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“It’s not that,” Robbie says, and he smirks at me in a way that only reminds me of Tristan. I roll my eyes. “You watch all your videos, right?”
I mean to. Tristan sends them to me, but honestly I keep forgetting. Her goal is to make me marketable and make the team look good. I trust that she’s not putting something offensive or embarrassing up. So no, I haven’t watched our most recent video at the animal shelter. I followed up and found out that all the puppies have found homes, but I haven’t watched the footage myself. I was there in person, after all.
Robbie pulls his phone out of his cubby and hits a few buttons before handing me the device. I watch myself on the screen, buried in puppies. And then I see the moment that the fluffy rascal makes a break for Tristan. She’s cut all the conversation about her family, and mine—that’s no surprise—but it is a surprise that she left herself in the shot. I see myself handing her the puppy. I see the corner of her mouth twitch in that tiny smile, and I see the way my eyes never leave her face as I tower over her. The heat there is unmistakable.
There are thousands of likes on the video and an impressive number of comments. Robbie leans over me and opens them so I can scan through the words. An overwhelming majority are asking if we’re together, speculating about our size difference, lamenting that I’m off the market. My cheeks heat. I’m not off the market. We’re partners in this project. Nothing more. She practically spits when she sees me.
Except when you had her pressed up against her car. The voice in my head reminds me.She definitely wasn’t spitting then.
“I heard he was coked out of his mind,” someone says in the locker room and Robbie and I swivel our heads in unison. There isn’t any press in the room right now, but these kinds of conversations aren’t anything the big brass would want us to be having on team property.
“Safe to say he’s not coming back even after he’s released.” Someone else adds.
Haine. They’re talking about Haine.
“Wasn’t he caught with a stripper?” Spaeglin is a part of the conversation now too, which means the news must have broken wide open. I knew working with Tristan had something to do with Haine’s accident, but I didn’t know the details. She was cagey about them, and I didn’t press. I didn’t want to.
“I heard she was a pro,” this sentence is accompanied by wiggling eyebrows and that means it’s time to shut this down before it bleeds out of this room.
“Hey,” I say and as a unit the guys turn to stare at me. “This conversation ends now.”
“So it’s true then? Haine really got drugged out and crashed his car into a building while cheating on his wife?” Spaeglin asks me, and his blue eyes glitter with the promise of something forbidden and juicy. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that he’s just a kid, while other times it’s so obvious I want to pat him on the head and give him a glass of warm milk before bedtime.
“If that happened, the news would be bad for the entire team,” I say. “The Arctic prides itself on philanthropy and our family-friendly atmosphere. Our fans want that from us.”
“Shouldn’t they just want us to win games?” Pelletier asks and I hear Robbie snort.
“They want to feel comfortable letting theirkidswatch us win games,” I say. “We aren’t talking about this. Not here, not outside of the rink, not anywhere but in the home office with a member of legal present.”
Spaeglin raises his hand.
“If anyone asks about Haine, your response is, ‘no comment’. Understand?”
“Yes cap,” the guys say, and this time it’s Ólaffson’s hand that is in the air.
“W-what can we do to-to-to help?”
“Don’t fuck up,” Robbie says and the guys snicker as though he’s not one hundred percent serious.
“This is why I’ve been working with Tristan,” I say. “We’re trying to really push the family-friendly, community-helper angle for the team before any news can break.”
“Tristan?” Spaeglin repeats the name like he’s never heard it before.
“Elsa,” Pelletier says and I grind my back teeth together.
“It’s working,” Gage says, “plus you’ve gotten several thousand more followers.”
I have noticed the steady uptick in notifications and I’ve been fielding calls from my agent about new products interested in working together. Magic Mangos has been making money hand over fist. I’ve been signing more autographs than ever. Just the other day, someone stopped me at the car wash. Neither of us had anything to sign or sign with so he got a drive through napkin with my signature scrawled on it in black eyeliner he’d found next to the cash register.
“I want more followers,” Spaeglin says. “Can you ask El—Tristan if she could use me?”
“I want in too.” Pelletier.
“Me three.” Gage.
“I can’t make any promises,” I tell them. “But I’ll let her know.”
Doors slam as the guys leave, and I try to focus on buttoning my slacks and tucking in my shirt. Game day dress code always sounds like a good idea until you have to do up buttons on a dress shirt after three periods and almost twenty minutes on shift. Everything hurts after that kind of workout, and while I enjoy the fuck out of a win, the appeal doesn’t distract from the aches and pains anymore.
