Chapter 4 Cassie
Cassie
I’m more fired than anyone in the history of fired people.
That’s all I can think of as my iced coffee goes soaring fast and hard through the air and smacks the fan right in the face.
My next thought: it's going to be hard to wash the iced coffee off the fan’s expensive-looking jersey. And then: the fan deserved it, because what a jerk.
“What the hell, man?” the Florida fan yells at Cole, who’s still glaring at him.
My heart is thumping wildly. That just spiraled out of control.
It gets worse fast.
Rick bursts through the arena doors. From the top of the steps, his eyes scan over Cole and me facing each other, the Florida fan, and the remnants of my iced coffee all over the sidewalk.
“You two!” Rick bellows at us. “Back inside, NOW.”
Cole is stony-faced. He doesn’t look at me as he shrugs, then follows Rick back inside. I take a breath and hurry after them.
Adrenaline and dread course through me as we follow Rick through the arena hallways.
Rick’s ranting and raving as he walks: he got a flood of messages from coworkers that some sports blogger fan was livestreaming Cole Taylor getting into an argument on the street, but that wasn’t possible because Rick knew for a fact Cole Taylor was in a meeting with his best junior agent—
He finally takes a breath when we reach an empty office. “Wait here. Both of you. Do not cause any more trouble. I mean it.”
“I’m so sorry, Rick,” I begin. “I should’ve shut the situation down sooner—”
But he’s already slamming the door shut behind him and barreling away, probably to get ahead of the story with the Nor’easters’ front office. Front office, who are already at the end of their tether with Cole.
Alone in the little office room, I look at Cole.
He looks back at me.
Silence fills the air. Ice-cold, tense silence.
My phone dings. Then dings again. And again.
Oh, god. I silence it without even checking my messages. People are probably already circulating clips through the hockey world like wildfire. I can imagine Spencer’s delighted face right now.
I can visualize the sports media headlines, too, and they’re all making me nauseous. Cole Taylor and Junior-Agent-Nobody Who Will Never Be a Real Agent Now Spar Outside The Nor’easters Arena; Taylor Throws Perfectly Good Iced Coffee All Over Douchebag.
Cole drags one chair out from the desk and sits down, but I don’t take the one next to him. I pace the small length of the room.
“Why, Cole? You’re already in trouble with the team. A viral clip of you nailing a fan with a Dunkin’ large is not going to help anything.”
“He was being disrespectful.” Cole looks up to face me, expression cold. I definitely try not to notice that even when he’s sitting down, I’m still barely taller than his seated height. “Why should a fan get to speak to me that way—speak about you that way—and not expect any consequences?”
I stop pacing. Because, well, I technically do agree with Cole. Fans are always overstepping their boundaries and forgetting players are human beings.
But did Cole just admit he was bothered by what the fan said about me? Specifically, something gross and sexual and demeaning?
The worst part is, as a woman trying to become a sports agent, I’m used to it.
The fan’s comment rolled right off me because I’ve forced myself to withstand that kind of thing.
Admittedly, it’s usually not something as in-your-face gross as what that fan screamed, but it’s something I can always feel bubbling under the surface.
A lot of women work at Legacy Sports… but not as agents.
Spencer never gets mistaken for the receptionist. Spencer never gets called ‘sweetheart’ by team execs.
One time at an agency party someone asked Rick if I was his daughter, which put Rick in a terrible mood for the rest of the night.
(“I am not old enough to have a daughter your age, goddamn it.” He is, but that’s okay.)
“Sure,” I say to Cole, my voice a little softer, “but throwing my iced coffee wasn’t the best response. I was supposed to handle this for Rick, and now I’m going to be in so much trouble. We both are.”
Rick sent me to do a routine task that any junior agent should be able to do—take a client meeting without him for once—and thanks to Cole, it completely blew up in my face.
Cole’s eyes flicker. “Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn't intend to get you into any trouble." His mouth hardens into a firm line. !But what's done is done."
“Gee, thanks a lot for the heartfelt apology.”
I sink down onto the chair, determined not to talk to Cole again until Rick gets back, preferably maybe never again.
The worst part is that the teenage girl that still lives within the heart of every grown woman—she was actually excited to see Cole again tonight.
In fact, her stomach was doing fluttery little flips at the sight of him on the ice.
The same part of me that’s trying to very deliberately ignore the size of his presence next to me.
But the twenty-seven-year-old grown woman who makes up the rest of me now feels absolutely vindicated in my dislike of him. He’s just as rude as when I first ran into him five years ago. Not that he even remembers that. Big surprise there.
Annoyingly, he’s also just as gorgeous.
Another thought I try to ignore.
Instead, I repeat my mantra in my head. Glass half full. Imagine beating cupcake batter. Stay positive, Cassie, because it’s what you do.
It’s a real challenge right now.
An anxious blur of minutes goes by, and then Rick’s loud footsteps are approaching. He bursts in through the office door, a stormy expression on his face.
“All right,” Rick says darkly, taking a seat across the desk from us. “Listen up, you two.”
I take a deep breath. Great, now this is really going to ruin my love of hockey for me, because I’m about to be fired inside the Nor’easters’ arena.
