Page 44

CHAPTER 43

JILL

I looked at our inventory list for the fifth time, the numbers still not making sense. “How is this possible?” I muttered to myself, not sure what I could be doing wrong.

“Ashlee,” I said, coming out of the office and heading to the register where she was just finishing up with a customer. “Hey, how many copies of Love on the Run have you sold today?”

She laughed. “All of them.” She grabbed a stack of books to be reshelved and went to work on them, talking loud enough for me to hear her as she went. “I think we had four go out in online orders, and then another three were snatched up by a trio of very well-dressed ladies right after lunch.”

“But that was the second shipment of books, right? Or am I dreaming here?”

Ashlee appeared at the end of the row with a giant grin on her face. “Not dreaming, boss. Just living the dream.”

At this rate we were getting in two to three times the sales I’d projected when I went to the bank. It was almost comical how quickly books came into the shop and then went right back out again.

“We’re getting some serious heat on IG too,” she said, straightening the pocket journals we kept in a display by the entrance to the coffee house next door.

“Heat as in good or bad.”

“Good,” she laughed, shaking her head. “I should show you some of the likes and reposts, it’s insane.”

I would take her word for it. I had to get back online to order more books if we were going to keep these shelves from looking bare only a few weeks into being open. It was a good problem to have, so I wasn’t complaining, but it was getting hard to keep up.

Scouring my email for the last shipment we’d gotten in I spotted a subject line from a few days ago that I’d missed.

ACTION REQUIRED; NHL Community Special Model Release J. Jordan

I clicked on it and had to read it twice before I believed it was real.

Dear Ms. Jordan,

It has come to our attention that we do not currently have a signed model release for you on file. In order for the attached video clips to be used in our network special highlighting the NHL community programs this past summer, we are required to get your consent via the attached form. Please note; failure to return this form will prohibit any inclusion of the Brawlers organization in the network feature.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call me at the number below.

Kindly,

Mallory Elms

Viatron Studios

NHL Partner

I clicked on the form first, huge blocks of legal-ese made my eyes cross before I clicked it closed again. But then I clicked on the video file, my computer opening it in a separate window. I had to turn my volume up, but as soon as I did I heard Grady’s voice. Chills went down my spine, the sound of it shaking through me and making my breath catch. It was him at the podium, the first time he’d asked me to use his silly camera. But then the clip ended and another began, only this one was of me. I was playing with the kids, showing them books and laughing as they told me about their favorite stories.

One clip after another played. Even some of the rolling hills and river banks I’d filmed from the car as we drove all over Maine together. We looked so at ease. The crowds loved Grady and he loved them back. I was mesmerized watching our summer play out in these tiny moments, that at the time had felt so huge.

When the last clip ended, I was out of breath. How had they gotten these? Grady must have sent them in, but he’d never mentioned anything to me. What was this network feature? I considered calling him, but it had been weeks and I didn’t want the reason I reached out to him to be because he’d tricked me into something. So, I called Mallory instead.

“Hello, this is Mallory.”

“Hi, Mallory, this is Jill Jordan, I received an email from you about some footage of me you’d like permission to use in some sort of NHL special?”

“Yes! Ms. Jordan, thank you so much for calling me back. We’re getting down to the wire here. Are you all right with us using the footage?”

“For what? I don’t understand how you even got this?”

“Ah. Okay. Let me look through my notes. We were working with each of the NHL teams individually, and the Brawlers sent us this along with some other press coverage. But your behind-the-scenes clips were by far the most compelling. Let’s see, it says…”

She trailed off and I waited with my chest feeling tight because this suddenly seemed like a much bigger deal than anything I’d have signed on for. Which was probably why Grady hadn’t told me about it.

“Ms. Jordan, I’m not one to pussy foot around, so I’m just going to tell you what’s in my email, okay? It looks like the Brawlers marketing team wanted to use these clips at Mr. Holloway’s request. There were some concerns about how well a formal interview would go, so this was the compromise. If you don’t want us to use these, please tell me now, so we can recut the special.”

My heart was in my throat, beating so hard it was hard to swallow. If I said no, then Grady and his team wouldn’t get any credit for their program. But if I said yes, then all these images of me would end up on TV. What kind of choice was that?

There never would have been any concerns about Grady doing a formal interview—he did them all the time. Which meant this had been about me. He’d done this for me.

“I’ll sign the form.”

“Fantastic. That’s great. Please email me that back as soon as you can. And I’ll be sending out another email about this shortly, but will you be joining us in New York for the gala?”

“The gala?”

“The league is holding a gala to highlight the players and teams that participated and we’ll be showing some clips from the feature that will air the following week.”

My head was spinning. Every time this woman spoke things got worse.

“We’re happy to provide transportation via our travel agent, so please don’t worry about that. We’ll have a hotel block for those staying overnight. You’re coming from Maine, right? I love it up there. So beautiful.”

“Can I let you know?”

“Of course. Of course. You’ll get an email with all the details before the end of the day, and you can just click right on the link provided to RSVP.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“Thank you, Ms. Jordan. Your clips really are the highlight of the show. It looked like you two made a hell of a team.”

“Thank you.”

We hung up and I dropped my phone onto the desk, laying my head down on the cool surface. What had Grady done?

“Boss?” Ashlee’s voice jolted me upright.

“Yeah?”

“I think you need to see this one.”

I shook my head. “Ash, I don’t think I can handle social media right now.”

She held up her phone so I could see the screen. It was a selfie of three women taken just outside our front door; I recognized the display in the front window. I took the phone from her, scrolling down to read the caption.

Hockey lovers unite! The best place to get your next romance is from Love, ME. The cutest all-romance bookshop I’ve ever seen! And you can order online! #shopsmall #womensupportingwomen #indiebookstore #hockeyromance

The post had 75,000 likes and had been reposted nearly 15,000 times.

“Who the hell are these women?”

Ashlee took her phone back, clicking on something before she showed me. “She’s the wife of one of the Brawlers’ defensemen.”

“Wait, what?” I snatched her phone so fast she jumped. I didn’t recognize the hockey player she was posing with in her other photos, but I didn’t need to know his face or name to know his jersey.

“ Grady .”

“You think he had something to do with this?”

Ashlee had seen the frame hanging on my office wall, and she was a local. It hadn’t been rocket-science for her to sort out that he and I were . . . meaningful to each other.

I clicked back to our store profile and scrolled through the photos we’d been tagged in. One after another of hockey players or hockey wives. There had to be hundreds of these posts. Each one sang the praise of Love, ME.

“He knows how much I hate cameras,” I said, my eyes flicking back to my laptop with the email from Mallory still open.

“Well, then he’s an evil genius in addition to being a fucking awesome hockey player.” I looked up at her and she grimaced. “Sorry, he’s really good.”

Oh, he was really good, all right. At a lot of things, it seemed.