Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Jack
I catch Brock Savage’s assistant by the shoulders, stopping her from plowing right into my chest. Or at least I thought she was his assistant when she brought me in for my interview, but after the bit of conversation between them I just overheard, it seems that she’s actually his social media manager.
And wow, that guy’s an even bigger douchebag than I thought.
I’m no choir boy, but the women I sleep with all know we’re out to party and have a good time. There are no strings or expectations, and the likelihood is that we’ll never see each other again unless chance throws us both into the same party scene again some other time.
Releasing her, I give her a lopsided smile and nod back down the hallway. “He always like that?”
She rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest and pressing her tits together under her Mariners T-shirt, giving me a better glimpse of her curves than I got before beneath her slouchy jeans and T-shirt combo.
She clearly dresses for comfort more than fashion, and given she works behind a screen all day, I can’t say I blame her.
What would she look like if she were all dressed up to go to a club?
Would the messy bun on her head come down to reveal waves or a curtain of straight brown hair?
Smoky eyes? Yeah, she could rock a good smoky eye …
“A misogynistic asshole?” Her words bring me out of my daydream of taking her clubbing.
“Yeah. Pretty much.” She resettles the worn canvas tote bag on her shoulder, a package of Red Vines peeking out.
It makes me grin, remembering the way I surprised her when I first got here for my interview, interrupting her eating one.
I nod toward the candy. “That your drug of choice?”
She glances down into her bag, tucks the package more securely inside and chuckles, nodding.
“You could say that. Less dangerous than drinking, and no one fires you for eating Red Vines on the job.” When she moves to scoot around me, I step back and hold the door open for her.
“Did you need something?” she throws over her shoulder once she steps outside. “Forget something?”
“Just your phone number, darling,” I try, giving her my most charming smile.
Her brows raise, a smile tugging at her lips. “Does that usually work for you?”
Laughing, I nod. “Yeah, actually. It does.”
“Well, good luck with that,” she shoots back, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter as she turns and walks away.
I stand and watch her until she disappears before letting the door close at last.
I’m not sure what it is about her. She’s not usually my type, but I wasn’t joking when I said I wanted her number.
I was hanging around hoping I’d get a chance to talk to her.
While I didn’t mean to startle her either time I walked in, it was kind of fun catching her off guard and getting to see her unfiltered response to me before it was taken over by her work persona.
I saw the way her eyes flared, the way she gave me a quick up and down. She was definitely checking me out. And even though her clothes barely hint at her curves, she has that girl-next-door look that’s always kinda done something for me, though I’ve never really indulged that attraction.
Women are distractions, or at least that’s what my dad drilled into me from the time I was old enough to start thinking the girl that lived next door was cute and did my best to get her attention.
She was in high school, though, and wasn’t interested in my clumsy middle-schooler attempts to get her to like me.
And those attempts were all fairly short-lived anyway, thanks to my dad. “You have to focus if you want to make it as a hockey player,” he’d say any time I mentioned thinking a girl was cute. “Women are a distraction.”
Mom never liked it when he’d launch into his long-winded lectures on the subject, and while I didn’t necessarily put it together at the time, I think that was a big reason why they ended up divorced by the time I was in high school.
I made it to the Juniors not too long after that, though, and honestly it was a relief to get away from Dad’s constant lectures about the importance of staying focused on hockey and my long-term goals.
Even though by then, my time was pretty evenly split between them, I enjoyed staying at Mom’s more.
She let me have friends over, let me eat junk food—in moderation, of course— and let me be a kid.
She supported my love for hockey, but she’d always say, “You’re only a kid for a little while. You should have fun.”
At Dad’s, it was always lectures on nutrition, the importance of cross training, and running drills on and off the ice even outside of practice.
He’d go in and talk to my coaches all the time, seeing what he could do to make me better.
They’d always give him drills, but I know at least one coach cautioned him not to work me too hard.
“You don’t want him to get injured and ruin his chances before he even has any,” Coach Johnson had said.
Dad hadn’t liked him much, even though he was one of the best coaches I had before I got drafted into the CHL.
He worked us hard in practice, gave us a certain amount of drills and exercises to work on in our free time, but also emphasized the importance of rest and recovery.
Dad thought he overemphasized the last part.
So even though I literally had a crush on the girl next door, and when I was in junior high and high school, I always liked the sporty girls, I wasn’t really allowed to pursue anyone.
My mom let me go to birthday parties, and I once asked Katie Thompson to the school dance my freshman year of high school.
Dad went ballistic when he found out, and I never dared cross him after that.
Even as an adult, he still calls me up to remind me that my life doesn’t have room for distractions. “I’ve seen you in the papers and the tabloids,” he’ll say. “You’re going to get distracted, slip up, and then everything we’ve worked so hard for will vanish in a puff of smoke.”
And while I’ve learned to tune him out over the years, a lot of the early lessons stuck, whether I wanted them to or not.
Since relationships are a distraction, I chose to blow off steam by partying, though even that pisses him off. Now, though, I’ve gotten a reputation as a womanizer and party guy, and with my contract up for renewal after next season, I’m trying to clean up my act.
