Page 7

Blair

“The usual?” Toni asked as I stumbled into the Wild Brew Cafe.

“Please.” I dropped into a chair to wait for my caffeine fix. Preseason had been a blur of wins, marred only by a last-minute loss to St. Louis in the final period. The team was in a good place heading into the official season, and we were due to fly out to Nashville in three hours. I’d stopped by the office to get my tablet and was unable to resist the call of coffee.

“You look tired.” Toni’s eyes were assessing as she watched me from over the top of her espresso machine. I hoped I’d be able to find a decent coffee while we were away because she was right. I hadn’t been sleeping well. Or at all, really.

“Nah, that’s just my face,” I joked, waving a hand at her. Rather than the laugh I was expecting, she hummed, a small crease forming between her brows.

“You do that a lot, you know?”

“What?” I asked, eyeing the steam from the frothing wand as it disappeared into the milk jug.

“You use self-deprecating humor. Be careful, that shit is a slippery slope. Trust me. You’ll start believing it after a while and life gets harder than it needs to be.”

This didn’t feel like the usual barista/customer conversation. Although, I’d built somewhat of a friendship with her over the last year.

“I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking,” I said, shrugging it off. The frothing wand choked off with an indignant squeal. Toni dropped the milk jug against the counter in a couple of loud thumps and narrowed her eyes at me.

“No one is thinking that except you, baby girl. How about you try being nice to yourself once in a while and see if things change?”

I really didn’t want to be a part of this conversation. People had tried this whole self-love thing on me before. I much preferred when people had the guts to tell me the truth instead of some pretty lie. Instead of engaging with her, I drummed my fingers against my thigh as she poured the milk into my latte and sealed the lid.

“Thanks.” I almost snatched the cup from her hand as she offered it up.

“Have a good trip,” she called after me as I hustled out the door and across the road to where Dante waited, looking as put together as always.

“Ready to go?” she asked, picking up her overnight bag as our Uber pulled up. Dante didn’t have scrappy old bags with shoulder straps and suspicious stains like us mere humans. She had a tote bag with handles that seemed to mold perfectly to her hands. I bet her clothing was folded in some Marie Kondo perfect origami that kept it from wrinkling.

“I just have to grab my bag.” I popped the trunk on my car and grabbed my own overnight bag—my old hockey kit bag, because I broke the tote I’d bought for overnight trips and hadn’t had a chance to replace it yet.

Dante slid smoothly into the backseat of the Uber, and I joined her a moment later.

“How are you feeling after preseason?” she asked as we moved through the light Friday morning traffic.

“Good. There’s so much more to the PR stuff than I thought, but I’m excited to learn it all. How’s Miller?” Dante had been checking in with the second line winger after his apartment building caught fire the previous week. Per his request, she kept news of the incident from becoming public knowledge and we had run a player spotlight campaign for good measure to distract the media. Dante was a PR goddess, and I was starting to worry about how I could step into her shoes next year. If I got the job, that was.

“He’s good. Off the record, he’s moved in with a teammate, so at least he has somewhere to crash until he can find somewhere new.”

I nodded absently, my mind wandering to another of his teammates who had taken up far too much of my thoughts lately.

Since the night of the function, I’d attempted to go back to our status quo: only interacting when strictly necessary for my job. But he had started turning up at the most random times. For someone who should have been focusing on his preseason games, he apparently had plenty of time to appear when I least expected it with a second coffee he’d accidentally bought. It was kind, and considerate, and suspicious as fuck.

What did he want from me?

The question played on my mind until we pulled up to the air strip. The team milled about on the tarmac in their suits, all of them looking ready for a GQ photoshoot while some diehard fans tried to get their attention from the other side of the fence. The airline ground staff hustled about, doing preflight checks and positioning the airstairs before rounding up the team for boarding. Spencer Cotton, the owner of the Austin Aces, boarded first. He flew with the team whenever his schedule allowed and took the front of the airplane as his office for the duration of the flight. The coaches filed on next, along with the film crew, who were shadowing the team for the season. Next was the team, and Dante and I realized our mistake at the same moment. Casting a glance at my mentor, I blanched at the rueful smile on her face.

“I guess we’re running the gauntlet,” she muttered, placing her sensible heel on the bottom step with a sigh.

The team had very strict dress rules when it came to traveling to and from games, and the guys took these rules seriously. Nicely pressed slacks, shirts and jackets at all times. In order to maintain the standard of dress expected, the second the guys stepped foot on the plane, they would strip down to boxers and neatly hang their suits.

Sure enough, as soon as we passed through the door, making room for flight staff to close things up behind us and start safety checks, we were confronted with a labyrinth of half-naked men. Closest to us was Adam Riley, one of the rookies I’d met during the development camp in July, whose face flushed scarlet as he straightened with dress pants in hand and tried to shuffle aside to make room for us to pass.

“It’s all right. We’ll wait,” Dante assured him with a professional smile.

“Hurry up and take your seats so we can get moving,” Mack called over the dull roar of conversation that almost drowned out the sound of the engines warming up below us. At the order from the head coach, the aisle began to clear. As Oscar’s bulk moved aside, I caught sight of a whole lot more bronzed skin than I needed to see. Cian had his broad back to us, clothed in a tight pair of black boxers that left little to the imagination as he pulled a pair of gray sweatpants up his legs. Despite the fact that there were males everywhere in a similar state of undress, seeing him like this felt different.

Look away .

Before I could follow the sage advice, he turned and caught my eye.

Busted.

His chest was even more impressive than his back. Without breaking eye contact, he placed a large hand on a set of rock-hard abs. His shoulder rolled as he rubbed back and forth until I couldn’t help but follow the movement. The flex and pull of muscles made me think of how he would move over someone in the bedroom. How those round shoulders would bunch and release while he pumped into… Stop .

But damn, his body was perfect.

And I felt like an ass objectifying him like that. Mentally shaking myself, I looked away from the mesmerizing movement and flushed as he winked. As though he knew exactly where my mind had been.

Without bothering to pull on a shirt, he dropped into the seat next to Oscar, stretching his arms over his head in a way I told myself wasn’t for my benefit.

Not at all.

“They’re not supposed to be filming this.” Dante pushed through the remaining players who hadn’t changed fast enough, intent on retaining some level of modesty for the players that they themselves may not have cared about. Then again, maybe they did, and Dante was the only voice they had to advocate for them. Following along more slowly, I weaved my way to where Dante was having a quiet word with the showrunner.

“I want to review the footage before it goes to edits.”

“You will,” Lily assured her before returning to her seat. Dante waved me into a seat across the way.

“Just because they’ve been good so far doesn’t mean we can trust them. I have to keep our team safe, and it’ll be your job to do it in the future. Once photos or footage hit the internet, it’s almost impossible to scrub it completely. Prevention is always better than correction.”

I nodded along, storing the advice for later as I glanced around the cabin. Flight crew bustled up and down the aisle as players strapped in to their seats, many of them beginning pre-game rituals ranging from meditation to pump up music, while others took the opportunity to nap. On the opposite side of the plane, halfway down in the aisle seat, Cian's head was tilted back, headphones stuck in his ears while his heavy-lidded eyes felt like they burned through me.

His attention was too much. I didn’t know why I’d landed on his radar after three years of quietly deciding to be unspoken enemies, but I didn’t trust it.

I didn’t trust him.

And I really wished he would put a shirt on.