37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rumors are rampant out of the Renegades organization today.
Rumors of a blockbuster trade, secret meetings and power struggles, and a leadership coup.
Facts are sparse, but Shep Landon’s agent was spotted entering the building.
Late arrivals include Miller Pendleton and the next-in-line head of the organization Jasper Pendleton.
Updates as they unfold. ~Renegades Rinkside
Merri
People stared. Hard.
My mouth went dry and my heart pounded like a bass drum, heavy, reverberating through my system.
But I tilted my chin up like the badass boss I wanted to be and added a little swish to my sashay.
Fake it ‘till you make it, right? The path to my office led straight through the heart of the training facility, past the coaching staff, right past Coach Trasier’s door.
Whatever. Bring it on.
I’d taken special care with my look today.
Hair sleeked back in a high ponytail. No boots today—today called for heels that doubled as lethal weapons.
My dress, a confection of yellow sunshine tulle and gingham, swirled around my knees.
The matching blouse, cinched with a bow the size of a freakin’ cantaloupe, made me feel armored up and powerful. Feminine. In control.
Like myself again.
I breezed past the assistant coach, my heels clicking out a staccato beat, as sharp as a rapid-fire puck drill and twice as deadly. He stumbled back, tripped over an equipment bag. “Careful, Lambert,” I purred, sweet as pie. “Wouldn’t want you to fall and hurt yourself.”
He mumbled an apology, his face flushed.
No game tonight, no travel, just the fallout from yesterday’s media spectacle.
Everyone knew. Yesterday they might’ve been curious.
Today, they gawked. I sailed past Denmark where he stood frozen in the doorway leading to the main equipment room.
Fournier, leaning against the wall near the player lounge, winked. I bit back a semi-hysterical laugh.
When a big dog poked his head out of the head coach’s office, I slowed my roll for the first time. I bent down to give the dog a good scratch behind his black velvet ear. “Morning, Clyde.”
“That you, Merri?”
I popped back up at the sound of Miller Pendleton’s voice. We’d clicked the instant we met at the water park, and promised to meet up again. “Millsy?”
She maneuvered around Clyde as he sprawled in the doorway.
“Don’t mind me, Clyde. No need to get out of the way.
Nope. No reason at all.” She fixed the hem of her pencil skirt the moment she made it to the other side of the behemoth dog, a mischievous grin lighting up her face.
“Beautiful mornin’, am I right? Chock full of pretty sunshine and dirty gossip. ”
Considering it was January in Virginia, with the high not likely to hit fifty degrees Fahrenheit, sunshine was in short supply. Gossip, though. Richland had gossip by the boatload today.
“Something like that. What are you doing in town? You should have called me so we could set something up. Will you be here long enough to go for coffee? Dinner?”
“I’m here for you, sugarplum. Let’s head to your office and have a nice little chat, yeah?”
“My office is a shared space, so we can’t kick Wilson—”
She looped her arm through mine. “Honey, that man is terrified of me,” she said in a staged whisper, her eyes twinkling.
“It’s fantastic. Outrageous. I don’t think we have ever exchanged more than three words, but it’s his own dang fault!
He bolts for the door as soon as he catches sight of me.
” She broke off with a laugh. “No idea what he thinks is gonna happen if he stays, but he scampers away every single time so we’re not likely to find out, either. ”
I couldn’t imagine gruff, reserved Wilson scampering anywhere, but as we reached the video office, he announced his sudden need for caffeine. Millsy held her hands shoulder high, palms up. “What’d I tell ya? Never fails.”
The knot in my stomach loosened a fraction. “Are you sticking around?” I asked, my lips ticking up, my smile turning more genuine and less like the armor I needed to keep the wolves at bay. “I’m not sure what my day is going to look like, but I’d love to grab dinner tonight, if you’re up for it?”
“Let me tell you what your day looks like. Grab your seat.” Millsy pulled Wilson’s office chair from behind his desk. She leaned over to sniff the backrest with a wrinkle to her nose. “Eeek. This could end badly. Be right back. I’m going to grab a chair from ET’s office.”
Premonition raised the tiny hairs along the back of my neck, but I did as she said and perched on the edge of my own office chair.
Stationed Joonie at the corner of my keyboard.
Rearranged the line of seven white resin pop superstars lining the front of my desk.
Inhaled a long breath through my nose, exhaling with a silent count of four through my mouth. Ritual. Calm. Strength.
