“Took you long enough.” Kane heckles Timber the moment he walks into the warm-up room. Timber rolls his eyes. Ares cuts him off before he can take up a place along the back wall like he always does during these pre-practice meetings.
“She’s fine, Ares,” Timber says, surprisingly restrained. “Just on the phone dealing with something for her shop.”
Paxton walks through the door just behind Timber, carefully stepping around them and heading straight for me. He lifts his chin in silent greeting, and I nudge his shoulder as he stands beside me, dropping his bag at his feet.
“We doing film first?” he asks.
Kane grunts from my other side, leaning around Ashton. “Yeah, should be. We haven’t gone up against Seattle yet, so they’re going to want us to watch the last few games of theirs at least. That new captain of theirs is nasty as shit.”
Paxton nods and then stretches his neck.
“All right. Everyone shut up,” Miles says in that dark way that means we’re in for a rough practice. Even his eyes are mean today. I roll my shoulders and hold back a sigh.
Fuck, now I wish I hadn’t gone for that second breakfast burrito this morning. I silently mourn the next two weeks I won’t be able to eat jalapenos while my body tries to forget how they taste when I’m throwing up into a bin on the side of the ice.
“One second, Miles.” The no-nonsense feminine voice cuts through the low chatter of us all.
Someone groans behind me. I’d echo the sentiment, but I don’t have a death wish. Marilyn levels a glare at the guys behind me, and it’s enough to have even my balls shriveling a bit. Or maybe it’s the folder clutched in her hand. She’s certainly dressed like she’s ready to fuck one of us up, the dark pencil skirt and white blouse the picture of corporate elite. She could be gearing up to prance one of us in front of a damn press room this very minute with that set up.
“She better not be trying for me,” Ashton mutters into my ear, leaning over so Ares and Miles can’t read his lips. “I don’t care what they said in preseason. No way am I going on a date.”
I snort. “Better you than me. Can you imagine what all those damn fan sites would start saying if they caught me out with someone?”
Paxton frowns. “What’s PR got on everyone that they’re freaking out?”
God bless the ignorance of my brother that he hasn’t had the last two months of dealing with the bullshit that is our upper management. LA might not be the powerhouse they once were, but they’re not scraping the bottom of the metaphorical barrel, either.
Before I can explain the entire mess, Ares asks, “Marilyn, who do you need?”
His calm demeanor diffuses some of the building tension, just the way Betas are spouted as being able to do. It doesn’t touch my growing nerves, though.
Not me.Not me. Not me.
Marilyn looks over the lot of us, her mouth pinching at the corners, before her eyes settle on me.
“James, please.”
Fuck.
Paxton grunts. “Which one?” he asks, nothing but calm politeness.
It’s who he is, even if he didn’t have to worry about Marilyn’s fucking antics. Which, of course, he doesn’t. He’s the star that’s just been traded, and he’s engaged to a beautiful Beta, too. No image to clean up, no press to sway. Just his presence is enough to have news articles moving a hairsbreadth away from our disaster of a season so far. I give it until about twelve hours after this game with Seattle for them to change their tunes on my brother, but we’ll take the breather while we have it.
Marilyn frowns. “Right. I forgot we have both of you now. I need Rhett, please.”
Kane claps his hand on my shoulder. “Nice knowing you, man.”
Ashton fuckingcackles, and I shove them both as I break away from the rest of the guys and head toward our PR manager. That envelope in her hand feels like a damn death sentence right about now. Is it not enough Kane and I have cleaned up our antics over the last couple months? Apparently not.
Marilyn doesn’t say a word as I approach her. She simply turns on that too-thin heel and heads deeper into the practice arena. As I follow her down the long hallway, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m walking toward my death. She opens a door I’ve never bothered to look behind and then turns on the singular overhead light before gesturing me inside the small room.
It’s a bare bones office, no decorations on the walls. A small table sits across from an even more lackluster desk with nothing atop it.
“Nice place,” I mutter.
Marilyn scowls. “It’s not mine, fool. It’s for the junior teams that use this rink during the evenings and on the weekends. Their coaches are mostly volunteers.”
I drop into one of the rickety chairs at the table without another comment, hardly daring to breathe while Marilyn gets herself situated across from me. She pulls out a sheet of paper from the file that’s just got my last name on it.
