The next morning, I show up at the rink early enough that I’m sure I’ll be the first person there. I do a double-take when I spot Remy leaning on the boards with her coffee in one hand and clipboard in the other. As always, she looks like she’s about ten steps ahead. As if she’s already mapped out every possible version of how this could go and decided which one she’s aiming for. I don’t know where that leaves me in the equation. A variable she’s already accounted for, or the one thing she hasn’t figured out yet.
Last night, when I was flopped on the living room floor with Shutout draped across my body, I found myself thinking about everything she said in Dante’s office.
She’s watched my old games. She thinks I’m a good player. That shouldn’t matter to me, but it does. More than it should. More than anything she’s said about contracts, behavior, or PR strategy.
Because she didn’t have to say it. She didn’t have to go looking for reasons to give me the benefit of the doubt.
Remy lifts her head when I approach and takes a sip of her coffee. “Good morning. So, I have a plan.”
She always does. The problem is, I’m starting to care whether I fit into it.
“Of course you do.” It comes out rougher than I intended. I’m already bracing for whatever she’s about to throw at me.
My tone must be off, because Remy frowns. “Is that a problem?”
“No. You’re just.” Goddamn it, why are words so hard? “You solve problems.” Which hurts to say, because I’m the problem in this situation. And she’s the one who’s supposed to fix it. Fix me. And I hate how easily that puts me on the other side of her.
Remy considers me for a moment. I truly have no idea what’s going on in her head. But I get the feeling she knows exactly what’s going on in mine, whether I say it out loud or not. That’s what gets me. Not that she’s paying attention. That she’s paying attention and not using it against me.
Most of the time, I can tell that she’s wearing a mask. She gives off the aura of calm control without letting people see what’s going on in her brain. At first, I thought she was secretly judging the shit out of everyone—namely,me—but after seeing her face off with Dante yesterday, I think I’d know if she was judging me.
“Mm.” She glances down at her clipboard, then extends it to me. “I suppose I do. Speaking of which, I’m going to need you to read this and sign it. If you have any complaints, we can discuss revisions.”
I take half a step back. Instinct. Distance first, figure it out second. “Dante needs to sign that, right? Technically, you work for him.”
“The contract with Dante has already been settled. This agreement is between you and me.” When I don’t take the clipboard, Remy starts reading from the top sheet of paper. “We need to set some boundaries. According to my new contract, I’ll be attending all your practices and home games, and I’ll stick with you anytime you go out on team business. That includes the team lunch at the Puck Drop tomorrow, as well as any charity events, team galas, and public appearances of any kind. This contract doesnotextend to personal business such as grocery shopping or family trips, but there are gray areas that we’ll need to discuss.”
I shake my head at the absurdity of this contract. The word “boundaries” hits harder than it should. That word means rules. Rules mean I’ve already crossed a line somewhere. “Why?”
Remy shoves the clipboard under my nose. “Because I need you to be honest with me. If I’m going to spend the rest of the season chaperoning you around the circuit, I need to know that you aren’t going to do anything stupid when my back is turned. And there’s the question of things like private parties at your teammates’ places. That’s not explicitly covered in the contract, so I think it’s an issue we need to—”
“No.” I pluck the clipboard from her fingers. “I mean, why did you agree to this?”
I don’t expect a real answer. People don’t usually step into situations like this unless they have to.
She lifts one shoulder. “Dante was persistent, and I wasn’t going to let him win.”
That’s not the whole answer. I can tell it isn’t. But it’s enough to make my chest shift anyway.
I smile in spite of myself. I can tell she’s pissed because her North Shore accent is becoming more noticeable. “Okay. But why did you agree in the first place? You could have just let me deal with him.”
Remy’s green eyes narrow. “You know, as someone who was ready to body-block in defense of a teammate yesterday, I kind of thought you’d get it.”
I shake my head slowly. “Nope. No idea.”
Remy crosses her arms. In the process, she pushes up her breasts toward the relatively modest neckline of her blouse. I do my best not to notice, which is impossible, now that I’ve noticed it. But for some fucked-up reason, her whole vibe right now is messing with my head. I bet she’d be really bossy in—
Oh, my God, Owen, do not think about what it would be like to have Remy underneath you.
Too late. I’m certain that she’d have a whole plan, and since her plans so far have worked out for me, I can only imagine—
Nope.I’m not imagining shit. Which means I’m absolutely imagining it. This is exactly the kind of thinking that gets me into trouble.
“Dante’s a bully,” Remy announces. “He knows he has power over you. He could fire you if he chose to, and he could make it incredibly hard for you to play in the League ever again. You know that. He knows that. So when he laid into you yesterday, you just sat there and took it, because you pretty much had to. Not me. Dante could set my career back, sure, but I’d get over it. I spoke up because I was the only person in that room who wasn’t under his thumb.”
“Oh.” I blink at her. Yeah. That makes sense. Hearing someone else say it out loud, though, pings behind my ribs. It’s one thing to know it. Another to have someone else see it and call it what it is. She’s right about Dante’s power trip, but that wasn’t at the top of my mind yesterday. I was thinking about my dad, and how I could never find the words to stand up to him when I needed them most.
I’m used to being the one who steps in. Not the one someone steps in for.
