Chapter 21
STELLA
The week has flown by. Things are busy at work, which is good.
I don’t mind working long hours, but I do love going home to my cozy condo and my sweet puppy.
I got my hair done, went to a Halloween party with friends, and went to Pilates class.
But the highlight of my days has been texts from Jayden.
I hear from him almost every day and each time I pick up my phone, I smile and get a little fluttery feeling low in my belly.
He’s funny and a little dirty and it’s almost as much fun texting him as it is being with him.
Weirdly, I find myself looking for Jayden and Frank when we go to the park, even though I know he’s away.
Then it’s Tuesday and he’s back in Vancouver.
Jayden
Can I take you for lunch, pretty lady?
Stella
I don’t usually take a lunch break.
Jayden
You have to eat.
Stella
I can eat a salad at my desk.
There’s a pause before his next text arrives.
Jayden
You’re the boss, though. You can take a lunch break.
He’s right. And I don’t have a meeting until three, so I could go out…
Stella
Okay. I’m in.
We meet at Butlers, a couple of blocks from my office, on Howe Street. I step into the restaurant and collapse my umbrella. It’s pouring rain and I’m chilled to my bones.
Someone takes my umbrella from my hand. It’s Jayden.
He smiles and drops it into an umbrella stand. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I’m a little breathless from my rush through the rain. We smile at each other.
“Can I help you?” the hostess asks. “Lunch for two?”
Jayden turns. “Yes.”
We’re led through the dark bar to the brighter dining room, although on a grey day like this, it’s not all that bright. Still nice, though. We’re seated in a booth and I hang my damp coat on a nearby coatrack.
I gaze at Jayden across the table. Raindrops glisten in his brown hair. He’s wearing a dark-grey sweater with a funnel neck that makes him look so handsome. “Nice sweater.”
“Thanks.”
“Jack and Sky?”
He grins. “Yeah. I bought it that day we ran into each other there.”
We both ask for just water to drink and look at the menu.
“Are you glad to be home?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He exhales a long breath.
“It wasn’t a bad road trip. Two wins out of three.”
“Yeah. And I got a goal.”
“I saw that.” I look up and smile at him.
We order our lunches, a Thai peanut and noodle salad for me, the kale and quinoa salad for him. The server can’t take her eyes off Jayden. And can’t stop smiling at him.
“I think she knows who you are,” I murmur when she leaves.
“Who? The waitress?” He shrugs.
“She’s pretty. Probably your age.”
He drops his chin and gives me a seriously? look. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
He waves his hand. “Whatever that was. Don’t make your age a thing.”
My mouth pinches together.
“It’s not a thing,” he adds.
Right. It’s not like I’m looking to settle down while he’s sowing his wild oats, to use an old-fashioned expression. We’re both just having fun. I nod. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“Good. So tell me what happened with your meeting with that consultant.”
I tell him about the follow-up meeting Troy and I had with Adam, the acquisitions consultant we hired. “He put together a list of five potential target companies with all the background on each company we need to know. We went through each of them.” I scrunch up my face.
“You’re not happy about them?”
“Well. I think a couple of them would be solid businesses for us to acquire. But…”
“They’re sports betting businesses, right?”
“Yes.” I look down at the tablecloth. “I don’t want to get into sports betting.”
“Oh. Then why are you doing this?”
I look up at him. “Troy wants to do it. He thinks it’s a no-brainer way for us to grow our business. And he’s probably right.”
“But…?” He watches me with steady eyes.
“But… sports book companies make it so easy to gamble, and they do so much predatory marketing, targeting people who can least afford to lose money. It destroys lives and all they care about is making money.” I spew all that out in a rush.
“Ah. You sound pretty passionate about that.”
My mouth tightens. I could make some kind of dismissive comment but he’s so attentive and focused on me and… “My dad was addicted to gambling.”
“Oh no.” His eyebrows lower. “Is that… why your parents are divorced?”
I nod. “He pretty much bankrupt our family.”
“Jesus. How old were you?”
“Fifteen. I knew Mom and Dad had been arguing a lot and I’d been worried about it for a while. At first, I didn’t know exactly what they were arguing about, but it made me feel sick. Then I realized it was money problems. I was terrified they were going to get a divorce. And then they did.”
