by Sarina Bowen
This time? He figured he had two or three weeks to prove himself. And if Coach and O’Doul both decided they hated him, even that wouldn’t be fast enough.
The team filed off the ice while Coach stood by the open door with a word or two for each player as they stepped onto the mats. “Glad to see that wrist is strong again,” he said to O’Doul. “Looking forward to working with you,” he said to Castro.
Then Leo stepped up, and Coach’s mouth slammed shut. A tight nod was all he got.
Shit.
Tired legs carried him toward the locker room. There was a big crowd at the practice rink today, and Leo had skated too hard to even notice them before. It was trippy to think that people wanted to spend a Saturday afternoon watching the team run drills.
No player ever got into hockey for the roar of the crowd. You had to love the game itself, because the first fifteen years or so was just you and your competitors. And maybe your parents, who had to drive your skinny ass to the rink in the first place. Not until college had he played in front of screaming fans, and usually he hadn’t even noticed them.
But now there were fans of all ages leaning over the chute where players passed on their way toward the locker rooms. They waved and thrust jerseys and programs toward the veterans, a few of whom stopped to sign autographs and shake hands.
Leo scanned their faces as he dragged his tired body toward the doors. There was only one person who could snag his attention right now—a certain kick-ass tennis player with long legs and wide hazel eyes.
He didn’t know what to think about her sudden reappearance in his life. She’d been so standoffish yesterday. That wasn’t like her. The girl he remembered had a bright smile and an easy way about her.
Letting Georgia go was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. And he’d only been able to manage it because he was sure it would help her be happy again. He hated wondering if she’d become a bitter person since they were together.
If she wasn’t happy, he was going to need to know why.
Leo didn’t spot her in the crowd, though. Maybe she wasn’t needed on open practice days. As the new guy, he had no clue how the organization worked. It was hard to say how long he’d be in Brooklyn. But one thing he knew for sure—he was going to talk to her, and soon. He didn’t want to leave here without knowing if she was okay. The next time he spotted her, he planned to ask for a little of her time.
When he reached the locker room, it was already loud, the guys busy with their smack talk and teasing. As the new guy, he stripped off his pads in silence, replaying the practice in his mind. His effort today had been truly solid. And he’d been having a great season with the Muskrats, so he was in top shape.
All he could do was persevere, and hope the right people noticed.
Silas, the backup goalie, sat down beside Leo. “Hey, you did all right out there. But you weren’t joking. Coach is not your biggest fan, eh?”
“Is it that obvious?” Leo pulled off his skates.
“You got a plan?”
“Skate my ass off. And avoid signing a long-term lease.”
Silas laughed. “Where are you living, anyway?”
“Dunno. Got any suggestions? My folks are less than an hour from here, but that’s probably too far. Can you imagine if I’m late for practice because I’m sitting on the LIE? That’s not what I need. Though Coach is coming from the same neighborhood. Maybe if I offer to be his chauffeur, he’ll like me more.”
“Offer to wash the car.” Silas snickered. “And maybe paint his house. Anything to keep on his good side.”
O’Doul came to a halt in front of their bench. “Watch yourself,” he said to Silas. “The college boy doesn’t like advice.”
Well, damn. “Look, I’m sorry about yesterday. I’m calm on the ice, but not so good in a room full of reporters,” Leo offered. He’d said the same thing yesterday after that disaster of a press conference, but O’Doul had flipped him off and walked away.
“No big,” Doulie said now, his mouth grim. “I don’t get offended. But seems like our new fearless leader doesn’t like you much. That’s your real problem.”
Apparently nobody in the universe had missed it. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
O’Doul gave him one more ornery look and stalked off to the showers. The guy was awfully hard to read. He seemed to work hard projecting a laid-back image, but Leo was pretty sure the captain was wound tighter than a drum.
“Shit,” Silas said. “It won’t help if he can’t stand you either.”
Leo privately doubled the workout he was going to do tomorrow morning. He’d better impress everyone. Immediately. “What time does the practice facility open?”
“Seven. But before you lift there’s yoga.”
“There’s . . . did you say yoga?”
Silas grinned. “Welcome to Brooklyn, man. Don’t worry. You’ll only look like an awkward chicken the first twenty times. And it’s not like they’re gonna make you do a beet juice cleanse afterward.”
“Whatever. I’ll be there.” If the Bruisers did Jell-O wrestling or Falun Gong, then he’d do it, too.
“Look—I got an idea for you,” Silas said. “The guy you replaced on our roster was renting a room in my place on Water Street. That’s two blocks from here. Now that he’s gone, I’m out the cash. I’d give you his spot without a lease, because I can’t really afford the place alone—I’m on a two-way contract. Getting paid minor league money until they pop the question.”
“Huh. Two blocks away?” That sounded like a slam dunk.
“Yeah, the commute is awesome. But you should still think it over. You might not want to say yes.”
“Why? You snore? You have a thing for disco music?”
Silas shook his head. “Negative. It’s just that the room has kind of a revolving door on it. You’d be the fourth guy in there in as many months.”
Leo chuckled. “It’s cursed? Take Silas’s second bedroom, and get booted from the Bruisers?” That was silly. But . . . four guys?
