The reporters took the hint, and the scrum broke apart as they went to talk to Wyatt instead. Harris lingered behind. He’d lowered himself from the chair he’d been balanced on, and offered Troy a friendly smile.
“Not sure what that guy was expecting you to say.”
Troy could only grunt in response, but Harris kept smiling, and Troy kept looking at him. He had a nice smile, easy and genuine.
“Well, I should—” Harris gestured toward the reporters that were gathered around Wyatt.
“Yep.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow. For the Q and A. If you’re still available?”
Right. That thing. Troy had forgotten, and he really didn’t want to do it. “Look, um. I know your job is to, like, make us seem like fun guys or heroes or whatever, but I’d rather just focus on hockey. The other stuff isn’t for me.”
The light in Harris’s eyes dimmed. “Got it.”
Troy nodded, ready to be done with the conversation. “Okay. I’m gonna...”
“Sure.” Harris gave a forced smile that looked all wrong on his face. “I’ve got other hockey players to bother anyway.”
Troy almost replied. He almost assured Harris that he wasn’t bothering him, even if it wasn’t exactly true.
But he didn’t, because this was as gently as he could possibly let Harris down. In the past he probably would have just sneered at Harris, or let Dallas Kent do it for him. This was growth.
But he still felt like a fucking asshole as he watched Harris walk away.
Chapter Four
“What do you think of Barrett?” Harris asked. It was the morning after Troy’s first game with Ottawa, and for both professional and personal reasons, Harris couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Gen glanced up from her computer. Their desks faced each other in their small office. “According to pretty much everyone in the world of hockey, he’s a dick. And he hasn’t proved otherwise yet.”
“Everyone said Rozanov was a dick,” Harris pointed out. “That turned out to be wrong.”
Gen laughed. “Rozanov is a dick. He’s just a fun one. Troy is the not-fun kind.”
Harris frowned as he scrolled through the replies to his latest Instagram post, not really reading them. “I was thinking that maybe...”
Gen squinted at her screen, then clicked her mouse a few times. “What?”
“I don’t know. That he could use a friend right now? He seems...sad.”
That got Gen’s full attention. She leaned back in her chair, eyebrows raised. “You want to be Barrett’s friend? Wait. Never mind. You want to be everybody’s friend.”
“It’s my job!”
“Sort of.” She went back to clicking and squinting. “He’s pretty,” she said casually.
Harris folded his arms protectively across his chest. “He’s not ugly,” he agreed.
Gen’s lips curved up, though she didn’t look away from her computer screen. “Didn’t you tell me last season that you thought he was the hottest player in the league?”
Harris had definitely said that. “I don’t remember.”
“We were playing Marry, Fuck, Kill and you said ‘fuck Troy Barrett’ three times.”
Oh. Right. “I may have had a few beers in me.”
“Mm.”
“His looks have nothing to do with anything, though. I don’t know if he’s just a jerk, or if he’s being a jerk as, like, a defense mechanism or something. Maybe he just needs people to be nice to him.”
Gen snorted. “NHL stars have it so rough. If only someone would adore them.”
“Have you seen any of the replies on our posts? The fans are vicious to him.”
“No. Looking at replies is your job. All I care about is that you use my good photos and not your shitty iPhone ones.”
“The photo of him on the ice during the anthem before his first game here,” Harris continued, ignoring her. “On both Twitter and Instagram there are about a billion nasty replies.”
“Pro or anti–Dallas Kent?”
“Both. But definitely anti–Troy Barrett. This one says ‘Barrett is jealous that Kent won’t fuck him.’ And then they use some slurs that I won’t repeat.”
“Hockey fans are idiots. What else is new?”
Harris didn’t bother defending hockey fans, and instead asked, “I don’t know why Barrett isn’t a hero right now.”
“Yes you do.”
“But he did the right—”
“Men never believe women. Women don’t believe women. Come on, Harris. You know this. What were you expecting to happen? The whole league rallies behind Barrett, and Kent gets kicked out of hockey?”
“That’s what should have happened.”
“No fucking shit. But instead, Barrett probably regrets saying anything. I’ll bet he didn’t even mean to say it! He didn’t have much to say when I mentioned it to him.”
Harris nearly dropped his phone. “You mentioned it to him? When?”
“When I was taking his official photo. I told him it was good, calling Kent out.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that it was complicated, which doesn’t actually mean anything.” She sighed. “I hate that word. It’s not complicated; Kent is a rapist and Barrett called him a rapist.”
A heavy silence filled the room. Gen was always blunt, but she was also usually right.
“Do you think,” Harris asked, “that Troy, like, knew for sure?” It was the question that had been on his mind for days.
“You mean do I think he witnessed his best friend assaulting women and didn’t say anything until now?” Gen shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I hope not.”
“I hope not too.”
She turned her attention back to her computer. “It’s not my job to like them; it’s my job to make them look good. And Barrett’s pretty face makes my job easy. Hopefully he’s not an accomplice to sexual assault, but if he is, well, he’s not the only player in this league who is, I’m sure.”
Harris chewed his lip. Probably not. For whatever reason, though, he didn’t think Troy was an accomplice. He’d barely met the man, but he wanted to believe Troy was a good person, even if only for professional reasons. Harris liked every member of the Ottawa team, and he didn’t want that to change.