“Stole his,” Millsy announced as she rolled a mammoth, high-backed chair into the room. “It was either his or some sad little relic reminiscent of elementary school. No, thank you.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped at her words. Only a Pendleton could get away with commandeering the chair right from under the head coach’s behind.
“Okay,” she said then. “I’m closing this door. We’re about to get all serious up in here.”
My smile turned brittle, a mask threatening to crack. I leaned back into the office chair, my fingers smoothing over the layers of tulle, a grounding touch. A tremor lingered in my fingers, but I willed it into stillness. Control, I silently chanted. Competence. Confidence. “What’s going on?”
She sat in her pilfered chair and scooted close enough to rest her elbows on the edge of my desk, almost but not quite nudging my superstars.
“In a few minutes, Shep Landon, JT Pendleton, Bauer Holmes, Declan Walsh and an assortment of other big wigs are going to hole up in JT’s office upstairs.
They’re gonna talk about Shep’s contract breach, but he’ll have his agent and possibly an attorney with him, plus that whole no-trade clause.
They’ll talk about you and how you broke your employment agreement and the no fraternization mess.
How to show you the door in the quietest way possible. ”
“I wasn’t informed of this meeting.”
“Nope.”
“It’s about me, my future, my reputation, but I’m not meant to take part?”
“Nope. Probably the only reason Shep was told to show up is because he’s a star and he’s been groomed by the family to be the Renegades’ star.
Or, more likely, Granddad wants to put the fear of god in him.
It won’t work, but Granddad thinks he can intimidate anyone into his version of acting right. ”
I surged to my feet, a wave of nausea washing over me. “But this isn’t right.”
Millsy picked up one of my superstars. This one had his hand out, index finger and thumb shooting, forever frozen in the Idol choreography. She twisted it one way and then another, her brow wrinkled and squinting one eye. “Who is this supposed to be?”
“Millsy, why are you here?” I rolled my lips together, ignoring her question. “And please be careful. The boys at Arvon gave me those statues.”
She set the miniature piece of art down and leaned back in the huge chair. “You need a lawyer. You need a good lawyer and I figured you wouldn’t have one. Do you?”
I shook my head, my throat tightening. “I hate this. It’s so unfair.”
“My thoughts exactly.” She spread her arms out wide. “Which is why I drove down first thing this morning! Aren’t you thrilled you know me? And Scout, of course. Scout and Novy about blew up my phone in the last twenty-four hours, I kid you not.”
Despite the tension threatening to make my head explode, I snickered. “Thrilled is such an understatement right now.”
“Here’s the deal, friend. You need to be in that meeting.
We need to head this off now. You’re not going to get an attorney worth a damn on such short notice, not one who’ll take on the Pendletons.
So while I’m more into real estate these days, I still know my way around a contract and I’m not going to be intimidated.
I can get you through today’s meeting, at least.”
“Millsy, I don’t know what to say. I mean, thank you, but, I mean…” I gripped the arm of my chair. “You’re Miller Pendleton?”
“I know right? But Granddad doesn’t scare me.
And hopefully, Jasper’s here. We ate at the same breakfast table this morning, but that man has the best poker face, dang it.
If Jasper comes, we stand a chance, seriously.
We’ll get you a good severance package, a non-disclosure agreement or confidentiality provision, something that might improve the possibilities of you continuing to work in the league.
Not likely to save your job here. I think our best bet is to haggle for the least damaging exit package. ”
Haggle? Least damaging exit package? My fingers twisted into my skirt. This wasn’t a flea market and I wasn’t some dusty old lamp, ready to be bargained down to the lowest price. I was the damn Renegades video coach. I’d earned this opportunity, proven my worth.
“I get I’m asking a lot, Millsy, but I really want to keep this job.”
She nodded, once, stark acknowledgement of my words. “Let’s go. Time’s a tickin’.”
JT Pendleton’s office sat way up on the top floor of the Renegades Ice facility. The administrative side with the gleaming glass walls and people darting about on “important business” in immaculate, muted-color suits that blended in with the muted-color carpet and bland wall decor.
I marched beside Millsy, smashing down even the faintest hint of intimidation that tried to raise its head.
We passed Melani Tremblay where she poised in a doorway of a long line of glass-walled offices, her phone glued to her hand.
She muttered something too low for me to hear as Millsy passed, but Millsy didn’t pause.