Page 43 of Her Player

“Obviously.”

“File our documentation with the league anyway. I want it on record before they do.” I looked out the tinted window as James pulled into the private entrance at Caldwell Arena. He’d been my driver for nine years and he knew the routes the way I knew balance sheets, without having to think about them. “What else.”

“The Hargrove group is pushing for a response by end of week.”

Hargrove.

I had taken the first call from his group three months ago and run the name through every database I had access to before the meeting ended. Gerald Hargrove. Sixty-eight. Three children. Significant donor footprint across half a dozen professional franchises. And one particular asterisk that mattered to me. He was the donor who had ended Coach Colton Mercer’s tenure with the New York Titans two seasons ago by making three phone calls before nine in the morning over an alleged conflict involving his daughter.

The man who had cost my head coach his old job was now circling my franchise for a piece of his new one.

I had not mentioned it to Coach. There was nothing for him to do about it, and I was not in the habit of bringing my staff problems they could not solve. I was, however, in the habit of remembering exactly who had done what to the people I was responsible for.

Hargrove could push his timeline. Hargrove could push all the timelines he wanted.

“They can push all they like. What else.”

“The Ryan Caldwell Foundation gala committee needs a headcount confirmation for the March event. Sandra’s been holding the venue but they need numbers.”

“Tell Sandra two hundred and fifty. Same as last year.” I gathered my things, the Birkin and the clipboard and my phone, as James brought us to a smooth stop. “Anything else or are we done.”

“The contractor called about the new camera system for the arena. Quote came in.”

“How much.”

He told me.

I didn’t flinch. People expected me to flinch at numbers. I had stopped doing that sometime around year three of running this franchise, when I wrote a check for a full ice resurfacing system without blinking and realized that the money was not the hard part. The hard part was always the decisions. “Tell them to proceed. I want installation scheduled before the championship if possible.”

“I’ll call them now.”

“Good.” James had the door open. I stepped out onto the pavement, one heel and then the other, the morning Las Vegas heat already building at eight in the morning. I gave him a nod. “I’ll text you when I’m ready. No need to wait around — I’ll be here until late.”

He nodded back with the quiet dignity of a man who had heard that sentence approximately four hundred times and knew it meant he’d be back by ten at the earliest.

I clicked my way through the private entrance and into the cool of the arena.

My office had a view of the ice.

I’d designed it that way deliberately. Some owners put their offices in towers with city views and floor to ceiling windows facing outward, toward the world they’d conquered. I faced inward. I faced the ice. Ryan used to say it was because I needed to keep an eye on things, which was true, but also because I loved it. That clean white expanse under the arena lights, the clean silence of it before the team arrived and turned it into something loud and alive.

I set my Birkin on the credenza and my coffee on the desk and opened my laptop.

Eight seventeen. First call at eight thirty. The morning stretched ahead of me in fifteen minute increments, the way it always did. The Hargrove group’s legal team first, then a call with the PHL media liaison about the press conference strategy around the Detroit incident, then a check-in with Sandra about the foundation gala, then the arena’s general manager about staffing for the wildcard game, then three hours of email that would reproduce itself faster than I could get through it.

By noon I had eaten a handful of almonds and forgotten about them.

By two I had fielded three calls I hadn’t scheduled and ignored one from a reporter I didn’t recognize.

By four I had the legal framework for Brynn’s case against the drone operator mapped out in a document I’d send to Seth for review. FAA airspace violations on top of invasion of privacy, there was a path there, narrow but real, if she wanted to take it.

By six I had a headache I was pretending wasn’t there and a stomach making its feelings known about the almond situation.

I shut my laptop.

The arena was quiet. The team had finished practice hours ago. The cleaning crew wouldn’t be through until later. Just me and the hum of the building and the muffled sound of something coming from down the hall.

I frowned.