Chapter 2 #2
Rumor has it was Peatie’s favorite line.
Over a year ago, Peatie had pulled my number from the Chimera’s business directory and decided he, as a mini media PR mogul, would ‘assist’ me by providing daily updates.
Usually, his information was actually helpful.
I stayed off social media unless I needed it, and he was fairly reliable with his sources of comings and goings in the sports world, major shifts, scandals, etc.
, etc., etc. Even if we weren’t friends, I did appreciate the work he put in.
I nodded a lot, put in a few well placed ‘yeps’ and hung up without wasting too much time.
Twenty minutes later, my mind was as blank as it had been before Valentine appeared in the office doorway.
I glanced at my phone and made a call that I hated.
Asking for help had never been my strong point, but right now I didn't see your way around it.
CORA: Best approach for Valentine?
COACH: Straight up. You’ll earn his respect fastest for that.
CORA: Even after this morning?
I felt pitiful, begging for validation.
COACH: Test the waters. Valentine’s not a shit stirrer. He's a protector. But if you threaten the team, he'll come straight for you.
CORA: Great. Thanks.
I read over the text messages once more and straightened. Time to face the music. I'd made him wait long enough.
“Valentine,” I called in a clear voice.
Dammit, I should've gone to the kitchen and made another stale coffee.
Or tea. Or matcha, even. Anything that contained caffeine would've been worth it.
I poked my head out of the office and nearly ran straight into a Chimera jersey-wearing chest. Had he been waiting right outside the doorway?
It was a damn good thing I didn't recite my notes out loud, selling state secrets to the nearest bidder for free.
I found myself nose-to-recyclable-takeaway-cup he presented me with.
"What's this?"
"I wasn't sure if you ate today. We can be a handful."
I blinked at the group pronoun usage. Not I, but we.
My head canted one side as I repeated his phrase and threw his words back at him, reversing their meaning.
"Have you eaten today?" I ushered him into the office, watching carefully as he placed the tall takeaway cup onto my desk alongside a brown paper bag. "Should I be checking for a bomb?"
Valentine was careful with his motions and I cursed myself for my positioning in not being able to see his face when he responded. "Yes. No."
I closed my mouth, closed the door, and waited for more.
My captive Chimera stood with his back to me. Perhaps our waiting game was a two sided coin. Unable to stand still and yet craving to see his expression, I circled around him, giving the huge man as wide a berth as Coach’s small office allowed.
I found it interesting that Coach could've asked for a much larger office in this building, but didn't. My own office in the adjacent building was double the size but we had decided that the interviews needed to be here today.
I made a mental note to ask if he could be moved later for more space since he well and truly earned it putting up with the players like the one tormenting me now.
"No?"
"Coffee. Lunch. It’s there for you.”
I nodded. Valentine still didn't move as I finished my circle. “And have you?"
When he didn't answer, I looked up and discovered the office was so much smaller than I expected. Because Heath was right fucking there. I slid the food and coffee across the desk, sat my ass down, and scooted Coach’s thread bare chair that was most definitely not leather several feet back to garner myself breathing room.
"Why does Coach have his office here? The smallest office here,” I murmured, then cursed myself for bothering. That was a question for either Hux or Solace who had been around the team for years, rather than a man who joined the Chimeras full ranks weeks ago and wouldn't be here by week’s end.
Heath Valentine stared at me with unreadable black eyes. That same shadow as before flickered across his unfathomable gaze before it disappeared as fast as it came on. Unblinking, unyielding. This man was as hard as fuck and the only way I would get in would be if he would let me.
Don't threaten the team.
Ward Bishop’s advice was solid. As coach, he held responsibility over the team, but unfortunately, the rest of the Chimeras hadn't left me much of an option. Everything rode on what Valentine said to me in the next twenty minutes.
"He wants to be close to the ice. To the team. Here for what we need.” Valentine returned my study, though his stance remained relaxed.
I raised both eyebrows ,mimicking his behavior from before. "Are you also a mind reader?"
The faint smile from before lifted Valentine's plush arched lips. “I asked him the same question on my first day."
"Why?"
His smile remained." Because I expected all executives—which Coach definitely isn't—to work in a gold gilt office. To a poor kid from a shit neighborhood this place looks like a palace. But—” He watched me carefully, " —you know that."
I did know that.
