Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Andi
“Oh em gee.” Rafe looked around himself as he stepped into the office.
At some point, I might start to think of it as mine, but I hadn't yet. Especially not with the space decorated the way it currently was.
The desk was huge, made of heavy, dark wood. It reminded me of the one in my father's office. The chairs and leather couch were a match, screaming masculinity and power. There was nothing wrong with furniture saying either of those things, but they weren't to my taste.
I preferred not to be in people's faces like this. Or worse, make people uncomfortable the moment they stepped through the door.
My father would have sat behind the desk and looked down his nose at anyone on the other side, reminding them who was in charge here. I couldn't even bring myself to sit in the chair behind it. The couch was more comfortable. It was located in front of a window with a gorgeous view of Lowball Bay.
To be fair, so was the desk, but I preferred a more casual approach.
If my father could see me now, he'd lose his mind. That was fine. He did things his way and I did them mine. As far as I was concerned, life was too short to let everyone assume your head was buried up your ass.
“This is ah-mazing,” Rafe said. He placed his backpack down beside the couch and flopped down hard enough to bounce a couple of times. “It's about time we had a corner office.”
“We?” I opened my water bottle and took a sip.
“Of course, we,” he said with no hint of apology. “We're a team. Otherwise, I'd be back at Welling, trying to figure out what coffee your replacement prefers.” He wrinkled his nose. “Instead, we're here, home of the hottest hockey players in the hemisphere.” In a loud whisper, he said, “Are any of them gay?”
I clicked my tongue at him. “You're married.”
He sniffed and crossed his legs at his knees. “Of course I am, but I'm not dead. Jacoby doesn't mind me looking.”
“If you're only looking, then what does it matter if they're gay?” I snatched up a handful of notes from the table in front of us and started to skim them. I'd asked Coach Lampton to give me his thoughts on the best places to spend money to improve the team.
Evidently, he had lots of thoughts. Most pertaining to the replacement of equipment that should have been retired a year or two ago. I couldn't argue with any of those suggestions. After all, he was the expert here.
Rafe shrugged and peered over my shoulder. “If you told me a couple of weeks ago Andi Welling was taking on a hockey team, I would have laughed my ass off.”
“Me too,” I said. “I admit I'm scared I might be over my head.”
I wouldn't have said that to another person, but I trusted my assistant more than I trusted anyone else.
In the three years we'd been working together, he always had my back. And he wasn't afraid to call me out if I needed it. If he agreed with something I said, I knew he meant it.
“Because of the job, or because of the hot hockey players?” he asked .
“Both,” I said. “Some of them…don't seem to want me here.”
One particular name sprang to mind. Cam North would probably be ecstatic if I found a replacement, packed up and left.
Too bad for him. Even if I had nothing to prove to my father, Cam wanting me out was a fantastic reason to stay. I'd dealt with enough men like that in the past that I wasn't intimidated by him now.
Memories of his body so close to mine in Shells, then the expression on his face when he saw me step into that meeting, were both seared into my brain, for different reasons. I reminded myself I couldn't let him get under my skin. He was a grumpy, professional hockey player who worked for me. That was all.
“I'm going to drop that straight in the 'too fucking bad' bucket,” Rafe said, flicking back dark hair that fell over his eye. “Our girl is here now, in charge of this whole shebang.” He spread his hands to gesture around the office. “And we both know you're going to kill it. I know you, it won't take long for you to convince them of that. And if they don't like it, I'm sure you could organize a transfer to somewhere that will welcome their asses. Toronto is nice and cold this time of year.” He punctuated his words with a wicked smile.
“I don't think disliking the team owner is grounds for transferring a player,” I said. “I have a funny feeling that would create more problems than it would solve. Anyway,” I shook my head. “I don't care if they like me or not, as long as they're loyal to their team and teammates.”
Rafe snorted as loud as one of the geese that ran wild in Highball Creek. “You can say you don't care as much as you want, but I know you better than that. You like to be liked. Or at least, you don't like to be disliked .” He frowned at his own words, as if unsure if he had them straight. Finally, he decided he had and nodded once.
“No one likes to be disliked,” I said. “For the record, I don't need to be liked, but I do like to be respected.” Whether it was working directly for my father, or doing this, I put everything into it, so I could earn people's respect. Even if I sacrificed relationships, like the one with Xander.
Were my priorities mixed up? I liked to think they weren't. Respect was important. Difficult to gain and ridiculously easy to lose.
