“I go to Bronze Baxx,” Glen murmured, but Jenna ignored him.
“Makeup is necessary for the broadcast, but I promise it won’t be too painful,” John clapped Gentry on the back as he passed to his desk. “I can’t tell you how excited I am for this. Oh—” John snapped his fingers, and Mary jumped up from her chair. “Give him the numbers.”
Mary wrote something on her notepad and turned it to Gentry. He did a double-take. “Two thousand dollars?”
“You’d make more if you had an agent.” John rifled through his desk drawer and pulled out his computer glasses then sat in his chair. “I recommend you get one. With social media numbers like that, you’re going to be getting calls from more than just old geezers like me. We’ll have a check for you on Saturday.”
Gentry nodded, his jaw working as his eyes dropped back to the note in his hand. Jenna stood and spun toward the door to escape first as John began hen-pecking letters on his keyboard.
She’d made it two strides when John said, “Jenna, take Country and Kessler to your office and get on the same page with those topics, then we can submit them to the writing team.”
“We could do that over email, I think,” she offered, but John scoffed.
“You’ve got them both here. Knock it out.”
Jenna clenched her jaw, nodded once, and headed toward the hall. It wouldn’t take long. There were only twelve points, and?—
She stiffened as an arm snaked over her shoulders. Glen squeezed in close so they could both slip through the doorway. “I’ve got tickets to The Laugh Shop on Thursday night if you want to come out? Live a little?”
Jenna laughed and veered to the right, pretending she wanted a mint from the front desk to escape his grip. “I know how to live, Kessler. It involves a glass of wine and my bathtub.”
“Well, if you’re asking?—”
“My tub isn’t big enough for two, unfortunately.” She winked and refused to look at Gentry a few steps behind Glen.
“You can’t take one night away from your routine?” Glen didn’t roll over like he normally did, probably because he’d taken a risk in asking her out in front of their special guest. Realization hit as Jenna strode into her office. That was exactly why he’d asked. He was peacocking. Which meant, if she wounded his pride by saying an unequivocal no, he’d most likely take that out on her in the boardroom.
“Are you talking about this Thursday?” Gentry asked nonchalantly as they strode through her office door. Jenna sat in her swivel chair and motioned for them to sit on the couch in front of her. She liked this view. Finally the tallest one in the room.
Glen looked perturbed. “Yeah, I was?—”
“I only ask because I think that’s the only time I’m going to have for media training. I’ve got practice, two games this week, and work until five. That’s my only open night.”
Kessler turned. “You made the meeting today at three.”
“With my brother taking over at the ranch. John said you’d be able to work around my schedule.” Gentry’s face was friendly, but Jenna didn’t miss the muscle feathering in his jaw.
Glen nodded. “Right. I can switch the tickets or?—”
“Oh, no need, bud. It didn’t sound like everyone needed to be here for the training. If Jenna’s in the control room, I’m sure she can handle it.” Gentry turned to her. “I could be here by six. Should still give you time to get back to your tub.”
Gentry gave another lazy smile, but his eyes stripped her down, reminding her that he knew exactly what she looked like stepping into steaming water with candles lit.
“Thursday, then,” Jenna squeaked. “I’ll take a rain check, Glen?” She smiled, hoping he wouldn’t hold this one against her since her hands were now tied by Gentry’s request. She winced. Not a mental image that was helping.
Kessler nodded, and as soon as Owen took his seat with his fresh cup of coffee, Jenna whirled on her chair to pull the list up on her much larger computer monitor and handed her tablet to Gentry to look at the list. Country. Damn it, she needed to keep thinking about him not as the Gentry she knew. “These will all be typed up, which doesn’t mean you have to say what the writers put on the prompter—we’ll talk more about that at training. Right now we just need to get a list of things you’re okay with.”
Gen—Country nodded and held the screen over so Kessler could see. She’d sent the list to him that morning but doubted he’d given it more than a cursory glance. They went through the list one by one, and somehow talking hockey didn’t help lower Jenna’s heart rate.
Country knew his stuff. Inside and out. He wasn’t like Kessler who had to study up before the weekend. Country lived and breathed this sport, just like he had when they were younger. It had been obvious from his videos online, but seeing how quick he was on his feet in person made all the available neurons in her brain light up.
This was the excuse she’d given for breaking up with him so many years ago. Because when he was in her life, she was physically incapable of focusing on anything else. He was all-consuming, even when she was three thousand kilometres away. She’d rehearsed her lines: “that it hurt too much to miss him” and that “it was impossible for them to keep trying to travel back and forth while they were both in school and trying to live some semblance of a student life.”
It was all true. And it was all completely false.
“Jenna?”
“Hmm?” Her eyes snapped up at Owen’s voice.
