Page 34 of He Has Pluck

“The ladies are smart,” Rafe says. “There’s a homemade cassoulet in there, courtesy of my wife.” He smiles with pride.

“I’ll ride with you back to the facility,” Finn says. “It’ll save Rafe from dropping me off.”

“First, we need to heat up that cassoulet and eat some because I’m not leaving here until I get a taste of it,” Rafe says. “The aroma has been taunting all morning and on the ride over.”

I heat it up in the microwave, and we eat the entire casserole dish within twenty minutes and then go to the facility.

Finn and I walk down the hall past the management offices on our way to the training room when we run into Delaney heading the other way.

“Just the two I want to see,” she says, and my stomach sinks.

“What’s up?” Finn asks.

She pulls us aside like we’re a couple of kids, bringing us toward an open office door, and practically shoves us in there.

“Whose office is this?” I get the feeling it belongs to someone important by the way it’s furnished.

“Never mind that,” she snaps and shuts the door behind her.

“Tell me about the fight between you and Tony G,” she says to me. Fuck.

“How did you find out about that? And it wasn’t a fight.”

“Video clips of the fight showed up on social media. Of course. And while you might not consider the shoving match a fight, it’s being characterized as a blow up, a fight, a scuffle and a shove fest by numerous social media influencers.” Ouch.

“It was nothing,” Finn says. “We took care of it.”

“You and the team may be all set with the scuffle, and that’s fine, but the public is just sinking their teeth into the salacious gossip about infighting on the team. This is the exact kind of thing we need to handle by way of the documentary. I’ll be talking to Ruminski and Sullivan about it.”

“Sullivan?” Finn says.

“Juliette,” I say. It’s funny, but she’s known to the team by her first name because that’s what I call her in front of them. I keep her pet name, Ice Chip, for when we’re alone. Which is more often than it should be.

“Whatever,” Delaney says. “We’ll have to get some shots of you and Tony together, laughing and getting along, and I don’t care if it kills you and you hate his guts.”

“No problem,” I say. My gut clenches because every time I think of him my body reacts as if he’s a visceral threat to my wellbeing, which is completely irrational. Worse, I feel like he’s a threat to Juliette, to my relationship with her.

Which is laughable because what relationship? We hooked up twice, and we have no idea what the fuck we’re doing except that we agree it’s messed up. And all wrong.

An obsession more than a relationship.

An obsession that wants to be a relationship if I believe what she said that night in a moment of weakness. I have feelings. If I believe the automatic reaction of my own body to her words, to her softness.

“I’ll give you an hour to work out, shower and eat, and then you report dressed at the Garden. We’ll do the photo shoot there.” She turns and leaves without waiting for a reply as if she’s the general and we’re minions at her fucking command.

“Shit,” Finn says.

We work out and shower with no camera in the room, which is a luxury, and then we head for the dining room to quickly grab some food. The first person I see is Tony G. I look past him for Juliette, but she’s not around. Tony heads straight for us.

“You looking for Juliette?” he asks. I don’t answer him. “She’s not here. She’s going to meet us at the Garden. She told me all about the plan for the shoot. I’m cool with it. She’s one cool lady.”

“What do you mean?” My voice is automatically hostile, and I try and reign it in, but knowing Tony’s interested in Juliette causes me all kinds of turmoil.

He puts up his hands. “Nothing, don’t get all hot and bothered.” He gives me a speculative stare while I clench my mouth shut to keep from saying the wrong thing because I guarantee anything that comes out of my mouth right now is bound to be the wrong thing.

“She’s not worth it. Even I’m not crazy enough to play with that fire. Coach says we need to forget about her filming us and concentrate on the team and the games, and that’s what I’m doing.” He has a serious glint in his eye as he reaches out a hand for me to shake. I don’t trust it, but I shake it anyway because I have no choice. He’s not telling the truth, but hell if I know what the truth is, what he has in mind to mess me up.

In the end, I’m the only one who can mess myself up, not Tony and not even Juliette.