully crafted script. I wasn’t exactly sure how we even got here, or whether he’d find the croissant analogy inspiring.

Still, I held his gaze and refused to look away, no matter how much he made my skin crawl.

He set my resumé aside again and leaned back in his chair. The springs groaned, and he asked, “How many teams are in the league?”

Pop quiz time. “Fifteen spread across three divisions: eastern, central, and western.”

“Spriggans’ head coach’s name?”

“Sven Erikson. Retired as a player from the Greensboro Goblins thirteen years ago. Spent five years as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Chimeras before you hired him. ”

If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a flicker of approval on O’Rourke’s face. So far, so good. I braced for the next question.

“Top scorer last season?”

“Number twelve. Rafe MacConall. Captain. Left wing.”

“You studied for this interview.”

“I prepared for a fight.”

“You thought this interview would be a fight?”

“I did.”

He smiled at that. He was a berserker after all. “Tell me, Ms. Rogan, are you just a good student, or are you truly familiar with the game?”

“I’ve been around hockey players my whole life. My brother is Evan Rogan. Number five on defense. One of three humans on the team who dress for every game.”

“You're Rogue’s sister?” Up went those boar-bristle eyebrows again.

“And proud of it.”

I actually hadn’t meant to mention my brother. Not that he was a liability; he had a decent enough relationship with everyone associated with the team. It was only that I didn’t want him to factor in the interview at all. I got the job, or I didn’t, on my own.

“I couldn't let you give your brother special treatment, put an inflated focus on him over the rest of the players,” O’Rourke cautioned.

Was I imagining it, or did that sound like he was giving me the job? “He’s just another player.”

“You’d have to interview them all to get material for your posts.”

“Of course.”

“They can be hard to pin down. The best time to catch any of them is in the training room. ”

“I can do that.”

“It’s just like the locker room,” O’Rourke warned. “I can’t guarantee they’d be on their best behavior.”

I pulled my hands back and folded them in my lap. “Hockey players don’t faze me.”

Ten seconds passed, which technically wasn’t a long time on the clock, but seemed like an eternity given the silence. The little finger on my left hand began to tremble, and I squeezed it with my other hand to get it to stop.

“I’m going to give you a shot.”

“Thank you!” A thrill rippled through me, and I nearly leaped from my chair.

“Not a job,” he amended. “Not yet . A shot.”

“Oh.” I sat back down. “What does that mean?”

“I want you to write a mini feature on one of our players. Something you could use later to create a series of posts. Ticket sales have been open for months. We’re looking good this year, but we still need more buzz.”

“I’m on it.” Maybe I could do something with the team captain and Amy’s freight train comparison. Or I could write a feature introducing the fans to the rookie, Caden Kelly.

“Consider it a try-out,” O’Rourke said. “If I like what you write, you can write more.”

“Deadline?”

“Tomorrow.” He looked up at the clock on the wall. “The team will be finishing up with practice about now. They’ll be hitting the weight room and the massage tables soon. Let’s see if you can get even one of them to do more than grunt at you.”

“Thank you.” I rose from my chair. “I appreciate it.”

I did my best to walk calmly out of the room, but my heels made it more of a tripping kind of scurry. Now, if I could just make it to the end of the hall and into the elevator before the old boar changed his mind.

As soon as I was in and the doors closed, I pushed the down button and let out the most enormous exhale in the history of breathing.

Seconds later, I smoothed my hair back into its ponytail and exited onto the ground floor training room.

It was state-of-the-art with lots of gleaming chrome, thick black mats, massage tables, weight machines, and racks and racks of barbells.

The place smelled like disinfectant and sweat, even though the room was currently empty.

I jumped at a loud thump of palms hitting a door, which swung open as several players entered from the far side of the room.

Some of them headed immediately to another set of doors, which led to the “Wet Room” with its whirlpools and ice baths. Most, however, headed to the weight machines and treadmills. After a long practice, these guys wanted to punish their bodies even more.