And to make it all the more horrible, I’m going to be fired while sitting next to my former celebrity crush, who’s the whole reason I’m in trouble.
“That was a goddamn shitshow. What were you thinking, Cole? Throwing a drink at a fan?”
Cole shrugs. “Lost my temper.”
Rick huffs, clearly unmoved by this defense. “Fans chirp at players all the time. You ignore them, you move on.” He pauses. “The old Cole would never have given that fan the time of day.”
The old Cole. I can’t help but notice how Cole tenses at that.
“And you,” Rick says, turning to me. “It was your job to take a quick meeting with Cole about improving his public image. Not to douse his image in gasoline and set it on fire.”
His words hit me hard enough to bruise. It feels awful letting my mentor down.
“I’m really sorry, Rick—” I begin, but Rick raises a hand to cut me off.
“The damage is done, and this time it’s serious. Cole, I just met with Coach Reed and the GM. The higher-ups aren’t happy.” He pauses, voice lowering. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but… the front office is seriously threatening to trade you.”
It’s like the air is sucked from the room.
The words roll over me, my stomach sinking.
“You’re one of the league’s very best goalies—no one’s denying that—but management is nearly at its breaking point.
They want a team who can pull together and make the playoffs without causing a shitstorm of bad PR every other week.
Plus, your contract ends this season. They’d rather trade you away and get assets for you now than let you walk away in free agency. ”
Cole’s jaw clenches, his voice tight and low. “Fuck no. I’ve been with New England since I was drafted. I’m not going anywhere else.”
“Unfortunately for you, you’re an athlete. If they decide to trade you, you’re gone. You’ll be shipped off to some cellar-dweller team in the middle of a rebuild with no real chance at a cup.”
A cold, tense silence fills the room.
Rick pauses. “Unless.”
“Unless?” Cole echoes.
“Unless you get your shit together. Clean up your act. Make it to this season’s trade deadline without causing any more drama.
And that is where you come in…” Rick swivels in his chair to face me, and my stomach plummets.
“You break it, you fix it. This is your job now, Cassie. I’ve got enough work to do without cleaning up the mess caused by my junior agents. ”
I swallow. “What can I possibly do to stop the Nor’easters trading Cole?”
“You ever have a job back in high school?” Rick asks.
I blink, confused by the pivot. I’ve been working since I was fourteen; my mom needed all the help she could get to pay the bills. “Um, sure… I worked in a Froyo shop in the mall. I washed dishes in a restaurant. Oh, and sometimes I’d babysit the kids in our apartment building.”
“Bingo.” Rick grins, but it’s all teeth, no joy in it.
My stomach flips as I pick up Rick’s meaning.
Oh no—
Panic hits me like ice water.
“This woman is now your handler,” he tells Cole. “Your liaison. Your supervisor. Whatever the hell you want to call it. Point is, wherever you go, she goes too. Whatever bullshit you feel like causing, she keeps you in line.”
Cole rises to his feet, leaning over the desk. “I don’t need a babysitter, Rick. This is ridiculous.”
“You should’ve thought about that before you threw an iced coffee at a fan right outside your team’s arena.”
“Why me?” I blurt out. “I mean, with all due respect, Rick… I’m not sure Cole and I are the best fit to work together, given what happened today.”
Translation: We clearly can’t stand each other.
Rick barks out a humorless laugh. “If you want to be a top agent, you’re going to have to work with people you actively want to murder. That’s the job, Cassie. Do you want a chance at a promotion or not?”
Do I want the job? I think about watching hockey as a kid—the feeling of total joy it gave me. I think about the years of working toward this. I think of how blissfully good it will finally feel to know that I belong.
To know that I’ll be accepted even if the truth about my father ever comes out.
I nod. “Yes, I want the job. More than anything.”
“Then you do this assignment damn well, because that’s the only way you’re going to be in with even half a shot at getting the promotion.”
I push aside all the nerves in my chest and put on my best and brightest smile. It takes a lot of effort. “I won’t let you down again, Rick.”
Cole grits his teeth. “She agrees to it, but I’m not agreeing to it.”
“Then you get traded.” Rick shrugs. “I’m on your team here, Cole. I want you to stay with New England, win a cup, and get a big, fat contract extension. I’m handing over one of my most talented junior agents just to make sure that happens.”
Cole’s eyes flicker. This is a man who likes to win, but I can see when he knows he’s beaten.
“I know this isn’t ideal for either of us. But I want to help you.” I hold out my hand to him, forcing my smile wider. “Deal?”
His eyes drop to my outstretched hand. He takes it, his hand enclosing mine.
There’s suddenly a soft, hot jolt of my pulse at the feeling of just how huge his hand is around my fingers.
I catch his masculine scent, something clean and fresh like pine.
His stare holds mine—I look into those deep emerald eyes I saw on his rookie poster on my bedroom wall every night when I was seventeen.
Oh god, am I in trouble.
And the trouble only gets worse when Cole speaks.
“Deal,” he says, eyes fixed on my face. His voice is rough as gravel. “Sounds like you and I are going to be seeing a lot of each other, Cassie Wells.”