“I respect you,” Rafe said. “Why a hockey team? A football team would have been just as much fun. I love the Humpbacks! Or you know what would have been great?” He was all but bouncing up and down in his seat. “Pickleball. I can see it now.” He raised a hand in front of him to sketch the image in the air. “The Lowball Bay Nudibranch Pickleball Team.”
I laughed. “Nudibranch?”
“Yep. They're a kind of sea slug, but with a much better name. As an added bonus, it goes with the Sea Dragons, Starfish, Humpbacks and the Sea Cucumbers. All of the male professional athletes in the Bay are basically seamen.” His expression was deadpan.
I laughed again. “Next thing you'll suggest is changing the name of the city to Seamen Bay.”
“Now that would just be silly,” Rafe sniffed, but his eyes shone with humor. “It would have to be Seamenball Bay.”
I snorted a little too loudly. “I stand corrected. Whatever was I thinking?”
He grinned. “I was wondering that myself. Hey, imagine the pickleball team mascot. It could look like a sea bunny. Although, that might be more appropriate for a hockey team.”
I appreciated the irony in that suggestion. “I'll bear that in mind if there's ever a professional pickleball team in Lowball Bay,” I assured him. “It's not really a team sport though. In the meantime, what we have is an ice hockey team that's performing well, but on paper should be doing a lot better.”
“According to whom?” Rafe asked.
“This.” I tapped the sheets of paper against my knee. “And according to Coach Lambton. He actually offered me his resignation while he was showing me around the building. Which I declined, because I saw the way the team respected him at the meeting. If they didn't think he could take them to the next level, they wouldn't have been so relaxed and respectful.”
“Not to mention if the head coach leaves right after you start here, people are going to suggest you fired his ass,” Rafe said. “And that would be a great way to create tension and maybe bad blood.”
“Unless they didn't like him,” I said. “In which case, I'd be viewed more favorably. But they do and that's not a wave I'm going to make. According to my research, he's respected throughout the NHL. Several other teams were vying to have him take over as head coach over the last few seasons. He knows what he's doing.”
I brushed a handful of curls off the side of my face and pressed my hand to my head to keep them back out of the way .
“But you wish you knew more about hockey,” Rafe stated.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “I'm trusting that people know how to do their jobs, but what if they don't? Did you ever have that teacher at school all the kids loved because they didn't make them work? I worry he's like that.”
“First of all, I don't think I ever had a teacher like that,” Rafe said slowly. “And second, you don't think that about him, do you? You're a better judge of character than that. After all, you hired me out of all those applicants.” He shifted from side to side as though he was somehow bashful.
“I can't decide if you're making your point or not,” I teased. When he playfully pouted, I smiled. “I'm glad I hired you. I was getting tired of the people who agreed with me no matter what. What's the point of surrounding yourself with people like that?”
“Only you would ask that question,” Rafe said. “Some people like people like that. People who won't argue with them or tell them they're wrong. Then they get to feel right all the time.”
I grimaced. “That's so wrong. Not to mention unhealthy. And unproductive too. If I had people like that around me, I'd spend half my time fixing up mistakes I didn't realize I was making.”
“Yes, you would,” he said. “You should blame them and make them clean them up.” He didn't add, ‘like your father would.’ The words hung between us.
My father and I couldn't have had more different approaches to just about everything. Sometimes I wondered why I wanted to work for him, but the answer was simple. I wanted to learn from him so I could take over and do his job better than he did.
If we had anything in common, it was ambition. Something I suspected Xander never fully understood or appreciated. He would have been happy if I stopped working and had babies instead.
Someday, I wanted children, but for now I had other priorities. Not to mention if I couldn't keep an orchid alive, I had no business having a baby. Apparently babies needed more than water every few days.
“I'll get us some coffee and you can talk me through your plan,” Rafe said. He placed his hands to either side of him on the leather couch and pushed himself to his feet. He stepped out from behind the table and stopped.
“Looks like we have company,” he said.
I knew that tone, it hinted at a warning for me, as well as the new arrival.
Rafe had always been somewhat protective of me, even when I insisted I didn't need him to be. He would happily have kicked, or kneed, someone in the balls if absolutely necessary.
It was sweet, but I could handle myself. Most of the time.
I didn't need him to tell me we weren’t alone either. Even before Rafe said the words, I felt the air leave the huge room. The temperature shot up several notches.
I tried to ignore the sweat that broke out on my palms before I looked over and saw the big winger standing beside the door-frame, looking uncomfortable.
“Mr. North.”