Page 2 of What If I Hate You (Anaheim Stars Hockey #6)

CHAPTER TWO

BLAKELY

H e didn’t need to be such an asshole.

I know he’s the grumpy player of the team.

I know he may not have the best sense of humor but he also didn’t have the best plays tonight either.

The Stars didn’t have their best night, sure, but Cunningham is the one who let the pucks into the net.

Those points are on him. I know he feels that way and I get it.

What I don’t get is the attitude he gave me as I interviewed him.

“You, with the lipstick.”

His words replay in my head as I roll my eyes.

Of course he would say that. Of course he would treat me like every other son of a bitch in the room.

I know the men in that press room don’t respect me.

No doubt they think I’m sleeping my way to the top.

That I’m trading this job for sexual favors to someone above me.

Fuck them.

They can think whatever they want, but I got myself here fair and square and I’ll be damned if I’m going to cower to the likes of anyone in that room just because they have a penis and I don’t.

And I’m not going to ask the easy, fluffy questions either.

I can see through the bullshit because I’ve been there.

I played collegiate hockey. I spent years of my life perfecting my sport.

I know better than most of the people in that press room why Barrett Cunningham isn’t blocking the pucks like he usually does.

I saw his weakness. I’ve studied him. I’ve watched his plays time and time again so I brought it up when I had the chance.

And the look I got from him was as if I was actively trying to castrate him in a room full of lions.

I know it sucks to be called out for doing your job poorly but fuck him.

He gets paid millions of dollars to play hockey.

The least he can do is fix his mistakes so they don’t happen again.

But instead, he sneered. He seethed. He tried, with all the force of his enormous, goalie-shaped ego, to intimidate me into backing the hell down.

It’s almost funny, if I think about it. For all his size and all his snarl, Barrett Cunningham is still just a guy.

And I’ve seen better men try to make me break.

I’m still fuming when I step out the side exit of the arena into the bouncing parking lot lights.

Someone needs to get out here and fix those damn things before they’re all blown out.

It’s not safe. My stilettos click against wet asphalt, the only sound louder than the pounding of my fuming heart.

The night’s turned cold and mean, even for Anaheim.

The sky is thick with the promise of rain, but I have to walk off my anger or I’ll do something stupid like fire off an email to my boss that just reads: I quit, I’m done, find a different piece of ass to stand at the glass.

I keep my head down, muttering the transcript of our post-game interview to myself.

Hating how his stare lives at the top of my spine like a fever, even now.

Double hating that the flashbulb piece of my brain already has a headline: GRUMPY STAR GOALIE PUNKS ROOKIE SIDELINE REPORTER.

Because I refuse to be a damn footnote in this narrative.

There are only a few cars left in the dimly lit lot. My hands shake as I hold my keys between my fingers, nerves tripping over leftover adrenaline and the old, familiar dread that never totally leaves when you’re the only woman in a world built for men.

A shape breaks off in my peripheral vision, a shadow, broad and hulking. My heart does its best hummingbird impression as I inwardly chastise myself for not hearing the footsteps behind me sooner.

That’s what I get for being in my own head.

Just get to the car, Blakely.

The footsteps continue, making all the self-defense alarms ring in my head.

I don’t know what brings it out of me, maybe it’s the fact that I’m tired of being seen as the pretty lipstick with the microphone.

Or maybe it’s the desire to want to prove myself to nobody but me that I am the fierce independent woman I was raised to be.

Whatever makes me do it, I don’t know, but I spin around swiftly and hurl my briefcase into the person behind me with a thud. His tall body bends at the waist as I run to my car.

“Oohmph! What the fuck?” a voice grumbles as I run in the opposite direction. A second later, the same voice calls, “Rivers?”

Oh no.

Oh God.

Who did I hit?

Please tell me I didn’t just whack my boss.

I lift my eyes from the handle of my car door to find none other than Barrett Cunningham hugging my briefcase to his broad chest. His nostrils flared, his lips curled, and his eyes bulging.

I stand tall next to my car. “What the hell, Barrett?”

His face is a freezing cold mask of disbelief, but it dissolves into something startlingly boyish when he realizes what hit him.

