Glad that she’d brought it up, Kennedy asked, “So what’s his deal? Is he always so …”
“Rude, abrupt, grouchy?”
“In a word or three.” She might add intense, sexy, and hot as hell. That Reid X-ray death glare when she showed up a few minutes late was its own sex position.
“He’s just one of those guys who’s uber focused on his game. There’s a lot of competition. Also, the players move around frequently so not all of them are here to make friends. That’s Reid in a nutshell, but I don’t know. I think the grumpster thing is a bit of an act. As soon as people see that video, he’s going to be making a whole lot of friends. People love that shit!”
Kennedy didn’t doubt it. She saw it now: Reid making friends with women in coffee shops, bars, nightclubs, hotel lobbies, airports … Not that she cared. She wasn’t even sure why she had thought it.
Probably because she had just been thinking about sex. Hot Jerk was attractive, yes, but she liked her bedmates a little less on the cranky side.
Which might make her problem solvable. Looking around, she thought about this big apartment, Reid’s doggie day and night care needs, and her own housing dilemma. Surely there was a way to make this work …
Foreman approached Reid in the Philly visitors’ locker room after the game.
“Good work out there.”
Reid eyed him, knowing he had played well with an assist. He wasn’t the reason they’d won but he hoped his contribution would be noted by the people in charge. He certainly didn’t need a patronizing pat on the pack from the likes of Foreman, though. Now they had the dog as their connective tissue, the last thing he wanted was for Foreman to get ideas that this was the start of a beautiful friendship. That was not how to keep ahead of the pack.
“You see this?” Foreman turned his phone around. A video was playing.
Damn, he had known that woman was filming. “Has everyone seen it?”
“Probably.” No one was paying them any mind but Reid was on deck for post-game press duties. “Worried it makes you look like a softie?”
Yes. He would prefer to care for the dog without all the baggage that came with caring for the dog.
Yesterday, he had called Kennedy to ask how Bucky was doing the moment he landed in Philly. Fine, apparently. Absolutely fine. He had wanted to switch to FaceTime but felt weird about it. Kennedy would probably make some assumption about his attraction to her—so what if it might be half-true—and wouldn’t believe that he wanted to see his dog. He didn’t quite believe it himself.
But now he wanted to talk to her and warn her about the video. He needed to find somewhere private.
Back at the hotel, Foreman stopped at the bar for a drink with Petrov and the crew, which gave Reid at least thirty minutes before he pounded in, probably eager to have phone sex with Mia.
Don’t think about phone sex right before you call an attractive woman, connard. Focused on his task, he exhaled a few breaths, dialed using FaceTime, and waited.
No answer.
It was 10:30 p.m. in Chicago. Had Kennedy gone out and left Bucky alone? Or taken him for a walk? That wasn’t a good idea. The GPS tracker app only worked within a few miles, so he couldn’t check on their safety.
He tried again. This time she answered, but she looked a little flushed. It was … nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Okay, hold your horses. I’m here!”
“Where were you?”
“The bathroom. I might be able to get away with an audio call in there but not a video one, right?” She grinned, and foreign warmth flooded his chest cavity. Around her he felt weird. “You win your game?”
“I did.”
She cheered and fist pumped with a loud “Whoop! Whoop!” Barking soon followed. Reid’s heart thumped hard, probably confused as all hell about what was going on. His brother had texted good game, as did his mother. Nothing from Henri yet.
This was the first time he could recall someone outside his family or unconnected to the hockey industrial complex, weighing in on his game with such positivity. She hadn’t even seen it. He got the impression she wasn’t a sports fan.
“Is Bucky okay?”
“Oh, he’s fine. We just got in from a nighttime jaunt and the-world-is-my-toilet excursion. Now he’s excited because I’m excited. Here, take a look!” She reversed the camera so he could see the dog milling about. He looked so happy, and yet again Reid lamented missing another important moment in person.
Mental headshake. This was absurd. He wasn’t missing anything.
“Is he eating and sleeping okay?”
She turned the camera back to her. “Yeah. I put out a little less food today because he’ll pretty much eat anything you put in front of him. For a dog his size, we can take the measurements down a touch.”
“I thought he’d stop eating when he was full.”
“They’re like humans in that respect. Not much willpower when confronted with gads of food. It’s best to train them on the ideal amounts. It’s all about portion control.” She smiled, tempering what could have been an admonishment. “Don’t worry, you guys will learn together.”
“Would it be okay if I … talked to him?”
Those silver-gray suns lit up. “That’s a great idea. Hold on a sec.” A moment later, she had reversed the camera again so the next face he saw was Bucky’s. Now that Reid was on the spot, he felt foolish and tongue-tied. He wished Kennedy would leave the room, but then this wouldn’t be possible without her holding the phone.
Like an idiot, he said, “Hello, Bucky. Just … uh, checking in.”
Kennedy’s words of encouragement filled the silence. “It’s Daddy. He’s calling home. Give him a bark.”
The dog kept his thoughts to himself.
She turned back. “You know something? I think your face isn’t big enough—ha, bet you never heard that before! Do you have a computer?”
“Yes, there’s one in my bedroom.”
“Let’s take a walk. Come on, boy.” A couple of minutes later, she was logged into his computer. (He had to give her his password which he would now have to change the moment he got home. She had made a joke about hoping there was nothing incriminating in his search history.) “Okay, I’m going to send you a video call link, and you can answer back on that.” She hung up.
This seemed like a lot of trouble, but everyone was already committed to their roles. He clicked the link in the message she sent and a few seconds later, there she was with Bucky in her lap. The angle was a little different, further away, but then she put Bucky closer to the screen.
The scruffy guy barked. The next sight was a big, moist sliver of pink flesh.
Kennedy laughed. “Oh, boy. I think he recognizes Daddy.”
“Did he just lick the screen?”
“He did! He’s so excited to see you. Keep talking to him. Oh, I know! Tell him about the game. About one of your goals? Did you score a goal?”
No, but neither of them would know. “I made this great slap shot move off my blade that the goalie didn’t see coming. Back of the net, the crowd went wild.”
Bucky barked and jumped out of frame.