Something flickered across his face, quick, like a shutter, but I didn’t stay long enough to read it. I grabbed my bag, nodded at Cass, and pushed my way through the crowd toward the door.
Outside, the air was sharp and cool, the sounds of the bar muffled behind me.
6
Hunter
“Hey, number one,” Mason said from two rows up, leaning over the aisle with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. The plane’s cabin seemed to shrink. “Looks like we’ll never have you alone again.”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t even look up from the window, although I knew exactly what he was implying. And yes, the bar the other night stung a little more than I wanted to admit. Though I wouldn’t actuallyadmitit to anyone.
“God, Mason,” Shawn groaned behind me. “Quit with the commentary. Let the man rest.”
Rest? Sure. If by rest he meant a moment where I wasn’t fending off a caffeine-deprived, PR hurricane named Holly who was basically camped out next to me like a human shield.
“You need to study this,” Holly said, sliding into the seat beside me with all the subtlety of a marching band. She dropped a leather-bound folder in my lap with a softthunk.
I stared at it.
“I’m serious, Hunter,” she said, flipping it open with a crisp snap that somehow made it sound like she was in command of a battle fleet. “I’ve drafted statements for every possible scenario with the Coloradomedia: win, lose, injury, fight breakdowns… including, yes, even the unlikely, but possible, line brawl mid-game. I want to run them all by you.”
“Holy shit,” I muttered. “I thought travel day was for, you know,space. Stretching legs. Pretending we’re not constantly followed by reporters with cameras bigger than my TV.”
“Space?” she said, eyebrow raised. “You’ve got about twenty minutes before everyone’s going to start talking to the media once we land. And if you want your social accounts not to implode, I need your passwords.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.This is my life now.
“I don’t need you to—”
“Yes, you do,” she interrupted, already tapping at her tablet like she was building a nuclear launch sequence. “If I don’t control the narrative–”
“What narrative?” I cut her off. “This is hockey, not a UN briefing.”
Her lips pressed into a line. “And you wonder why the press treats you like a problem child.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” she said sweetly, flipping through her folder. “You actively contribute to it, too.”
I leaned back in my seat, crossing my arms. “I’m good at hockey. PR is… well, that’s your arena. I don’t see why I need to memorize lines about losing a fight I haven’t even had yet.”
“Because you don’t get to pick and choose when things get messy, Hunter,” she said, zeroing in for that bullseye she couldn’t hit at the bar. “You think you’re immune to all this, but I promise you, the media will eat you alive if you’re not ready.”
I didn’t like the way she saideat you alive, but decided against interrupting her tirade. Not while in a confined space, thousands offeet in the air.
“Besides,” she added, tapping her stylus against the folder, “if you just half-listen, we’re going to have major repercussions tomorrow. Major. Social media will blow up. Fans will freak out. And God forbid someone misquotes you, because then Bob will have my head on a spike and we’ll both look incompetent.”
“Whoa.” I held up my hands. “Bob? My head? My incompetence? That’s a lot of hypotheticals for one flight.”
“And yet all of them are real possibilities,” she said, leaning closer to emphasize it. The smell of her perfume hit me just enough to be distracting.
I put the wafts of vanilla out of my head and shot her a look. “You know, it’s shocking that you’re earning money to be this annoying.”
“Funny. I was about to say the same about you,” she said, flipping the page to a set of pre-written quotes. “Win scenario, first question: reporters ask about your early-season form and adjustments made to accommodate the new coaching strategy.”
I tilted my head, forcing calm I didn’t feel. The woman was unshakeable. “And I just… read this like a robot?”
“Or paraphrase it intelligently,” she said. “Option two: lose scenario. Press tries to pin blame on you for team mistakes. Option three: injury. Option four: fighting. You see where I’m going?”
