Logan Moore scoffed from his locker next to Jordan. "He's a big deal now. He doesn't get distracted by trashy reality stars."
"She's not trashy," Jordan insisted.
Alex raised a questioning eyebrow in his direction. "That's too bad. I like trashy."
He rolled his eye. "I'm well aware," he replied. "Anyway, we all know Charlotte is the only one with class on that show."
Several of the players groaned, causing Jordan to cringe in response. What was he even thinking saying that?
"You already sound like a love sick puppy," Logan said.
"I'm not a love sick puppy," he mumbled.
"Which is what a love sick puppy would say," Alex replied. "Besides, we all know she's not as hot as Rebecca on the show."
Logan grabbed a towel. "That woman is way too old for you," he said as he headed for the showers.
"Old means experienced!" Alex yelled back at him before turning to Jordan. "But seriously, if you're banging Charlotte Stone, you can get me a Rebecca hook-up, right?"
"Why are we even talking about this?"
"I know you like talking to your teammates about their interests, captain" Alex said sarcastically. "My interests are hockey, women, and reality shows, in that order."
"Anyway," Jordan said with a sigh. "I met Charlotte right before the game started. I'm not banging her."
Alex smirked. "Not yet, but you need to get back on that horse."
"I've told you before, I'm taking a break from women because I need to focus on being the captain."
The defenseman scowled at him. "Maybe it's time for you to steer your ship into port."
What the hell? Since when did that dumbass Russian start using metaphors to describe Jordan's emotional issues? Oh wait, it was a sex metaphor.
"Where did you even hear that?"
Alex smiled. "That survivor show where they had to live in an old pirate ship for a week and—"
"I remember," Jordan lamented. "Go take a shower, Birdie. You smell like a hockey player."
The penthouse was dark when Charlotte finally got home from the game. Luckily, she had a few overhead lights added when they built out the empty floor, but now she was cursing that she hadn't added more to the plan. At least the sporadic light meant that she couldn't see all the boxes that still needed to be unpacked.
Charlotte walked down the hall past the bedrooms to her office at the end. Even at night, it was perfect. The extra lights in the ceiling made the space bright along with the simple white walls.
She headed over to sit down behind the best piece in the room: a large mahogany desk that was placed in the right spot to allow her to look out the windows and see the skyline of the city. The desk was probably the priciest piece of furniture in her place, which was a bit ridiculous considering she bought it off her own uncle. John had insisted that he needed at least $15,000 to part with such a "family heirloom" or something like that when Charlotte knew damn well the thing was collecting dust in his home in the Hamptons. But it had been custom ordered by her great-grandfather after he made his first million dollars almost a century ago selling New York real estate. It deserved to see some more work.
Charlotte ran her fingers along the top of the desk, tracing the bumps and cracks that it had picked up over the years. She smiled, thinking that she couldn't wait to get started on her next projects there, looking up to make sure she had a good sight line to the whiteboard she had installed on a nearby wall. Her editor, Nick Owen, had called her latest manuscript good but a bit uninspired. It just didn't seem like her, he said.
"Maybe you should try a new approach to your writing," Nick had suggested. "Change your workspace around. Put your desk in a different spot to get a new view or get rid of your little note cards on the bulletin board. Try going big."
Perhaps she had taken Nick's words too seriously when she moved her entire apartment to another city and had a huge whiteboard installed next to her desk in her bigger office. But as she sat there, she realized this was the right decision.
Charlotte stood and walked over to the blank wall that faced the whiteboard and had her bedroom closet on the other side, taking particular note of the floorboards. "One, two, three." She counted the boards with her toe lightly tapping each one before reaching the fourth. "Gotcha!" she whispered triumphantly, pressing her foot down to pop open the secret door that led into her closet. It was a bit cheesy, a bit James Bond perhaps, but she was never one to go with convention.
She thought about digging through the boxes to find a t-shirt or some yoga pants to sleep in, but the day had already been quite long after unpacking box after box followed by a hockey game. Instead, she just pulled off her boots, dropping them unceremoniously on the floor of her closet.
She walked into her bedroom, sleek and crisp and modern, including the white bedspread and fluffy pillows. Climbing under the clean sheets on her new bed, she was thankful that she had made sure to unpack those on the first day she arrived. It wouldn't have really mattered tonight though considering the most comfortable thing touching her skin was her jersey. She smiled as she drifted off to sleep, thinking about the note that Jack had included with it when he sent it to her.
"So glad you picked this city. You're going to love Jordan King!"