Maybe it’s the sight of the little gold bear charm dangling from my keychain that gives it away.

He stands with almost comical slowness, holding my briefcase like it contains a ticking bomb.

"Satisfied?" he manages, voice pitched low and steady, but there’s a wheeze in it.

Nice.

He lobs the bag back at me, neat and easy, like tossing a puck to a fan. I catch it because I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of scrambling.

"Next time," I pant, "I’ll aim higher." I can’t decide if I want to stand here and stare him down or wither into the driver’s seat and pray for the pavement to swallow me whole as I drive away. “What are you doing here anyway?” I ask, annoyed but slightly proud of myself for whacking him one. Had I known it was him behind me maybe I would’ve tried even harder.

He limps closer, that slow rolling gait I’ve watched a million times on the ice, but this close, he fills up all the air between us. For a moment, neither of us say anything. The stadium lights turn his black hair blue at the tips. He’s chewing the inside of his cheek.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

I huff, shoving the briefcase strap onto my shoulder. "It’s called work and last time I checked, being a pro athlete didn’t come with stalker privileges."

His laugh is a low, hard scrape. “You think I was following you?” He glances pointedly at the dingey parking lot and then gestures with his head toward the small SUV in the corner.

“To answer your ridiculously intrusive question— again —that’s me over there.

I was just walking to my car. There was no need to go all Black Widow on me for fuck’s sake. ”

My brows furrow.

“Your car?”

“Yeah.” He nods with a roll of his eyes. “You know, the piece of steel on four wheels that we use to get from point A to point B?”

I cock my head, annoyed. “I know what a car is, Cunningham. But why are you parked out here when I’m sure you have your own space in the player’s lot? Or why not have a driver do the work for you?”

His jaw works back and forth, a struggle I can see play out under the glare of the lights. “Maybe I prefer being alone.” He shrugs but there’s something almost sheepish about it. I’m dying to press him for more answers, but also I’m tired as hell. And do I really care?

No.

The man’s an asshole.

“Suit yourself.” I jab my car alarm button, delighted when my Hyundai chirps so shrilly it echoes off the concrete. “Maybe next time lead with ‘hi’ instead of lurking in the shadows like Jason Voorhees.”

Barrett Cunningham is a towering figure.

The top of his head nearly brushes the frame of the security lamp.

His broad shoulders fill out his suit, emphasizing his height and muscular build.

He leans down, his face adorned with a seemingly permanent scowl.

As he gets closer, I catch the scent of his cologne, a mix of musk and sandalwood and dammit, I don’t hate it.

“Noted. I’ll file that in my ‘Rivers is easily startled’ folder.”

My eyes narrow. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was just demonstrating the quick reflexes of someone who actually won games in college.”

That gets him. His mouth flexes, half-smirk, half-threat, and I feel the weirdest flush of satisfaction at having poked a bruise. My dad always said I lived for the chirp—a player’s way of shit-stirring—which, okay, guilty.

We stand here, two idiots in a deserted parking lot, neither wanting to be the first to blink.

I refuse to give him the satisfaction but fuck if I’m not making this into an Olympic sport.

The wind picks up and whips my hair across my face, but I barely flinch.

I hold his gaze, expecting him to fire off some dumbass comeback about my wardrobe or the fact that I nearly dislocated his sternum.

Instead, he does something much, much worse.

He softens. It’s almost imperceptible, a twitch at the corner of his eye, a slackening of the jaw.

Like something’s broken open behind the armor, and for a hot, punch-you-in-the-gut second, I wonder if I overplayed the bit.

Maybe the standards are different for the ‘grumpy goalie’ when the only audience is the person who just called him out on national television.

He breathes in sharp, like he’s got a speech loaded and ready, to tell me to go to hell, to ask for an apology, who knows. But he just stands there, silent as an empty net.

“I’m not sorry,” I say, my chin raised but my voice shivering like a stick under pressure. “You want a softer question, go talk to a blogger with pink hair and a ring light. I don’t play it safe.”

He grunts, almost a laugh, or the closest he’ll get to a present-tense emotion, and then he takes another step forward, closing the gap between us to about three inches.