“I’m on my off hours,” I growl.
“No”—she pinches my arm—“you’re not.” She gives Dana a big smile. Her eye is twitching. “Have a nice drink. Alcohol sounds fantastic right now.”
I watch, dying inside, as my mark dismisses us silently and steps into the elevator. A bellboy rushes for her bag.
“You,” Ellie hisses at me, jabbing her finger in my chest, “are on babysitting duty. That means you don’t go around trying to get laid.”
“I’m not,” I scoff.
“Yes, you are. God, you NHL players are the worst. You know, maybe you’d be a better player if you weren’t thinking with your dick all the time.”
“Holy—”
“Don’t,” she warns.
“Shit, you’re jealous, aren’t you?”
“I’m not attracted to any of you. I know how you smell after a game,” she sputters.
“Yeah?” I round on her. “You wish it was you I had in my hotel room earlier. Don’t you?” She’s backing away from me. Her back hits the wall with the elevator buttons. “Tell me, and be honest—did you take this coaching job because your love life is a disaster and you thought you’d make a rich NHL player fall in love with you?” I step up into her personal space.
“I like my men to have teeth and job security. I also like them to follow instructions, so where the hell is Zayne, whom you’re supposed to be watching?”
“What? He’s in my room.”
“Try again. He’s not there.”
“Dammit. I wasn’t even gone that long.” Ellie races after me as I exit the elevator and head across the lobby. “What are you doing? Go up to the terrace—they have a bar up there,” I snap at her.
She turns and runs back to the elevators.
Zayne’s not in the fancy main hotel bar, where all the sports media are gathered to schmooze and network and talk shop about tomorrow’s game. I sprint down the hall and around the corner to the little speakeasy in the back of the hotel.
In a dark corner, there’s Zayne, settling in to five fingers of scotch. There’s an empty glass next to him already.
“Dude, what the hell?” I blow out a breath. It’s reminding me of having to take care of my mother, where I had to be the adult even though I was still having to walk in a single-file line and raise my hand to speak in elementary school.
Zayne looks down as I grab the glass.
“We have a game tomorrow.” I let my frustration lace the words. I slam the glass on the bar. “Do not,” I tell the bartender, “serve that man for the rest of his time here, or I’m going to get my hockey stick and smash every goddamn bottle up there.”
“Fletch, I just—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” I drag Zayne up to our room.
He slumps on the bed. The handcuffs are still in my pocket.
I snap one cuff on his wrist then snap the other on my own and turn out the light.
Zayne breathes in the dark.
“I used to want to be you,” I say into the blackness. “I used to want it more than anything in the world.”
Zayne rubs his eyes. “I’m really sorry, Fletch.” He sounds like he means it.
17
ELLIE
