“You’re overqualified to be my assistant.”
I laugh nervously. “That’s been true for years.”
He nods. “None of my siblings’ assistants have master’s degrees. I have one. You somehow earned two while working full time.”
“You know I like to stay busy, and they’ve both been useful.” I shrug, trying not to let my nerves show and failing miserably. “I’m sorry, but what is happening right now? Are you about to fire me? Because honestly, that would just be stupid unless you’re planning to come back full time. No one else is going to be able to cover for you like I have.”
Beck laughs, and I relax a little. “I’m not trying to fire you. I’m trying to give you my job. You’ve basically been doing it this season anyway.”
“Your job?” I repeat back in shock. His job has never even been on my vision board with how unattainable I considered it to be. For one thing, Beck is my best friend, and I would never want to take it away from him. But for another, the Werewolves are very much a family-owned team. Beck’s dad ran it before him, and his father before that. I had assumed Beck planned to run the team until he and Cody eventually had a child to pass it down to.And if they don’t end up having kids, certainly one of his brothers would.
But me? I am not a Caldwell, and as far as I know, all the brothers who are interested in men, have no interest in me.
Not that I’d want to be with any of them anyway. I am perfectly content with my situationship with a very attractive hockey captain. Thank you very much.
Oh fuck.
I’m sleeping with the team captain. I can’t be the team’s president.
“It’s not like I’d be stepping away entirely, this team is a huge part of my life, but I’d like to transition to more of the ownership role and give up my current position as president,” he continues, completely unaware of the internal spiral I’ve fallen into.
“Things are going really well in Montana. We’ve found investors for all the individual businesses that temporarily had to shut down after the government seized Kyla’s assets for their investigation. So the banks, healthcare, fitness, childcare centers, all of those are operational again. And that documentary that some of the ex-members have been filming was picked up by the major streaming companies. A lot of people have wanted to participate, share their story, so that’s helped people stay positive. Some of them have been able to find jobs in whatever they were doing before joining Kyla, but I’m really hoping this deal will go through with that startup I was telling you about, so that they can take over the old headquarters and hire more people.”
“Look at you, all excited about helping others.” I can’t help but tease him.
“Shut up,” he says with absolutely no heat. “So you’ll do it? My dad obviously agrees that you’re the best person to take over, and he’s happy to have me assume the owner role. That was always the plan eventually, so it shouldn’t be a problem to get everyone’s approval.”
“I would love to take over in July!” I say confidently, hoping that maybe he intended for the transition to happen between seasons anyway.
“July? What? No, I was hoping we could start everything as soon as possible. It shouldn’t take long to get the approvals.”
I laugh nervously again. “Um, yeah, it’s just that, well, there might be a conflict of interest if I was promoted this season,” I finally blurt out.
With Beck out of town so much recently, we haven’t been as in tune with each other’s day-to-day life. Even Jordan has been so busy with everything that he isn’t telling me about the men in his life, and Oakley and Parker have been so busy after their big surprise a few weeks ago that I haven’t actually told any of my friends that I’ve been sleeping with Hudson for the last month.
Both meanings of the word. He hasn’t spent a single night in the guest room since that first night together.
I know they’ll be shocked to find out I’ve kept literally anything from them, especially something so important, but what Hudson and I have right now feels fragile. We aren’t really together, we agreed that it made sense to wait to see how we were both feeling after he moved out, which I’m really trying not to think about as that date quickly approaches. Anything I do to change the status quo feels like it could make what we do have all fall apart.
And telling my best friend, who happens to be both of our bosses, feels like it could definitely disrupt things.
“A conflict of interest?” he repeats slowly.
I nod, a falsely confident smile plastered to my face as I nod. “But I think that should be cleared up after the season so I would love to take over then. Plus, you should officially finish out the season! We could go all the way, and you should get the credit.”
“I don’t deserve the credit,” he insists. “I haven’t been here.You have. Now what the fuck conflict of interest exists that would affect my title and not yours? And why the hell don’t I already know about it?”
Right. Okay, I guess we’re doing this.
“So funny story,” I start with a cheery tone that Beck obviously isn’t buying as he glares at me. “At the beginning of the season, when I filled out the HR forms saying I was living with Hudson, they specifically said that your role couldn’t date a player.”
“You’re dating a player?” he whisper-yells, obviously not wanting anyone outside of his office to hear us.
“No! I’m not dating one,” I assure him. “But I am sleeping?—”
“Shut up,” Beck interrupts, no room to argue in his tone this time. He stands. “We arenottalking about this here. Let’s go.”
He walks out of the office, leaving the door open. “Where are we going?” I ask as I trail after him, and he doesn’t respond as we ride the elevator down to the main lobby and out onto the street. It isn’t busy. Tonight’s game isn’t for almost nine hours.