I squared my shoulders and approached the freight train, Rafe MacConall. He was huge. Broad. Muscular. Dark-haired and, frankly, a little scary. But he was also the team captain. It stood to reason that if he cooperated, the rest of the team would follow his lead.

Rafe picked up several of the largest, heaviest weights and slid them onto each end of a bar. Then he went back for more and loaded them on.

He straddled the bench and was about to lie back when I reached him.

A red spark flashed in his hell hound eyes as he looked from my face to my high heeled shoes. “Are you lost?”

“No. Oisín O’Rourke sent me down here to interview you about the new season. ”

He snorted. “Like hell, he did.”

He laid back and wrapped his hands around the bar.

“No, really. He did.”

Rafe pushed the bar up and off the supports. There had to be close to a thousand pounds on the bar, and I wondered if it was really bowed, or if I was just imagining it.

He lowered the bar to his chest, then pressed it up. A vein thickened down the center of his forehead and two more popped up along the length of his neck.

“Is this the year the Spriggans finally make the playoffs?” I asked.

He grunted as he moved into another rep, but he didn’t answer my question.

I tried another tack. “I read you started playing when you were just two years old. Your parents built you a regulation-size rink in your back yard. Do you remember much about those early years?”

He moved into another rep while blowing out a gust of air.

“A backyard rink must have made you pretty popular later, in high school.”

He did two more reps, then dropped the bar onto the supports and looked up at me with an annoyed expression. “Listen. I need to concentrate or I’m going to drop this shit on my chest. Maybe you could move on to somebody else.”

“Oh. Sure. We can chat some other time.” I glanced across the weight room and hoped no one realized their captain had just turned me down. The two goalie bears were on the treadmills and running with a loping gait.

I tried again with the bears. No luck. They actually laughed in my face and said they couldn’t run and talk at the same time. I got basically the same response from the dryad, Sean Murphy, and the selkie, Will Quesenberry.

I looked around for my brother—not to interview him, but to get some help greasing the wheels with his teammates. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be seen. In fact, I didn’t see any of the human players.

That’s when Caden Kelly, the Irish gancanagh, entered the room wearing a pair of basketball shorts that hung so low I could see his hip bones.

He lay face-down on a massage table, and a woman who looked like she could play for the team herself emerged from an inner office with a bottle of oil tucked under her arm.

All right. I straightened my shoulders. If a notorious flirt like the gancanagh wouldn’t talk to me, I was doomed.

I approached.

He had hungry eyes on me immediately, and he lifted his head, folding his arms under his chest to prop himself up. His silky blond hair fell forward brushing against the table.

“Well, hello there, beautiful.” His tone was a seduction. Christ, these gancanagh were dangerous.

“Um…” I cleared my throat. “ Hello . Would you mind if I interview you while you have your massage?”

“You’re media?”

A door opened behind me, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t afford the distraction. “I’m the team’s new digital and social media manager.”

“Is that right?” he asked in that musical, Irish accent. “How ‘bout we share a pint after instead? I’ll tell ye anything ye want to know.”

“No,” said a familiar voice right behind me.

This time I turned, and my heart hit my stomach .

Lukas Bakken was walking my way. What the hell was he still doing here? He was supposed to be in Baltimore by now with his own team.

“No?” Caden Kelly asked, a curious and teasing tone slipping into his voice.

“You’re not talking to her,” Lukas said, and without even giving me a glance, he strode right past, whipped open the exit door, and took a left down the hall.

I turned back toward the gancanagh. “Ignore him. I would love to interview you over drinks.”

“Sorry, love. Don’t ye recognize that icy bastard?”

I clenched my teeth.

“That’s Lukas Bakken,” he said as if I didn’t know far too well. “One of the best players in the league. He’s played in every all-star game the last five years running, and here I am in my rookie season. If Bakken says I’m not to talk to ye…there must be a reason.”

Argggghhh! There was a reason all right. Lukas Bakken was a colossal dick.