I groan and slap my hands over my face like that will block out the memory. Spoiler alert. It does not.
“Okay,” I tell myself. “HR lecture. Right now.”
I sit up straight and pretend I am my own stern supervisor.
“Annabelle,” I mutter, “you are a trained, competent professional. You work in high level sports operations and PR. You do not make out with players on couches in your office like a walking scandal. That is what bad decisions and reality shows are for.”
I point at my laptop.
“You have a meeting in fifteen minutes. Coach. Players. Staff. There will be charts. Focus on the charts. Not on Bryce’s jawline. Or his hands. Or his ridiculously unfair mouth. He is just a man.”
My brain whispers, very unhelpfully…A tall, annoyingly gorgeous, stupidly magnetic man.
“Stop it,” I hiss at myself. “Boundaries.”
I grab my notebook and stand. My legs feel fine. Totally steady. Not at all like they remember how it felt when he pinned me to the couch and…
I slam my office door shut behind me before that sentence finishes.
Team meeting. Focus. Work.
If I say it enough times, maybe it will be true.
The conference room is noisy when I walk in. Dex is trying to balance three water bottles on his head. Eli is failing to pretend he is not recording it. Colby is drawing something that might be a goat or might be a deformed cat on the whiteboard. I decide not to ask.
Coach Ryder stands at the head of the table, arms folded, judgment radiating off him like heat.
“Sit,” he barks.
Everyone scrambles for a chair.
I slide into a spot near the middle, flip open my notebook, and keep my eyes firmly on Coach. Not on the empty seat across from me. Not on the door.
“Holiday break,” Coach says, “is not Operation Lose Brain Cells. That means no scandals. No viral clips. No half drunk live streams. No tattoos anywhere on Dex that I have to hear about later. Understand?”
The guys snicker.
Dex raises his hand. “What about temporary tattoos?”
“No,” Coach says without blinking.
“What about piercings?”
“Dex.”
“I am just clarifying the rules, Coach. For science.”
Coach glares. “If you show up to practice with glitter on your face, I am bag skating you until you cry.”
Shelly coughs to hide a laugh. Colby fails completely.
And then the door opens.
Bryce walks in.
Late, of course.
He is in a black hoodie and worn jeans, hair damp from a shower, jaw freshly shaved. He looks… normal. Casual. Like he did not recently take my bra off with one hand and ruin my ability to think in complete sentences.
