“What happened here?” Gunnar asked as those pale blue eyes darted back and forth, like he was scanning me for injury.
I held out my phone, because my diaphragm was too busy seizing. Thankfully, it was still open to the team’s social media page. “This? I saw it a few minutes ago.”
Gunnar met my gaze briefly before he swiped through the comments. His scowl lightened, and then his eyebrows shot upward. A smile lifted his lips.
“You’re fine,” Jay said as he handed Tim a bandage. “It’s barely a scrape, but it might bruise.”
Gunnar had looked up to confirm this diagnosis, but he now brought his attention back to my phone. “I have to hand it to you,” he said. “This is pretty clever. But how did you pull it off?” His icy eyes settled on me, but they didn’t seem cold. They were warm, like the hottest of flames.
I shivered. “I may have had some help from Tim,” I admitted, finally able to breathe again. Reluctantly, I sat up. “He was more than happy to assist.”
I leaned over so I, too, could view the screen. Even some of the players had joined the fun. We had stumbled upon social media gold.
“You know,” Gunnar said, “we could use this to our advantage. What if we actually put me in as goalie for a practice session? We could livestream it and have the players take shots. It could be a fun twist on next year’s charity event.”
“It might get more interest than this year’s game,” Jay grumbled. “Those celebrities were awful.”
Gunnar raised his eyebrows. “I thought I played well.”
Jay’s face suffused with color. “You did. I meant the others. They were…”
“Tiffany was a hot mess,” Tim said, looking a little better now that his Band-Aid was in place. “And it was great publicity for her because she’s grown her audience with the videos she posted. Who knew falling on your ass would garner so many millions of views?”
I rolled my eyes, not interested in Tiffany or Jay’s embarrassment. I smiled at Gunnar. “I like your idea. And we could have fans vote on which player gets to take the last shot. It’s interactive, it’s entertaining, and it shows that the Wildcatters don’t take themselves so seriously that they’ve forgotten hockey is a game.”
“Let’s talk more after we get you two casualties off the floor,” Gunnar said. He gripped my hands and tugged me up. Once I was on my feet, he continued to hold my hands, his thumbs brushing back and forth over my wrists. “You okay? Steady?” he asked, concern in his eyes.
I nodded as I blushed, then glanced at Jay, whose eyes had zeroed in on where Gunnar caressed my skin. “Y-yes. I’m good. Thank you.”
“Be more careful,” Gunnar murmured, his words low, just for me. “I was worried.”
I lifted my eyes, and my breath caught. “Okay.” Then, because he didn’t appear satisfied, I added, “I promise.”
Offering a lopsided smile, he let go of my hands after one more caress. He placed his hand at the small of my back and ushered me out into the large workspace in the center of the floor. We followed Tim and Jay to a table, and Gunnar pulled out a chair for me—right next to his. I swallowed my giddiness and tried to keep my professional demeanor intact, though I knew Jay was burning with questions he wouldn’t let me sidestep.
Not that I had answers for him. I didn’t know what was going on with Gunnar, and I didn’t know what I wanted. Well, that wasn’t quite true. I wanted Gunnar. He was witty, urbane, and effortlessly sexy, confident without being overt. My lady bits had taken notice, and those glacial eyes, when they warmed for me, made me swoon.
But I didn’t want to be the woman dating her boss. I hated the idea that people would believe I’d landed here because of my bedroom skills.
I took a breath, my lungs functioning normally now, and tried to get my libido and common sense back on the same page. It took some time as we fleshed out the details of what we’d now dubbed the “Gunnar in Goal Challenge,” but eventually I reined myself in. Gunnar owned the company. He was my boss. He never crossed the line, so I wouldn’t either.
“While we can nudge the direction, the excitement will more likely grow and interest increase if it’s organic,” I said as Jay created posts for the next few weeks.
“I disagree,” he said. “This is our campaign, and we direct the content.”
Gunnar looked back and forth between us for a moment. “Jay, you do the posts you’d like to do on your schedule. You’ll need between fifteen and twenty to get us to the time when players are back for practice, so we’ll need close to triple that before we can set up a time where I can act as goalie at an exhibition game. Those start six weeks after training camp begins.” He turned to me. “Zaila, you create your posts based on users’ responses. Then we’ll have months of data to measure and aggregate. That will allow us to quantify which posts get more engagement.”
Jay’s expression turned haughty. “Fine. But when my measured approach wins, I want a victory lap.”
“What’s that?” Gunnar asked.
Until now, I hadn’t realized Jay was taking this so personally, but his next comment proved it.
“We don’t have anyone hired to be the new mascot yet, right? Zaila will do it.”
“What?” Tim gawked. “No! She’d never get to see a game, take pictures, build the brand.”
“That’s my job.” Jay sniffed. “Zaila’s supposed to take my direction. Because she’s the intern.”