“That’s hard.”
“Yeah. And it’s hard enough your parents getting divorced without all the money issues that we had.
We had to move. Harrison and I stayed with Mom, because Dad ended up in this tiny one-bedroom apartment.
Mom managed to rent a crappy little house in the same neighbourhood we lived in so we didn’t have to change schools. But we had no money for extra things.”
Somehow, there was money for Harrison’s hockey.
And a cell phone for him but not for me.
I love my brother, but I admit to feeling resentful as a teenager.
And that was on top of the abandonment and loss I felt about losing my dad, and my mom being all wrapped up in finding a man.
I spent a lot of time in my bedroom plotting heinous revenge scenarios, planning how to steal a phone from Best Buy, and contemplating running away from home.
Now I know underneath the anger was hurt and betrayal and helplessness.
“I knew there wasn’t going to be money for university. That was partly what motivated me to start my stats business.”
Channelling my resentment and pain into something productive rather than a life of crime.
“Right. You told me you started that in college? High school?”
“High school. At first, it was fun, and I was intrigued by all the things stats could do for the sport. But then I figured out I could make some money from it, which I needed.”
“Your dad… is he doing okay now?”
“I think so. He got married again. He has a job.”
“That’s good.”
“At least he never stole money to pay his debts.” I make a face.
When I went to group meetings for families of gambling addicts, I heard about people who’d done that.
“But he lost so much. We all lost so much. He was always moody. Irritable about every little thing. I worried about his mental health.” I press a hand to my stomach, which has tightened with the memories.
The fears. “There was a lot to worry about.”
“Yeah. I’m sure there was.”
“It’s so easy to bet now, You can bet right on your phone. And you can make micro-bets. It used to be you had to wait for the game to end to know if you won money, but now you can bet on the next goal and it only takes a few minutes. You can gamble all the way through a game.” I pause. “I hate it.”
Jayden sits in flat-lipped silence for a moment. “Your partner… what’s his name? Troy?”
“Yeah.”
“He knows all this.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Then why the fuck is he making you take on sports betting?” His voice is low but sharp as he leans over the table.
I’m taken aback at his fierceness. At his defence of me.
Our salads arrive and we spend a moment having water glasses refilled, picking up our cutlery, telling the server we don’t need anything else while she gazes adoringly at Jayden.
Finally, I answer. “It’s business.”
“Fuck that. It’s your business. It’s what you want to make it.”
“It’s our business.”
“You know what I mean.”
I look down at the colourful veggies in my salad. “Yes. I do. It’s definitely a point of disagreement for us right now. I try not to let emotions influence business decisions.”
“Given your past, I don’t think it should even be on the table.”
A warm softness fills my chest and I worry my bottom lip with my teeth as I gaze at him. His immediate, unequivocal support for me is doing weird things to my heart. “Thank you.” My fingers tremble as I fork up noodles.
“Seriously,” he continues, eyeing me with concern.
“I do want to grow the business. Just… not like that.”
He nods, thoughtful, taking a big forkful of quinoa and tomatoes. He chews and swallows. “Then how?”
That’s a good question.
That is a very good question.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly.
“I bet you have lots of ideas. You’re smart. Inventive.”
More heat expands beneath my ribs. I nod slowly. “There are a few things I’ve been tossing around. But I haven’t completely fleshed things out or thought them all the way through.” I lift my gaze and meet his eyes. “I should do that.”
The corners of his mouth hitch up and those dimples pop. “Good idea.”
Oh my God. I eat more of my salad as my mind turns all this over. But my thoughts are speeding, too fast, too chaotic. I need to calm down. I meet Jayden’s eyes again. “Thank you.”
He shrugs, smiling. “You’re a brilliant woman.”
Unexpected pressure builds behind my eyes. I can’t burst into tears here. I drop my gaze again and blink a few times, then choke out, “Thank you.”
“In case you haven’t noticed… I kind of like you.”
My eyes sting. No, no, no, no tears. I can’t look at him. I don’t know what to say.
He reaches across the table to touch my hand. “Hey. It’s okay.”
I nod quickly.
“But there’s something you should know.”
“What?”
He runs his tongue over his front teeth, then says, “We’ve been outed on some hockey gossip blog.”
