Chapter 8 Julian #2
“It’s a very good answer,” she says. “I was in the middle of something.”
“What were you in the middle of?”
A brief pause. “A podcast.”
“About what?”
Another pause, slightly longer. “Reptile care.”
I blink in surprise. “But… why?”
Harper blows out a breath. “Dylan keeps lobbying for a snake, and I keep saying no, because… eww… snakes, but in fairness, I don’t know much about what it would take,
so I’m doing due diligence research to hopefully find information about caring for a snake that gives me a good reason to continue to deny him the request, because… Ewww… snakes apparently isn’t good enough for him.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I’m impressed by your foresight, but you’re sitting alone in a cold car and there is a full suite upstairs with food, drinks and a hockey game that, by your own admission, you know nothing about and perhaps should.”
“But I’m your driver,” she says. “Not your guest.”
“Tonight you’re both.”
She opens her mouth and I cut her off before she can reload. “The team is implementing your community campaign next week. You should probably understand the sport you’re about to help promote.”
That lands. I can see it in the slight shift of her expression—not quite caught, but close. “That’s a bit of a stretch,” she drawls.
“It’s entirely reasonable.”
The corner of her mouth moves. Just barely, but I catch it. “I wouldn’t know what I’m watching,” she tries.
“I’ll explain it.”
“I’d have a lot of questions.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
She looks like she’s searching for the exit from a conversation that has systematically closed off every available route.
“Harper.” I gather myself and choose my words before speaking. “I’m suggesting to you, as your employer, that it would be good for you to watch the game.” I hate that I’m using authority to get her agreement, but I’m also not above such tactics.
Finally, she lets out a slow breath of capitulation. “If I embarrass myself by asking obvious questions in front of important people, that’s entirely on you.”
“Agreed,” I say immediately.
Harper leans over to grab her phone from the floorboard and then steps out of the car, offering me a somewhat reluctant smile before she schools it back into neutrality.
The second period is minutes away and I think the game will be best observed from the first row of seats that border the balcony overlooking center ice.
When we enter, all eyes come to me because I’m always the man of the hour.
Harper gets curious glances, but it’s hard to tell who she is.
Her black trousers and jacket are tailored well enough that she’d easily be mistaken for someone in my business orbit.
I manage to put off more handshakes or attempts at people trying to stop me to schmooze by blaming my desire to watch the imminent start of the second period.
Everyone accepts it because no one would dare insist otherwise.
I notice a slight adjustment in Harper’s posture as we walk through the suite—upright and proud, but also stiff with tension.
I know she’s out of her element. I grab two sparkling waters from a sterling silver ice chest with the Vipers’ logo embossed on it and lead her to the first row of balcony seats.
There’s no one else sitting there and I follow her all the way to the far end of the row that abuts a slanted wall separating us from the next suite over.
I hand her the drink and she murmurs a thank-you.
She looks out at the rink below and I watch her take it in. The freshly resurfaced ice gleaming under arena lights, the players filtering out for warm-ups and the crowd settling back into their seats.
“It looks bigger on the inside than it does the outside,” she observes, turning her head my way.
A memory hits me, my first visit when I was a little boy. “It always is. The first time.”
Harper turns slightly toward me. “You remember your first time?”
I nod, eyes cutting briefly down to the ice.
This arena’s been renovated significantly since then, but I remember the details.
“I was six the first time my dad brought me here. We didn’t do much together, but since he owned the team, it was expected I start coming to the games. Luckily, I loved it, so it was always special. Back then, the players didn’t wear helmets, sticks were made of wood versus carbon fiber,
and fighting was expected to make a game good.”
“Were you close to your dad?” she asks, and I’m surprised at the question.
It’s very personal, borderline invasive to ask someone you’ve only known a few days.
In fact, I’m not sure anyone’s asked me such a thing about myself.
And yet, I’m glad she asked it. It’s a major fracture in the wall she keeps around herself.
“No,” I answer truthfully, my eyes cutting back to the ice where the players are lining up for the face-off. “My dad was what many people call ‘emotionally unavailable.’ His first love was his empire.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, and I look back to her in surprise. Her empathy is far too overserved in this situation.
“Don’t be,” I assure her with a reassuring smile. “I had other good male influences in my life.”
“Percy,” she says with a confident nod, and I stare at her agog that she would make such a leap.
Such an accurate assumption, because yes, Percy was more of a father to me growing up than my own dad ever was.
The crack of sticks clashing over the puck draws my attention as the face-off is completed, and the crowd roars to open the start of the second period.
“Okay. Explain it to me,” Harper says as she leans forward to watch the game, elbows on her knees, her eyes tracking the puck.
Not a request.
An order, and I find it adorable. I doubt she even knows she’s done it… commanded the owner of the Vipers to teach her the fundamentals of the game. No one else would dare, and I’d never submit to such a thing.
I’m not submitting now, but I find it refreshing, this enigmatic woman sitting beside me, struggling to survive in New York while raising a teenage brother, who isn’t impressed with fancy steak lunches or owner’s suites but has tenaciously decided to learn this game.
“Okay… twenty players on each side,” I begin. “Six on the ice at a time—three forwards, two defensemen, one goalie. The objective is simple. The execution is not.”
Below us, Grizz takes the ice and Harper’s eyes track him immediately. “He’s big.”
“He’s one of the best wingers in the league,” I say.
I watch Harper watch the game and find it more interesting than the game itself. She asks astute questions, and when she doesn’t, I provide tidbits I think she might find helpful.
“Why did they stop?” she asks, two minutes in after the play is whistled.
“Offsides. The puck has to enter the zone before the attacking players do—meaning the puck has to cross over that line before any part of the player does.”
“That seems arbitrary,” she quips.
“It prevents players from camping in front of the goal and waiting,” I say. “It forces the play to build and makes the game more complex.”
She considers this with the same focused attention she gives everything. “Okay. That makes sense.”
A shift later, our defenseman, Zane Nolan, takes a hard hit into the boards directly below the suite. Harper jolts, face scrunched up with a wince as the crowd reacts with an offended roar.
“Is he all right?” she asks as Nolan shakes it off, zipping after the puck.
“He’s fine. That’s a clean hit.”
“Clean perhaps, but also violent.”
I wonder if that’s distasteful to her, and for some reason, it’s important to me that she like the game at the cornerstone of my business empire. “Hockey’s a contact sport. The boards are part of it.”
“I like that he just kept on going, as if it was nothing. It’s like a metaphor for shaking off the bad and chasing the good.”
I stare at her, again touched by the impactful words she offers up so effortlessly. Her eyes follow the action and the way her body leans even more forward tells me she’s excited about it.
On the ice, Grizz takes a pass in the slot and buries it—top corner, clean and decisive.
The suite explodes behind us and Harper jumps up, fists raised.
“Yes!!!” she yells and then turns to me, holding out her palm.
I stand, give her a high five and join the rest of the crowd in cheering the goal.
Every bit of professional composure she’s been maintaining for two days has slipped, revealing what’s underneath.
She’s enjoying herself and for some as-yet inexplicable reason, that brings me immense gratification.