She didn’t even twitch at my lame joke. “I noticed you favoring your left side during the game. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Shit. I guess I wasn’t as convincing as I’d thought.
2
Reese
“Sorry. I went to Bo—” I’d blustered into Holly’s office with an excuse for being late, but stopped short. Mostly because, once I stepped inside, that was kinda it. There was nowhere else to go.
“It’s a shit hole, I know.” She gestured to the chair opposite her desk. “I’ve filed a request for the room next to Bob Trent’s office, but I’m willing to bet my first born management shoots it down.”
I sat down with a laugh. “You mean the sacred room of old crap they refuse to get rid of? Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
Another thing I wouldn’t do, is small talk.
I’d gotten an email from Holly asking to see me before the game. First time ever. Physio and PR never mixed (because they never needed to) and although I knew her in passing, we both kinda kept to the lore.
Which is why I’d ended up going to Bob’s office first. He was in a shitty mood and gave me shitty directions down here.
“Do you know Bob from Marketing calls you his assistant?”
Holly rolled her eyes, but took it on the chin. “I call him a lot worse in my head, so I guess we’re even.”
We were edging further into that small talk zone that always rubbed my instant gratification kink the wrong way.
“What am I doing here?”
“Right. Game’s about to start. Don’t worry, I’m shooting down to the rink too.” She rifled through some papers on her desk, and finally pulled out a page with a flourish.
It was a press release. Again, not my wheelhouse. The clouds of confusion continued closing in. I read it through though, because doing that scratched the people-pleasing itch I got whenever faced with an authority figure.
“I don’t get it,” I said, handing it back to her.
“Well basically, for the lead-up to playoffs, we’ll be—”
“No, I understand what it says,” I clarified. “I don’t understand why I was called here to read it. Van der Berg reports everything to Coach, which— Why isn’t he here for this?”
And even though we were the only ones down here, Holly leaned forward in her chair and lowered her voice. A sign I was about to be told something juicy.
“It’s not official yet, just a rumor, but Niels isn’t sticking around for the rest of the season.”
I rocked back as though her words were shaped like a fist, and landed square in my face. “What do you mean?”
“My job was to brief you,” she said. “You have to take your questions to McAvoy.”
And so I did.
Frost Bank Center had always been a hostile host to the Calgary Flames, and tonight was no different. Surge fans were louder than usual, fighting for their lives among an even louder “C of Red”. They were anticipating a war, and they probably weren’t wrong.
Not the best time to confront my boss about sensitive information, but the horde of over-zealous rowdies couldn’t stop me. Neither could the stressed look on McAvoy’s face. He was biting his thumbnail, watching the guys warm up on the ice.
“Sorry I’m late.” I dropped my rolling kit behind the bench and clambered over it to talk to him. “I had a meeting with Holly.” He gave me a passing glance, then went back to yelling at the guys. “Wanna know what it was about?” No response. “Coach.”
“What? What do you want?” Then he realized I wasn’t one of his minions, and took a softer tack. “Go on.”
I’d worked with him long enough to know that was as close to an apology as I was going to get.
“Why am I meeting with PR about something that’s van der Berg’s responsibility?” I looked around to make sure and yeah, the head trainer was nowhere to be seen.