"Did you say anything else?" I forestalled his next question. Valentine never blinked at my interruption. I offered an olive branch. “I don’t want anyone off the team. It’s my job to be a barrier here too.” Even if I don’t wear a jersey.
"He told me to take care of the team in Solace’s absence."
"Is that why you took the traumatized girl to your car?"
"Yes." The images of Valentine were burned into my mind, but I glanced down at the black and white photo anyway, just to check. See if I was wrong, but I knew I wasn’t.
Even grainy the image was clear, but with height, his shoulders were recognizable beneath a taut black shirt as he held a leather jacket across her tiny frame.
"Do you know who did this?" I pushed the tabloid on top of the pile across the desk to him.
"Yes."
Alright. It was a one word answer, but we were getting somewhere. Because that yes was more than anyone else had given me all day.
I blew out a shallow breath. My heart began to pound. If this was my crux point, I had no idea how to approach it. Maybe Valentine was right. I was exhausted, after all. A ten minute nap would relife my batteries. My vision blurred. I shook my head, attempting to focus.
Valentine still watched me carefully, his breath slowing. "You should eat something."
My hands drifted towards the brown paper bag without my permission. I snatched them back. "Let's finish this first."
Wait, did I just give him a concession? Did I actually just agree to do what he said? This man was bad for me. He needed to get out of the office as soon as he could. But first I needed to finish this.
"Will you tell me who?" Shit. That was a close ended question. I'm better than this.
"No." His enigmatic smile was back again.
Damnit. I earned that. I offered him a faint smile of my own. That one was on me.
"Fair enough." I gestured to the seat opposite my borrowed desk, unsurprised when he didn't move or acknowledge me in any way.
No one had used that seat all day.
It was time for a different approach. "Did you get your jacket back?"
I knew he didn't. It was hanging in the cupboard Coach’s tiny bathroom off the side of the office.
At least he didn’t use the communal one.
Though the state of his desk chair did match the size of his office en suite. I knew what I was getting Coach for Christmas.
That was, assuming we all still had jobs next week.
"Not yet," Valentine said softly, rolling his shoulders as though he missed the black leather that was splashed all over the front of every tabloid I picked up this morning.
I nodded. "Tell me about last night." I didn't make it a question. That one was open and he could take it as he liked. I needed to get his gauge fast.
My hands strayed towards the take away coffee. I picked it up without much thought, my palms sinking into its heat before my brain cussed me out for accepting his offering so freely.
"You need something, Cora, or you’ll end up with a headache."
I ignored the pain already blooming behind my eyes for exactly that reason.
“Are you open to a role as my conscience? Last night," I reminded him as I cradled the coffee and took a sip.
Pure black coffee, no sugar, no cream. The syrupy liquid slipped down my throat. My eyes shuttered and I swore I could count the shots in that steaming cup.
Hot enough to burn, but not scald. Only one place made coffee that perfect. Pity that I never made it halfway across town on my lunch break or before work to get there.
My eyes snapped open as the implications hit me. "That coffee shop is twenty minutes away. Did you drive out to get this?" Indignation burned the back of my throat, turning sweet syrup to bitter dregs.
His enigmatic smile returned. “I can jog."
That. Boy.
Puck me over, these chimeras were going to kill me.
I clutched my coffee to my chest. That drink was mine and I refused to give it up, even if it meant handing over concessions to a Chimera I didn’t trust this early in.
"Did you ask someone?" My brain whirred, trying to work out who spilled the literal beans on my preferences.
Valentine watched me. "Her name is Corinne Weathers.
I can provide her address. She was safe when I dropped her off at four a.m. No one on the team touched her, and none of them deserve to lose their jobs.
" His mouth shut and he tipped his head to one side.
“That's all that you need to know, Cora. Eat. The headache will go away."
I stared at him. The cup rose in my hands and I took a deep sip, the action mesmerizing to both of us as his almost black eyes deepened impossibly.
"I'm glad you enjoy the coffee." And then Heath Cupid Valentine turned around and walked out of my temporary office like he had just been dismissed.
Only we weren’t anywhere near done.
I clutched my coffee and tried not to pick at the brown paper bag as his perfectly formed tush left the office. Gray sweats should be illegal. I didn’t have to look to know that the bag he had left me contained a cream cheese and lox toasted bagel.
My favorite.