Page 62 of A Scoring Chance
“Darius King, ma’am,” he responds, holding his hand out to shake hers.
She gently places her hand in his, and he kisses the back of it. The little charmer, this woman is about to be putty in his hands. “Oh, what amazing manners.”
“He’d better or his nanny would tan his hide.” Alise has a fake smile plastered on her face as she eyes Rachel.
“Rachel.”
“Alise.” The icy tone in Rachel’s voice disappears the moment she turns her attention back to Ms. Melanie. “Do you need anything before heading up to the suite, Mrs. Hendrix?”
“No, thank you, dear. Enjoy the rest of your evening,” she responds, the smile immediately dropping from her face the moment Ms. Melanie isn’t looking.
Instead of buttons, there’s a card reader, but Ms. Melanie doesn’t skip a beat, pulling a white card from her purse and running it across the scanner. The doors to the elevator immediately open.
“Fancy,” Darius muses as we all step inside.
Ms. Melanie runs the card over another reader inside and the door closes. “Being the mother of two of their star players has its perks.”
As soon as the elevator moves, I bump Alise’s shoulder to get her attention. “Another one of your adoring fans?”
“You could say that.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Well, you see—” Alise snaps her mouth closed the minute the doors open.
Shit. What did I do to deserve this? Of all the people we could share a private box at the arena with, it had to be Annamarie and her minion, Cordelia. What the fuck is she even doing here? Alise hates her guts, and Cooper is nice to her in public, but I doubt he’d offer to allow her to be in his private suite. There is something going on here, but I don’t have time to worry about that now. I’ll have to remember to ask Cooper when I see him.
“Good evening, ladies,” Ms. Melanie says, her voice taking a saccharine sweet tone to it, telling me she isn’t happy to see them at all. Damn. I liked Ms. Melanie before, but she may have just become one of my favorite people.
“Good evening, Mrs. Hendrix. It’s lovely to see you again. And you brought Alise and her friend, Ramona, today, too. How wonderful.”
“Yes. They are family,” she says, threading her arm through Darius’s. “Darius, why don’t we go see what goodies the team has arranged for the box today?”
Darius hesitates for a minute, torn between staying rooted in place and following Ms. Melanie. I nod my head slightly, letting him know everything will be okay. “Yes, ma’am.”
The minute Darius and Ms. Melanie are out of earshot, Annamarie’s claws come out. “How could you lie to that sweet woman?”
“Lie? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“As if either Beau or Cooper would give you the time of day. I get Alise. She’s been tagging along to these things for years. The Hendrix family does like taking on charity cases.” Cordelia’s eyes scan up and down my body before reaching forward and plucking the fabric of the jersey away from my skin. “You couldn’t even afford to get a jersey to support the team, so you stole a jersey from the high school hockey team.”
“Yes, of course, because the only way we could have anything is if we stole it, right?”
I’m so sick of this shit. I’d love nothing more than to pull my fist back and give Cordelia a much-needed black eye, but that’s exactly what she wants. Then she can claim to be the victim. The mean black girls attacked her without provocation and need to be punished. No one would think anything different. We’d be handcuffed and arrested with no questions asked because of the color of our skin.
“How very original, Cordelia. Too bad you don’t have any pearls to clutch.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Annamarie covers her mouth slightly, her eyes gleaming with amusement as she notices what I’m wearing. “Ican get you something else. The last thing we want to do is embarrass Mrs. Hendrix if the cameras show the box during the game.”
“You both should lay off the hair dye. I heard it can cause brain damage, not that either of you has much of a brain at all,” Alise responds in the same sarcastic tone.
“Why do you always need to be so antagonistic, Alise? We are only trying to help you both. We don’t want you to be embarrassed or feel out of place.”
“Help? That’s what we are calling it these days?” I roll my eyes at both of them. Maybe it’s the few glasses of champagne I had in the limo, but I’m sick and tired of their shit. I want to enjoy my first hockey game with my new boyfriend in peace. “I’d never go to either of you for fashion advice.”
Alise guffaws loudly as a look of confusion spreads across both mean girls’ faces. They are wearing dark-washed blue jeans tucked into black knee-high boots. Their torsos are covered with bright pink fitted sweaters, their breasts practically spilling out of the top. They finish their horrid outfits with green puffer vests. They look more like two hookers on the prowl than someone attending an NHL hockey game.
“What are you talking about? My daughter said we looked skibidi before I left the house.” Cordelia looks down at her outfit before turning to her friend for support. However, judging by the look on Annamarie’s face, she doesn’t plan on being forthcoming with it.
