I click through the comments, my stomach doing weird flips as I read:
“Kingston looking finer than ever… mmm, I’d like some of that, please. ??????”
“Is it just me, or was there some serious history vibes between those two?”
“Beavers were going for it! ????”
“The tension between him and the weather girl though ??”
Weather girl?Ugh.
“Hometown hockey hero returns... to witness beaver orgy!”
“Sydney Holt handling this like a pro tho ??”
That last one makes me smile. Ididhandle it pretty well, considering. Years of live TV have taught me to roll with the unexpected—though I’d never had to roll with quite so much.
I click on the clip and watch myself go from professional weather reporter to unwitting wildlife documentarian in the span of thirty seconds. I look reasonably composed, except for when Brooks came skidding toward me and the flash of—something—in my eyes.
Not fear.
Definitely not attraction. Probably just surprise.
Or the cold.
Or temporary insanity.
I close the browser before I can overthink it.
My phone buzzes with a text from my brother.
JONAH:Just saw your broadcast. Brooks texted me already. What the hell, Syd? I thought you’d avoid him.
I roll my eyes.
ME:Kind of hard to avoid someone when they’re skating directly at you at 600 mph. Also, I didn’t know he’d be there. Maisie didn’t tell me.
JONAH:Well he’s pissed. Said you ambushed him.
ME:Huh? He nearly ran me over!
JONAH:Whatever. You’d tell me if something was going on with you two, right?
ME:Trust me, I have zero desire to be with any hockey players. Especially Brooks Kingston.
Which is true.Mostly. Except for that weird whole-body flutter when our eyes locked.
A knock at my door interrupts my spiral.
Zoe Lane, production assistant extraordinaire and my best friend since orientation day at KBVR three years ago, pops in with her enviable silky brown hair in a messy bun and glasses sliding down her nose, with which she’s been running around the station all morning.
As the network’s production assistant, she knows all the gossip before anyone else, and I hope she has good news.
“You,” she says, pointing at me with a pink-tipped fingernail, “have broken the internet. Beav porn, baby.”
“Please tell me people are talking about something—anything—else around here.”
“Oh, that they are.” She closes the door behind her and perches on the edge of my desk. “The switchboard is lit up like the McDavid’s house at Christmas. Everyone wants to know if you and The King are a thing. Oh, I’m a poet, didn’t know it.”