I gaze at him, my lips parting. “Outed?”
“Yeah. There was a photo of us having lunch at the Tea House that day.”
“Oh.”
“And of course a bunch of bullshit about us dating.” He rolls his eyes. “They make up shit when they don’t know anything.”
I look around the room, expecting to see cameras pointing at us from all directions. Maybe that waitress is sneaking a pic of us.
I sigh. “Well, damn.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. And here we are in public again.”
“I don’t want to sneak around with you,” he says slowly. “But the truth is, it’s going to happen.”
“I know.” I make a wry face. “It’s fine. People are going to talk no matter what.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes are serious.
I nod. “I am.”
He lets out a short breath. “Okay.” Then he changes the topic. “I looked over all the stuff you gave me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I came up with ideas of what I need to focus on. I met with our defensive coach last week to see if he’ll work with me on those things.”
“That’s great.”
“Yeah. He was actually kind of amped about it. And he told me all the good things I do, so it wasn’t totally humiliating.”
I shake my head, smiling ruefully. “Oh come on. There are a lot of good things you do. You’re a great skater. Great hockey sense. You move the puck well. Powerful slap shot.”
“Yeah.” He contemplates me. “That’s pretty much what he said.”
“So what’s your plan?”
He tells me what he talked to the assistant coach about and how the coach is coming up with a plan to work on positioning and strength. “And I’ll be working out more. Increasing my lower body strength.”
“That sounds…” Oh, come on. I’m ready to cry again. What is going on? Oh wait. My period is due, like, tomorrow. That must be it. “That’s great.” I drag a smile up from my toes. It’s not a fake smile, though. I’m really pleased that he’s using all the data I gave him.
He talks about the road trip and when he comments about the dismal vibe in the dressing room, I ask, “What do you think that’s about?”
He looks around the restaurant as if there might be local sports reporters hiding behind a wall. “I can trust you, right?”
“Of course.” My forehead pinches.
“There are already rumours starting about why things are going so shitty for us. Some doofus reporter from Nashville was asking questions after the game last night.”
“Ohhh. I would never say anything to anyone else.”
He nods. “I do trust you.”
Jesus. My heart is getting a workout here.
“There’s some kind of problem between Bish and Sammy.
Some of us have noticed it. It’s both of them.
Last season, Sammy wasn’t playing great.
Turned out he had a knee injury. He rehabbed it over the summer, but this season…
he’s still not playing like he can. I think Bish is pissed about it.
There are times he won’t pass Sammy the puck even though he’s wide open.
And Sammy’s pissed about that. Even though there are times he’s not great at entering the zone with the puck.
He gets knocked off the puck too easily. ”
I listen, nodding.
“So I get why Bish is pissed. And Sammy, too. He says he’s tried to talk to Bish and it doesn’t go well. We all know Bish has a short fuse. The other night after we lost, they were glaring at each other in the room.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah. Everyone feels it, even though we don’t know exactly what’s going on. I don’t know what to do about it.”
“It should be your coach doing something about it.”
“I know. But he’s not. I’m afraid he doesn’t even realize what’s going on.”
I narrow my eyes. “He’s not a good coach if he doesn’t.”
“Coaches don’t know everything.” Then he gets a look on his face that suggests he might be experiencing a bad case of food poisoning, and adds with a touch of bitterness, “Or sometimes, they don’t want to.”
What does that mean? “Maybe you should talk to him about it? Tell him how you feel?”
He lets out a short breath. “Yeah. I’ve thought of it. It’s just…”
I wait.
“Sometimes, that can cause more problems,” he finishes enigmatically.
“Well. Tension between players can really affect everyone else on the team.”
“Except Finn.” A hint of a smile touches Jayden’s lips. “That guy is so positive all the time.”
“He’s in the NHL. He’s just happy to be there.” I grin.
“True. But I wish we could keep that feeling for him.”
“Yes.” I admire how he cares about his team and his teammates. Despite their problems.
He walks with me back to my office after lunch, pausing outside the big glass front doors of the building. “Will you be walking Betty later?”
“Of course I will. What kind of dog mom do you think I am?”
He smirks. “Okay, I knew you would be. Maybe around six?”
I smile back. “Six sounds good.”