“People believe in stupider shit than that,” the goalie pointed out.
“Yeah, they do. Thanks, man. I’ll sleep on it. Sounds like an easy decision, though.”
“Take your time deciding,” Silas said, stripping out of his garters and socks. “I wasn’t gonna put it up on Craigslist until after our next road trip. If I’m not around to show it, there’s no point in advertising.”
“Cool. I’ll let you know.” Leo dropped the last of his clothes and headed for the showers. The Bruisers had a gorgeous practice facility. He’d played in some pretty nice places, but this one was downright luxurious—generous rooms, good lighting, and a sleek design. The shower stall that Leo entered was done up in white marble tiles, and the dispenser on the wall held several different bath products with expensive-looking labels. The shampoo he chose purportedly contained “sea palm extract” as an ingredient. “For rich, shiny hair.”
Good to know.
While he showered, he decided to take Silas up on his offer. He didn’t really have time to shop for an apartment. If his contract held, money wouldn’t be tight. He didn’t need a roommate. But the coach could still send him down to the minors at his whim, where Leo would be one of the best paid guys who still wasn’t playing for an NHL team. That would suck, but at least if he’d been renting from Silas, he wouldn’t be leaving another signed lease behind.
And, hey, if things suddenly started looked up, Leo could get his own place in a few months if he felt like it.
As for the room’s curse—or jinx, or fate—Leo wasn’t going to worry about that. If he got sent down somewhere again, it wouldn’t be a bedroom’s fault. It would be either Karl’s or his own. To believe otherwise was ridiculous.
He got dressed slowly, wondering where he could find a late lunch in this neighborhood. He’d need to fuel up if he was going
to run his engine at a hundred percent, day in and day out.
Tonight he’d stay in the hotel, and tomorrow he’d be lifting weights by eight. Whatever it took, he’d do it.
FIVE
What a difference a day made.
Georgia sat hunched over her desk in jeans and a hoodie, wondering if she should update her resume. Spread out on the desk was the call log from yesterday’s fiasco. Fully half of all the callers had asked about Leo Trevi’s hot mic incident.
And today? There had been two dozen more inquiries. She jotted down every single one on her pad. The requests to interview Leo had come pouring in, and not always from the most reputable news sites. When she’d followed up with the Hockey Hotties request, she’d learned that they wanted him to pose nude for a charity calendar.
They did not, however, ask for an interview with the team’s new coach.
Alone in her office, Georgia grumbled to herself as the phone began to ring again. It was Saturday, and technically the press office was closed, so she didn’t have to answer. She let the call go to voice mail. A minute later the message light lit, so she picked up the receiver to hear what the caller wanted.
“Hello, this is Randy Fenning, a fact-checker for Page Six. I need to confirm that the Georgia Worthington who appears in the Huntington Northern High School yearbook alongside Leo Trevi is the same person as the publicity director for the Brooklyn Bruisers. Please return this call at 212 . . .”
She groaned so loudly that the sound echoed off the lonely walls of her office. It would be bad enough to see her name pop up on blogs with nothing better to do than to speculate about a high school relationship. But her picture? This would be a total disaster. And it wasn’t just the embarrassment factor—a publicist could not be effective when she’d become part of the very story that she was supposed to manage.
If they hired a new publicity director by nine AM on Monday, she wouldn’t even be surprised.
And that picture. Ugh. Georgia really didn’t want to see her eighteen-year-old smiling face on a newspaper’s website. She didn’t have the yearbook on hand, but she guessed the picture the reporter referred to was the one with Leo’s arm encircling her shoulders as they sat on the bleachers before a pep rally. Georgia remembered that picture well. It captured two heads tilted together like a couple of lovesick fools, their smiles wide. Youthful enthusiasm practically rose up off the page. It was a portrait of a happy, easygoing moment before she’d known what real life was like.
That picture was taken just a few months before her attack in Florida.
Georgia did not want to see it plastered everywhere. She didn’t want to see it at all. And as ornery as she was about Leo’s hot mic error, she’d bet cash money that Leo didn’t want to see that picture, either. He didn’t need the distraction, and if he had a girlfriend, that bit of public speculation was going to make things awkward at home.
At least he’d learn a valuable lesson about mics and press conferences.
After draining her coffee, she finished responding to every last e-mail. To be fair, many of the questions and interview requests were for her father and the team’s general manager. At least the announcement of the new head coach was getting some of the attention. She made a few notes to ask her father to return the most pressing calls to Sports Illustrated and ESPN.
Now what to do about all the requests for Leo? It was easy to grant access for something like a photo shoot. But interviews were trickier if she wanted to downplay the incident at the press conference. Interest in a player ought to be a good thing. Georgia’s job was to channel public interest in the team and its players. A publicist was there to amplify the team’s brand and message. But the fact that Leo had seemed to threaten the team captain made this a delicate situation. She would need to ask O’Doul to sit down with a few journos, too. Maybe he could give an upbeat interview about how great the rookies were fitting in . . .
Someone tapped on the office door, startling her. “Come in!”
