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The puck drops, and we lunge at each other. He tries to hook me. I step aside and hit him with the shaft of the stick. The whistle blows, and the referee indicates we’re both to be sent off the ice for two minutes. I glare at the douche then glide to the bench while Joshua, aka Ghost, takes over. However, the incident seems to have broken the focus of the team, for the Sentinels score. Their home crowd cheers, but ultimately, we win 3 - 2.
As we glide off the ice, Arsemonger skates past, but not before he digs his elbow into my side. "I don’t know what you’re hiding, but whatever it is, I plan to dig it out."
I turn, grip his shoulder and pull him close, so to anyone watching, it’ll look like we were having a conversation. I tighten my hold on him, and his features redden. He tries to yank free, but I squeeze down. His features slowly purple, he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I bare my teeth. "By the time I’m done with you, you won’t have the strength to move. If you dare come near her—if you dare even look at her again—if you dare so much as be within a hundred feet of her, I’ll fucking—"
"Rick!"
51
Gio
I yell through the plexiglass, sure he won’t hear me over the noise, but he stiffens. He heard me. He must hear me, or at least, he must sense me. "Rick, stop, please."
Tension is embedded in every hard plane of his body, but he releases Dennis, pivots and glides off the rink without looking at me.
I hurry up the aisle between the rows of people beginning to stream out. When I reach the top of the seats, I turn toward the room where the post-match media-debrief is going to be held. Making sure all of the arrangements are in place, I withdraw to the side. The reporters file in, and in a few minutes, the seats are taken. Then Edward walks in, followed by Rick, the Sentinel’s General Manager, and Dennis. All four take their seats on the podium, and the journalists start firing questions.
"Is it true that Rick’s fiancée was your girlfriend, Dennis?" One of the journalists asks Dennis the question, but Rick cuts in with, "She’s not his; she’s mine."
Oh my god, does that man have no self-preservation? How could he say something so caveman, and with a straight face, a-n-d—I take in the faces of the journalists, all of whom have serious looks on their faces. They’re taking him seriously. Don’t they see how ridiculous it is that he claims me as his in front of all of them, as if he owns me, and all of them take it as the gospel truth?
"Were the two of you exchanging words? Anything to do with her?" Another journalist asks.
I flatten myself against the wall of the conference room. Good thing I chose the furthermost corner from the platform. I look down, making sure not to meet anyone’s gaze.
"Isn’t this press-conference about the game?" Edward asks in a pointed fashion. "I prefer it if we leave the player’s personal life out of the questions."
"You can ask about my personal life any time. I’d be only too happy to answer," Dennis says with an oily smile on his face. How could I have thought of him as charming? I’ll take Rick’s rare smiles over Dennis' any day. Rick’s smiles are so genuine, they hit me in the guts and twist my insides, and always have my ovaries all excited.
"In which case, I’d love to know why the two of you had an altercation on the ice," a journalist pipes up.
"Altercation?" Rick rubs at his chin. "That wasn’t an altercation." There’s laughter from the audience, then Rick rises to his feet and growls, "This is an altercation." He turns, hauls Dennis to his feet, and before the man can react, he’s buried his fist in his face.
* * *
"Couldn’t you control yourself?" I dig my fingers into my hair and tug. Strands of my hair rain down around my face and I push them back. I’ve never known a time when I’ve been this distraught. Not even when I’d walked in on my ex and my friend. But watching this man bury his career is agonizing. And arousing. The fact he doesn’t care one whit for his public image and that he proclaimed me as his in front of the world and on national media is the hottest thing anyone has done for me. Also, the scariest thing. This is irrevocable proof that this guy is nothing like my ex—which I knew, but which he confirmed today. And all the more reason he needs to keep playing. He's the best player on the scene, and the best captain this team could have, and I can’t let him fuck it up for me.
"You gave me your word," Edward warns from across the table. The usually unruffled GM looks this close to flipping his temper.
"I stuck to it."
"So what was that out there?" He stabs his thumb in the direction of the conference room. We’re in the office adjoining it, where Edward and Finn managed to drag Rick away after he’d punched Dennis in his nose—the one which Rick already broke previously.
Dennis howled like a banshee, and the flashbulbs went off like fireworks. My phone has been pinging with updates ever since. I have no doubt the pictures of the two of them will be all over the internet again, and by default, me too. One of the reporters spotted me and moved toward me, but I evaded and ran out of the room, then got on the phone to my contacts in the media to try to put damage control measures in place, but there was not much I could do. It was a disagreement captured live on camera, and the press was going to have a field day with it.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" Edward bites out.
"I stuck to my promise of not fighting on the ice. I didn’t say anything about off the rink."
"Motherfucker." Edward throws up his hands. "Do you have any idea how difficult it was to convince the chairpersons of the League not to penalize you?"
"Those ass-twerps? I’m sure they’re enjoying the extra attention I’m bringing to the league. The enmity between me and that doucheface, is no doubt driving many square inches of media attention. It’s benefitting them, putting bums on seats for the next game, and shining the spotlight on the game in the country."
Edward sets his jaw. "It shows you as being unsportsmanlike, a man who’d take the rules in his own hands, a man—"
"Who’s driving heightened levels of sponsorship money into the sport," Rick drawls.
Edward’s jaw tics, the veins on his throat stand out, and OMG, that only draws attention to his smoldering good looks. I’d have to be blind not to notice how appealing he is when he’s all worked up…and when he's not. Except, he doesn’t do anything for me. He doesn’t have the same effect on my body as Rick.
