Page 16 of The Puck Bunny

I shake my head ferociously and cross my fingers as if I’m warding off the devil or a vampire or something evil—like excessive calories glomming onto my body that was already rounded to the maximum marginally acceptable roundness.

“Your loss.” She gives me a cheeky smile and I give her an eye roll and get back to the endless stream of IG posts using the Brawlers’ hashtag. Quinn is featured in about half of them. I, using the @BostonBrawlersHockey account officially, like all the good ones and repost or comment on the most flattering ones. Then I’ll need to get busy combing through the latest PR office clips to post something. Honestly, we’re a little thin in relevant material.

That’s one of the assignments we have is to come up with original material, take some vids at practice and eventually maybe the games if we’re lucky. My belly ripples and I heat up at the prospect of being around Quinn on a regular basis. But in spite of his spectacular dark wavy hair, mesmerizing blue eyes and that deep dimple, it’s not his looks that have me overheating.

There’s something regular-Joe about him that I hadn’t expected, something unpretentious and endearing, even gracious about his ease with relating to people—and by people, I mean me. I’m a tough test case and he cracked me in no time, rescuing me from my innate awkwardness on the only three occasions I encountered him.

She has a point. With those words said in my defense, It didn’t take him any time or effort at all to lift me from nut case to hero—at least in my mind. How else could I react to a man like that besides falling madly and wanting more? It’s not like men like him grow on trees—believe me, I’ve been searching all the trees as well as the forest of college guys at UNH but they were without another Quinn James.

An incoming email pops up on my screen, reminding me that I have a job. Lowly, dull, and pedestrian as it is, for now, I need it. The worst thing about this job used to be the low pay. Now the worst thing about it is that I’m taunted by the possibility of Quinn James.

My short-lived dream of becoming a puck bunny to seduce Quinn is all but up in smoke. My neurotic insecurities rise up and mock me. Even if I get up the nerve to go back to The Tea Party and he just happens to be there, he’s going to reject me. He made a point that he wasn’t interested in puck bunnies. That guarantees a big fat rejection.

But at least today I look professional, maybe someone he would consider, in case I run into— Crap. I’m still pathetic. It’s two days until my hopefully-fateful, first, official, in-the-flesh assignment with Quinn. Fateful, because Billie Mae has convinced me that, if I’m discreet, Delaney will never find out about a quiet one-nighter. I mean, after all, it’s not like I’m aiming to marry Quinn, I just want one night. One blissful, explosive, world-changing night. Even I’m not unlucky enough to get caught for one night. Then I’ll be happy and I can quit this job and get a real job and buy season tickets to satisfy my fan-girl needs.

This only reason I took this job was to get the tickets and to have a cool job on my resume, because it sure as crap wasn’t for the paycheck. If I had to pay for tickets, I’d have to come to work naked because I’d have no clothes. I can barely pay the dry-cleaning bill and fare for the T to get into work, as well as contribute a little something to our household because food and electricity aren’t free, as Mom would say. She stops short of charging me rent because that’s against the rules in any upstanding Italian family. But I put extra money in her cookie jar anyway.

Just before lunch, when I’m ready to bounce from my seat to escape cubicle-ville, my phone rings. Thankfully, it’s not my work phone. Grabbing my unfashionably over-sized bag, I reach in to find my buzzing phone as Billie Mae motions for me to follow her out.

Margaret nods at us from her perch on a step stool as she rummages through an old metal filing cabinet as we walk by her and I wait to answer the phone when I’m past her earshot. Rushing ahead of Billie Mae, I push through the exit door to the stairwell and answer the phone on the fourth buzz.

“Hello?” I’m breathless as I rush down the stairs with Billie Mae who skips effortlessly ahead of me.

“Lol? You okay?”

I’d know that voice anywhere. “Sheila?” The head puck bunny is calling me? I stop where I am on the stairs in between landings, half a flight to the exit. “Sure, I’m good. I was on my way—never mind. How can I help you?”

She laughs. “Leave it to you to ask about helping me. You’re a regular good Samaritan, aren’t you?”

I laugh one of those nervous-fill-in-the-gap laughs because I have no idea what to say in response. Plus, it’s probably a rhetorical question because she doesn’t wait for an answer.

“As a matter of fact, you can do something for me, or actually, for Mindy. Can you come to the game Friday with us? We have a block of tickets and there’s an extra one.”

It’s my turn to laugh. “I’d love to, but it sounds like you’re doing me the favor.”

“Oh, don’t worry, there’s a catch.”

She waits and so do I, my heart beating fast as I remember Delaney and her thoughts on puck bunnies.

“We need your help,” Sheila says, “because Mindy is real upset and it turns out she may be pregs.”

I’m holding onto the railing with one hand or I’d have stumbled to the next landing. “Pregs? You mean pregnant?” I whisper the words because they’re the kind of words that speak of secrets and privacy.

“That’s right. The little fool won’t tell the asshole Bergman because he made it clear he wasn’t interested in a relationship and she’s no blackmailer.”

I shake my head, still trying to digest the scenario, in particular the part where I might be of help. “No, of course not. But—"

“I need your help to fix things between these two. I know he has feelings for her. I’ve seen it a hundred times—”

“A hundred?” I ask. Did I mention I have a problem with being too literal sometimes?

“You know what I mean. Will you help?”

I bite my lip because every instinct in me is standing up and shouting Yes! Yes! Of course I’ll help! I’ve always wanted to be the do-gooder heroine in a romance story, but I don’t need Delaney finding out about my puck bunny alter ego.

Looking at my reflection in the glass exit door, I make my decision. I choose to believe in the power of romance and happy-ever-afters–and the power of a good disguise.

Even if it’s not my HEA.