Shaking my head, I head for my car. I don’t know what I was thinking. While my dad might be an ass in a lot of ways, I can’t say he’s actively steered me wrong. Women are a distraction, even if I have several teammates who have happy relationships. They’re the exceptions, not the rule.
She might be able to hold her own—which is super hot—but finding a woman who has her own life and who’ll put up with my schedule is like finding a unicorn. Pretty and cool sounding but mythical.
Putting her firmly out of my mind, I climb in my car and head home.
It takes a couple days for the interview with Brock Savage to come out, and when it does, I’m livid.
It’s a hatchet job. It was supposed to be a puff piece on the trials and tribulations of the Stanley Cup playoffs—I did the interview shortly before the game we lost that knocked us out of the finals—and instead it’s been edited to the point where it looks like I’m an asshole who parties so hard I can barely lace up my skates every morning, all but pinning the blame for the loss on me, despite the fact that I didn’t do anything during the playoffs.
I didn’t drink. I didn’t go to clubs. I didn’t even hit the apps and find a hookup to take the edge off.
Nope. I worked out, ate well, took it easy when I needed to, and played some of the best games of my career.
Sometimes, though, the other guys also play the best games of their careers and they score more goals. Or our goalie was off and let too many into the net. Either way, we lost. And it wasn’t. My. Fucking. Fault .
“What the hell, Molly?” I storm into the office of the head of the Emeralds’ PR team.
“I thought you said this’d be a puff piece that’d make me look good.
Help my efforts to show I’m a good boy and a team player and secure my contract for next year.
” If the Emeralds don’t offer to renew my contract, then I’ll be a free agent.
And as cool as that sounded to me as a kid, the reality of free agency at thirty-one means I’ll either end up on a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in a decade or more who’re trying to build their bench to give themselves a fighting chance, or I’ll take a pay cut to play with a better team.
The first option will likely be the case because I’d rather be seen as an asset than a liability, but more than either of those options, I want to stay here.
I like my team, I like the coach, I like the city.
It’s way better than the central Canadian prairies where I spent my time in the Juniors.
There are trees, mountains, and it has the perfect climate in my opinion—not too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter.
Molly pushes back from her desk, her hands folded calmly over her middle, waiting a beat to see if I’m done or if I have more to say.
When I don’t say anything, she sighs and gestures to the loveseat in the corner of her office, standing and coming around to sit in one of the chairs on the opposite side of her desk and face me.
“That’s what I was told too, Jack.” She shakes her head, her brow crimping in frustration behind her dark-rimmed glasses.
“They said they were bringing in guys from all the teams in the semi-finals to talk about the season, the playoffs, your Stanley Cup hopes, all of that. I was told it would be edited to show multiple players from multiple teams. I’m not sure what happened.
I put in a call to the show to demand they take it down, but I haven’t heard back yet. ”
“And it’s still up,” I growl.
Molly nods, maintaining her composure in the face of my anger.
“I’m sorry, Jack. I really am. I’ve struck the show from our list of approved outlets.
” She shakes her head. “This is the reason why I’m hesitant to book anyone on non-standard shows, but some of these guys are really good.
Brock Savage might be”—she hesitates, seeming to search for the right word.
“A complete douchebag? A hoser?”
She smiles, shaking her head. “Distasteful. I was going to say that he can be distasteful, but he has a large following and some of his shows, while often colorful, have a surprising level of insight for someone who portrays himself like an overgrown frat boy.”
I grunt, not wanting to act like Brock Savage is good at anything. “I’m gonna call him,” I say after a moment.
Molly’s eyes grow wide, and she shakes her head. “No, Jack. No. Let me handle it. This is my job. I’ll get it taken care of.”
Pressing my lips together, my nostrils flare as I let out a harsh breath, but I nod once and stand. “Fine. But if it’s still up tomorrow, I’m …” I shake my head, leaving the sentence hanging. Truth is, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Go back to his studio? Call? Find him and punch him in the face?
Too bad Dozer’s all wrapped up with his new lady. If anyone’d be good to have in my corner for delivering a beatdown, it’d be him.
But as good as Dozer is at starting—and finishing—fights on the ice, I’m not sure he’d be up for an intimidation racket, even if he weren’t spending every free second with his new girlfriend. Sure, he can be intimidating, but the reality is that off the ice, he’s a big softie.
Connor Jenkins’d probably go with me, but the more I think about it, the less of a good idea that seems. He’s a little too hot-headed sometimes, and putting him and Brock Savage in the same room seems like a recipe for an explosion. Or at least some noxious gas.
“Thanks, Molly,” I mutter, still mulling over what I want to do about this situation if Molly can’t get him to take it down.
I hate feeling helpless. With the season officially over, I don’t have any of my usual outlets to blow off steam. And hitting the clubs seems like it would only make the situation worse.
Fuck it. I know Molly told me to let her handle it, but I can’t just sit on my hands and wait for someone else to fix something. That’s not my style.
Pulling out my phone, I search up that douchebag Brock Savage’s show information, find the phone number, and hit call.