His face falls. His ears turn red. "Oh. Yeah, sure. I just thought… you know, that you’re so… never mind."
My eyebrows knit. “Never mind?”
"Proulx." The voice booms down the hallway like a shotgun blast. A voice I'd know anywhere.
Silas.
He appears suddenly, filling the corridor with his presence. The tallest guy on the team. Broad shoulders. Gorgeous, eerie eyes. That same unreadable expression that makes me feel like I'm being catalogued and filed away in some drawer.
Silas isn’t exempt from the team’s good looks. If anything, he’s hotter than the rest of the team, if hotness and surliness can be the same thing.
His stare locks on Jamie. "Quit harassing her."
Jamie blinks, startled. "I wasn't..."
"She works here," Silas says. His tone is as frosty as a frozen lake in January. "She's not here to entertain you."
My pulse jumps. "Silas, it's fine. He was just..."
"It's not fine." He doesn't look at me or even acknowledge that I spoke. His gaze stays pinned on Jamie like a physical weight.
Jamie stammers. "I didn't mean... I just thought..."
"Really," I try again, desperate to stop whatever this is. "It's okay..."
Jamie's eyes dart between us, panic creeping into his expression. "I didn't realize you two were... you know..." He swallows hard. "I thought..."
"Oh no." My stomach drops. "We're not..."
Before I can finish the sentence, Silas's hand fists in Jamie's jersey and shoves him back a step. Not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to prove he could if he wanted to. His voice drops to something lethal.
"Apologize. Then leave."
Jamie's face goes crimson. He mutters a rushed apology to me without meeting my eyes, then bolts down the hallway. His sneakers squeak against the tile.
Silas stands rigid in the middle of the corridor. His chest rises and falls like he just finished a shift on the ice. His jaw is tight. He doesn't look at me or say a word. My lips part, butno words come to mind. Silas has that effect on me, turning my brain to mush.
“Sorry about the kid,” he grumbles.
Then he turns and stalks away, shoulders stiff, leaving me pressed against the wall with my heart racing. My cheeks burn.
What the hell was that?
I stand there for a full minute, trying to process what just happened. Silas Huxley, who barely acknowledges my existence most days, just scared off a rookie who asked me to dinner. My pulse is still pounding, my skin too hot.
Why would he do that?
I don't have answers. And standing here trying to figure things out isn’t helping me any. So I do what I always do… I get back to work.
I duck into the staff lounge to catch my breath and reorganize my stack of schedules. I'm fumbling with papers when Melanie Greene sweeps in like a force of nature. She's the wife of Jimbo Greene, the owner of the Seattle Havoc. I haven't seen her around since I started working here. But she was always nice to me when Enzo played for her husband's team.
Melanie is all pearls and perfume, her smile warm enough to soften the whole room. She spots me immediately.
"Scout Morelli!" she exclaims, arms out, drawing me into a hug before I can dodge. "It's been ages, sweetheart. How's Enzo doing? I heard he's making some serious deals for our boys now."
I freeze. My breath catches in my throat. My old name hits me like a slap across the face and I can't focus on anything else.
"Actually..." I force the words out, giving her a wobblysmile. "My last name is Nash. Enzo and I divorced last year. I have been working here while I figure things out."
