“Where’s Owen?” He smoothed his white hair and looked expectantly at Jenna, Glen, and the two interns who had opportunistically wormed their way into the room the second they’d caught wind from John’s secretary, Mary, that there was an impromptu meeting in his office.
“Owen’s finishing up some training. I wouldn’t want to interrupt him unless you see value in it.” Jenna flashed a smile, hoping that explanation was satisfactory. The last thing she needed was Owen standing here whining to John that he’d been the one to find the account in the first place.
Jenna propped the tablet on her lap and pressed play. Gentry’s voice echoed through the room, the cheers and whistles of the televised hockey game droning behind his irreverent commentary. She focused on Glen and John’s expressions to keep from thinking about what they were seeing on the screen.
When the video finished, Jenna laid the tablet flat. Her pulse jumped like a bouncy ball tossed into a box. This was a brilliant idea, and John, with that glint in his eye, already knew it. But hearing Gentry’s deep baritone turned up to high volume had made her feel like she was breathing through a blanket.
Jenna forced a smile that she hoped looked sanguine. “I think we should get him as a guest sportscaster.”
Glen Kessler crossed his arms over his broad chest. As the long-time host of Hockey Evening in Canada, he was persistently well-manicured and had incredible posture from the waist up. “Those are hot takes. He’s going to piss off a lot of viewers.”
Accurate assessment, but pissing viewers off was the least of Jenna’s current concerns. The last thing she wanted to do was invite the man she’d nearly chosen to spend the rest of her life with into the studio, but HEC needed a facelift, and these numbers didn’t lie. She exhaled. “You’re right. It could cause quite a controversy.”
She’d dropped the bait. Now, she just had to wait and see if John would take it.
“My thoughts exactly.” John leaned forward and clapped his hands together. Jenna jumped then pushed her chair to the side as he stood and parted their impromptu staff huddle like the Red Sea. “We need to spice things up a bit, and this guy is straight cayenne.”
Well, that had been easier than she thought. Not that she’d worried John would put up any resistance. Last month, he’d been desperate enough to consider bringing in a musical act.
Glen sighed as he stood and followed in John’s footsteps toward the hall, his eyebrows dipping on his uniformly tan face. As much as they could after his most recent round of Botox. “He seems like a loose cannon, John. Do we want that on prime time? Especially after the whole Don Cherry debacle?”
John whirled, nearly throwing his arm into the face of the freckle-faced intern closest to him. “I’ll put the damn battle of the Dardanelles on prime time if it’ll increase our ratings!” He drew a breath, plastered a smile on his reddening face, and shook a beefy finger at Glen. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, no guest is going to replace your ass. If I were going to do that, it’d be with McAllister anyway.” He motioned to Jenna, then clapped Glen on the shoulder as they both burst out laughing.
Wow. Subtle. Normally, they at least pretended they’d consider putting a female personality on Hockey Evening in Canada if the right candidate arose. Jenna couldn’t tell if they found it more ridiculous that a woman could hold her own in Glen’s swivel chair or that said ovary owner could potentially be her.
Glen reached out and slid a hand over Jenna’s shoulder, pulling her close as if they were all in on the misogynistic comedy hour together. “You think the TikToker and I would work well together, Jens?”
Would the two of them work well together? Jenna forced a smile, her stomach turning to ice. Of course he wouldn’t consider if she would be a good addition to the desk. But the joke was on him because, no, they damn well wouldn’t. The image of Gentry relaxing on a leather couch with a Molson in his hand still sizzled in her mind’s eye. He always used to drink Labatt. Why did she remember that with such clarity?
Gentry had always been brazen. Unfiltered. The comedic relief because he didn’t shy away from telling it like it was. He was quick-witted and razor-sharp yet had a center so soft it oozed like an over-easy egg.
No. They would not work well together. Gentry would eat Kessler alive and enjoy every minute of it.
Jenna stumbled back as Glen’s hand migrated below the waistband of her skirt. She knocked into John’s office chair, leaving Glen’s digits hanging empty in midair. If she had a toonie for every time she’d had to bust out that maneuver. Glen had never done more than flirt and test her out, but it was enough to make bile rise in her throat. She didn’t owe Glen Kessler anything.
Jenna nodded with confidence. “Absolutely. I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise. In a single video, he managed to pull last weekend’s goal against the Flames into question, the legitimacy of this year’s draft, and Kuznetsov’s visa status.” She raised her non-Botoxed eyebrows for emphasis. “If that’s not spice, I don’t know what is.”
“He’s popular because he’s non-partisan.”
Jenna turned in surprise. The intern with the Coke bottle glasses and enough acne to make her believe he still only had a learner’s permit swallowed hard.
“What do politics have to do with this?” John’s eyes turned predatory, and Jenna almost felt bad for the barely postpubescent. It had only been seven years ago that she’d been in an identical situation in Windsor. Until the sportscaster took an interest in her.
Jenna shivered as the intern—Ren? Reece?—clutched his clipboard like a teddy bear. She watched, wondering if he was going to start sucking his thumb.
Instead, he licked his lips and straightened his shoulders. “Sorry if that was a loaded term. I meant that Country isn’t biased. He says what he thinks. He’s loyal to the sport, not a specific player or franchise.”
Jenna’s eyes narrowed. Country? “That’s his name?” She prodded, not wanting to give away the fact that she called him by something different.
He nodded. “I’m sure that’s not his real name, but that’s what everyone calls him.”
Jenna let this sink in. Where had Country come from? She was suddenly itching to know. When she realized the silence was stretching, she scrambled for filler. “You watch this channel?”
The intern scoffed. “Well, yeah. Who doesn’t?”
John’s eyes gleamed as they flicked back to Jenna’s. “You think you’ll be able to lock him in?”
Jenna tensed. This wasn’t a theoretical repartee in the boardroom with the other producers, this was an assignment that would potentially prove why she should take John’s place when he retired. Also an ask that would affect someone she knew personally. Someone she’d once known intimately.
