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Tell me you know nothing about hockey without telling me you know nothing about hockey.I pinch the bridge of my nose and her eyes follow my movement.
“They’re notjusttowels,” I say, trying not to sound as annoyed as I feel. “They’re the towels the team uses before every game. The same towels. Or at least the same thread count. The same size. The same feel. And you changed them.”
“I know,” she says, looking confused. “Didn’t we just establish that?”
“And now the team is spooked. A day before the season starts.”
“Spooked?” she asks. “About towels? Seriously?”
Fucking hell. “Seriously,” I say, trying to keep my annoyance hidden. “You can’t just change things on us without warning. We have rituals, we have comfort objects. We don’t like change so close to a game. Anything that changes the way the team works is a shitshow at this point in the season. And also, the towels are shit. I checked them.”
“They’re still premium towels. The provider said so.” Her voice is lower now. She looks unsure.
“This is why I asked you to run things by me,” I tell her. And yeah, now I sound pissed. But I have a shit ton of work to do today and talking about fucking towels wasn’t part of the plan. “If they’re spooked they don’t have their minds a hundred percent on the game. And I need them to be focused. You could have talked to me, we could have discussed trying the towels out or maybe delaying the change.” I shake my head. “Do you knowanythingabout hockey at all?”
She flinches and I regret saying it.
She puts her hand to her still-yellow cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”
For one horrific moment I think she’s going to cry. All that composure, that certainty, where is it now? I want it back because I feel like a dick.
“I know. I get it. Please, just run things by me. Those kids are desperate to win. They want to please. But they’re also temperamental. I can’t have anything veer them off their path for the next two days.”
“Understood.” Her voice is tight.
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. Somehow I’ve ended up being the asshole again, so I decide to take a different tack. “Are you coming to the game tomorrow?”
“No. I wasn’t planning to. I… ah…” She looks around. “Too much to do, you know?”
“There are seats in the staff box. Ask Jake at the ticket desk to reserve one for you. It’d do you good to learn a little more about the game.”
Something about my words brings the life back into her. “I don’t need to understand the game to figure out how to save money,” she says, her eyes meeting mine. “And it’s best if I keep some distance. Getting too close to employees is never a good thing in my position.”
“Maybe you should tell that to Goran,” I say lightly. Because, yes, I’ve noticed him hanging around her office, and no, I don’t like it.
I’ve said nothing to him yet, but if it gets worse, I will.
Her cheeks flush. “I don’t need to tell that to Goran. Nothing is going on.”
“He has a crush on you.”
She opens her mouth then hesitates.
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” I add, because I’m feeling like an asshole again. Which isn’t a normal feeling for me. Or at least it wasn’t until Mackenzie Hunter arrived in the locker room.
I don’t like how I keep opening my mouth and saying the wrong things. But here I am, still doing it.
“I just think you need to not encourage him,” I finish.
“I’m not encouraging him,” she tells me, her eyes narrowing. “He buys me a coffee, I drink it. I don’t know what that means in your dirty, misogynistic mind, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to get down on my knees and let him ram me from behind.”
“Ram you from behind?” My voice is thin.
“Shut up. You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I do. Somebody fucking help me because I’m picturing it right now. Only I’m the one doing the ramming.
I squeeze my eyes shut to get rid of that image.
