Chapter 5 #2
And those towels definitely aren’t our usual ones. I grab a spare one that hasn’t been near any of the team’s balls and look at the label. It’s a different service. Somebody’s switched up the contracts. I have a good idea who that is.
It’s a minor irritant but I’m irritated all the same.
So once we’ve finished talking about our strategy and the team has left, I head upstairs to the office block and knock on Mackenzie Hunter’s door. I don’t want to have this conversation. I shouldn’t have to have it.
But I’m the coach and I’ll do it. Lucky me.
“Come in.”
When I open the door she’s by the filing cabinet, bent down, her gray skirt tight across her behind. She has her hair pulled back and she’s wearing glasses again. She’s every schoolboy’s librarian fantasy.
If you like that sort of thing. Which I don’t but my body seems to. One reason I’ve been deliberately avoiding her all week.
“Is everything okay?” she asks, turning to look at me. The smile that’s pulling at her lips melts away when she sees my expression.
“Did you change the towels?” I ask her, my voice more irritated than I’d planned for.
She blinks. “Yes. The service we were using was extortionate. I found another one for seventy percent of the price.” She looks so damn pleased with herself.
“Can you stand up please?” Her ass is distracting me. I need to stop looking at it. And turning away to look at the wall while we’re having a conversation isn’t exactly going to help.
She runs her tongue along her bottom lip – not helping either –then stands. She’s wearing a red blouse today. It has a v-neck and I can see the beginning of her cleavage.
What the hell is wrong with me? I’m not Goran, I don’t pant like a puppy at the sight of a woman. And yet here I am, wondering how soft her skin would feel if I ran my finger down that perfect line between the swell of her breasts.
Fuck.
This is what happens when you don’t get laid for way too long. I blame my experience with Cassie. My ex. When she found out I was leaving the NHL, she took me aside and told me that she was sorry, but she just wasn’t down with the AHL.
I wasn’t exactly attached to her – it was more of a friendship with mutual benefits – but it still stung. But I understood it, too. She’s an actress and is trying to get noticed. A boyfriend in the NHL helps.
Last I heard she’d been flirting with the guy who caused the injury that ended my career. Hart and I were rivals ever since we both joined as Rookies and it grates me that he was the one to finish my knee off.
Okay, more than grates. It pisses me off. And is one more reason why I’m going to make this team into a winning one, even if it kills me.
“You promised me you’d run anything that affects the team by me first.” I say to her.
“They’re just towels,” she points out. “Nobody cares about those.”
Tell me you know nothing about hockey without telling me you know nothing about hockey. I pinch the bridge of my nose and her eyes follow my movement.
“They’re not just towels,” I say, trying not to sound as annoyed as I feel. “They’re the towels the team uses before every game. The same towels. Or at least the same thread count. The same size. The same feel. And you changed them.”
“I know,” she says, looking confused. “Didn’t we just establish that?”
“And now the team is spooked. A day before the season starts.”
“Spooked?” she asks. “About towels? Seriously?”
Fucking hell. “Seriously,” I say, trying to keep my annoyance hidden.
“You can’t just change things on us without warning.
We have rituals, we have comfort objects.
We don’t like change so close to a game.
Anything that changes the way the team works is a shitshow at this point in the season.
And also, the towels are shit. I checked them. ”
“They’re still premium towels. The provider said so.” Her voice is lower now. She looks unsure.
“This is why I asked you to run things by me,” I tell her.
And yeah, now I sound pissed. But I have a shit ton of work to do today and talking about fucking towels wasn’t part of the plan.
“If they’re spooked they don’t have their minds a hundred percent on the game.
And I need them to be focused. You could have talked to me, we could have discussed trying the towels out or maybe delaying the change.
” I shake my head. “Do you know anything about hockey at all?”
She flinches and I regret saying it.
She puts her hand to her still-yellow cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”
For one horrific moment I think she’s going to cry. All that composure, that certainty, where is it now? I want it back because I feel like a dick.
“I know. I get it. Please, just run things by me. Those kids are desperate to win. They want to please. But they’re also temperamental. I can’t have anything veer them off their path for the next two days.”
“Understood.” Her voice is tight.
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. Somehow I’ve ended up being the asshole again, so I decide to take a different tack. “Are you coming to the game tomorrow?”
“No. I wasn’t planning to. I… ah…” She looks around. “Too much to do, you know?”
“There are seats in the staff box. Ask Jake at the ticket desk to reserve one for you. It’d do you good to learn a little more about the game.”
Something about my words brings the life back into her. “I don’t need to understand the game to figure out how to save money,” she says, her eyes meeting mine. “And it’s best if I keep some distance. Getting too close to employees is never a good thing in my position.”
“Maybe you should tell that to Goran,” I say lightly. Because, yes, I’ve noticed him hanging around her office, and no, I don’t like it.
I’ve said nothing to him yet, but if it gets worse, I will.
Her cheeks flush. “I don’t need to tell that to Goran. Nothing is going on.”
“He has a crush on you.”
She opens her mouth then hesitates.
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” I add, because I’m feeling like an asshole again. Which isn’t a normal feeling for me. Or at least it wasn’t until Mackenzie Hunter arrived in the locker room.
I don’t like how I keep opening my mouth and saying the wrong things. But here I am, still doing it.
“I just think you need to not encourage him,” I finish.
“I’m not encouraging him,” she tells me, her eyes narrowing. “He buys me a coffee, I drink it. I don’t know what that means in your dirty, misogynistic mind, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to get down on my knees and let him ram me from behind.”
“Ram you from behind?” My voice is thin.
“Shut up. You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I do. Somebody fucking help me because I’m picturing it right now. Only I’m the one doing the ramming.
I squeeze my eyes shut to get rid of that image.
“I’m not a misogynist,” I tell her, my voice strangled.
“Do you even know what it means?”
“Do you think because I’m a hockey player that I don’t have any brains? Yes, I know what it means.”
It’s her turn to look awkward. But she does it so much better than me. “I’m sorry. I just…” She shakes her head. “There’s nothing going on between Goran and me. I’ll make it clear he shouldn’t bring me coffee any more.”
How did we end up here? I just wanted to change the shitty towels back to our good ones. Not butt heads with the management consultant and imagine her…
No. Not going there.
“No. I’m sorry,” I tell her. “He’s a good kid. I don’t want him put off his game. Let’s just forget I ever mentioned it. Please.”
“Okay,” she breathes.
“You should still come to the game tomorrow night,” I tell her. “I’d like to see you there.”
Our eyes meet again.
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “I’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
“You do that.”