Page 53 of Troublemaker

Like she’d followed my train of thought, Leslie shook her head.

“You’re about to get your ass in so much trouble,” she sang out, but then Mason waved at her and blew her a kiss, and she forgot all about me.

Emory, who was currently stretching, paused and looked at me, clearly alarmed.

What the hell are you doing, he mouthed.

I shrugged.

Making trouble, I mouthed back, winking.

He shook his head, and my gaze went where I knew it would: to the man in the suit, tablet in hand, conferring with Trey over a play or something. As if he could feel me staring at him, he turned his head, catching my gaze.

A small smile played on his lips, and he played with his tie…only for his lips to flatten into a grim line as he realized what I was wearing.

And then, because I felt like pissing him off, I stretched and turned around so he could see Emory’s last name (van der Linde), and number (96) from all the best angles. It helped that I was wearing booty shorts and had curled my hair that morning. I could feel his perusal, and what’s more, I could feel his barely banked anger as he stared at me.

Turning back around, I blew him a kiss and winked for good measure before taking my seat.

Blake slammed his hand on his tablet and blew his whistle, jerking his thumb at Emory and saying something. I strained my ears, but I couldn’t hear over the loud chatter in the stands.

Emory looked pissed, but he pulled his helmet off his head and went back to the bench.

“Is he taking him out of the game?” Leslie whispered, eyes wide.

Oh shit.

What had I done?

Then Blake jerked his thumb atme.

I shook my head once.

No,I mouthed.

He jerked his thumb again.

People were watching the whole exchange, and some craned their necks to see who the highest-ranked hockey coach in the NCAA was talking to. When they saw it was me, the chattering and whispers got worse.

I didn’t get embarrassed easily, I didn’t. But having hundreds, maybe thousands, of people paying attention to me—especially when my face showed up on the jumbotron—was no match for my normal ability to shake things off.

Annoyed, I picked up my bag and told a wide-eyed Leslie, “See you later, if I live,” before I was clunking down the metal stairs of the stands. I could feel the crowd’s eyes on me as I climbed over the metal railing to get behind the bench. It would have been more elegant of me to have left the stands and used the player entrance, but fuck that. If Coach wanted to embarrass me, I’d embarrass him right back.

Coach, who currently stood in front of the bench, one foot on the boards, watched me instead of his players stretching.

When he saw me awkwardly making my way in, all Blake said was, “You work for the team, remember?”

Oh. Right.

This wasn’t about me, this was about myjob.

Still.

“Why are you benching Emory? He’s first line,” I challenged.

“Because he fucked around, and now he’s going to find out. Want me to do the same to you?”

I could tell himall aboutfucking around and finding out. And from the tenseness of his jaw, he knew I could. But instead, he just pointed.