The door swung open to reveal none other than the big man himself, Nate Kattenberger. “Afternoon,” he said while Georgia’s stomach dropped. “You’re holed up at your desk on a Saturday?”
She cleared her throat. “Lots of media inquiries. The Times wants to talk to you and Hugh about your choice for coach.” Also? A dozen professional gossips want to upstage your multimillion dollar decision with a story about my high school boyfriend.
He shrugged. “Okay. You can set something up. Shouldn’t you be down at open practice?”
Why yes, I should. But Georgia had been avoiding the rink today, even though open practice was a good time to reach out to loyal ticketholders. She usually liked to stop in and make sure the staff was handing out the game schedules she’d had printed.
“Of course, I’m heading there now,” she lied, getting to her feet and grabbing her clipboard. She wasn’t about to look like a slouch in front of Nate. And while she was down at the rink, she’d remind the players about the benefit dinner they’d be attending in a week’s time.
Nate held open her office door. She followed him out into the corridor. Their path took them through the lobby and down a tunnel built from brick and glass block, toward the brand-new practice arena that Nate had built here on the edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Her high-ranking companion didn’t say anything as they walked together. At first, working for a man like Nate had been intimidating. But his casual ways had eventually won her over. Today he wore his trademark hoodie and sneakers. Of course, the hoodie was a cashmere model from Bergdorf, and the sneakers were Tom Ford.
His silence made her feel a little edgy, though the stress may have been all in her head. With Nate you never knew what he was thinking. He might be inventing the next bit of software that changed the way your cell phone connected to the Internet. Or he might be deciding which global aid nonprofit would most benefit from a hundred million dollar grant.
Or? He might be trying to decide how to break the news of her demotion.
“That was quite a gaffe Leo Trevi made at the press conference yesterday,” he said eventually.
“I’m sure sorry it went down like that,” she said quickly, as her stomach dove toward her knees.
“I know.” He actually chuckled. “At least it wasn’t a boring press conference.”
Georgia would have preferred that. But since they were having this carefree chat, she probably needed to confess something. “Um, as it happens, Leo Trevi and I dated in high school. So there’s, uh, going to be a picture circulating on the gossip rags.”
Nate gave her the side-eye as he held the rink door open for her. “A compromising picture? Your father won’t like that.”
“God no.” She took a very deep breath and let it out. “No—one of the reporters dug up our high school yearbook.”
“Ah.” Nate chuckled. “So it’s just bad hair and a cheesy caption. The team has survived worse publicity.”
His relative indifference to this circus was not what she’d expected. “Uh, true,” she stammered, passing him as the icy rink air enveloped them. “And I’ll, um, set up that interview with the Times.”
“Excellent. Chin up, Georgia.” He gave her an unreadable grin and walked past her.
So she might survive the week after all. Who knew?
Camera bulbs flashed as Nate made his way through the crowd and into the guts of the training facility. Fans were almost as curious about him as they were about the players. Though practice had already ended, and the rink staff were busy making sure that bystanders stayed behind the velvet ropes separating the public area of the rink from the lockers, treatment rooms, and gym. Last year they’d found some puck bunnies waiting naked in the team hot tub after an open practice, so constant vigilance was necessary.
Georgia pulled up the hood on her sweatshirt just in case any of the bystanders were with the media and happened to recognize he
r from yesterday’s press conference. Then she approached the staff members guarding the entrance, where a lengthy line of patient fans waited to see who’d emerge to sign autographs.
It was a rink employee they called Old Bob who unhooked the rope for Georgia as she approached. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“How was practice, Bob?” Did either my father or the captain come to blows with my ex-boyfriend on the ice?
“Lookin’ good, Miss Georgia. I like our chances against Tampa tomorrow night.”
Whew. “So do I. See you there, all right?” Leaving the crowd behind, she walked quickly down the brightly lit hallway. She passed through another set of doors and proceeded toward the locker room. But she stopped just outside it.
Entering the locker room was something she had to do from time to time. But it wasn’t her favorite place to speak to players. In the first place, it was difficult to know where to put her eyes while waiting for some dude to put on his underwear and speak to her. All that male hotness in one place made a girl a little dizzy.
And today the whole issue was suddenly ten times trickier. Because Leo was in there. She did not need to see Leo naked. It was bad enough knowing that they basically worked in the same building now. The team had a series of home games this week, and it was weird knowing that she could turn a corner at any moment and come face to face with the only man who had ever loved her.
Naked Leo would be more than her poor heart could take. She’d probably burst an artery if she spotted all six-foot-two, two hundred muscled pounds of him (thank you, stat sheet) across the locker room. Her imagination kept wanting to veer off and picture Leo 2.0 without his clothes on. As a teenager, he’d already been strong and fit. She used to admire his biceps while sitting in the passenger seat of his truck.
Now? If she stood in that locker room while he stripped, they’d have to surgically remove her gaze from his muscular ass.
She could never go in that room again. Obviously.
Fortunately, players began to emerge from the locker room in ones and twos, their hair wet from the showers. “Massey!” She stopped one of them in the hallway, her clipboard poised. “You didn’t RSVP for the Brooklyn Arts Benefit next week. Don’t forget about it.”
