Sophie appeared, her bright eyes taking him in and exuding a mix of sympathy and satisfaction for his fallen state. She probably lived for these kinds of disasters.
“Okay, a couple of things. Coach will also be present, so feel free to defer any questions about team strategy during your absence to him. And if it gets to be too much, just look my way and we’ll wrap it up!”
He squinted at her.
“Hmm?”
“I’m giving you the signal that it’s all too much. Can we wrap it up now?”
She chuckled. “Oh, you’ll be fine! The press loves you, so it’ll be soft balls all the way.”
The press might love him, but he still didn’t want to answer any of their obvious questions, which could easily be parried by, oh, anyone else. Coach, the medics, even Sophie knew as much about his injury as he did because privacy was an afterthought when it came to a pro’s career.
But as Mando would say: This is the way.
He briefly closed his eyes, then opened them, turning the switch in his brain to “on.” Bast Durand, Activate. Only, as he approached the press room, someone caught his eye, a person he didn’t expect to see.
Pepper.
She stood off to the side, arms crossed, looking like she wished the ground would swallow her up. Something fierce in his chest sparked at the sight of her. It should have been anger—and there was plenty of that to go around—but this was a strange instinct to squirrel her away to a closet to keep her out of harm’s way.
And maybe finish what they’d started that night in Jimmy’s Tap.
“Is Pepper going to be out there?”
Sophie slid a glance her way. “No. She’s—I’m not sure why she’s here.”
He was already surging forward to find out. “What’s going on?”
“Are you okay?” Genuine concern filled those stunning hazel eyes, set off by dark circles beneath them. There was no doubt that she hadn’t slept much.
“I’m as fine as I can be under the circumstances. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?”
Because if the press got wind of her presence, they’d crucify her. “I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
“Why would you—I don’t need you to worry about me.”
“Bast, we’re ready for you,” Sophie called out.
As if he wasn’t feeling bad enough about his injury and the likelihood he was out for several weeks at a minimum, now he had to worry about Pepper being a target. He did not have time for this.
“In case you haven’t noticed, people are pretty pissed at you, and to be honest, there’s only so much I can do to protect you.”
Wide-eyed and flushed, she asked, “Protect me?”
“From the press. But don’t worry, I’m not planning on talking about you in there. It was an accident.”
He could be magnanimous. It was one of the things that made him so well-liked. He was generous in both victory and defeat.
She stared at him for a long beat. Finally she said, “I appreciate you saying that.”
“You made a mistake, that’s all.”
She nodded a couple of times. “Sure. Except the replay tells a different story.”
“The replay?”
“The replay showed you weren’t paying attention. At least not to anyone but the buxom blonde in the front row, the one with the ‘I love you, Bast!’ sign.”
That may have been a contributory factor, but he wouldn’t be addressing it now. “I barely remember that.” Excellent defense, Durand. He had never sounded more guilty.
“No? It looked like you were making eyes at her. In fact, you were barely moving, so something in the crowd snagged your attention. Probably those Double-Ds, which on closer inspection had your name tattooed on one of them. Ring any bells?”
Christ, just when he thought they might have reached an understanding. So maybe it was partly his fault. Must they hash this out now?
“Bast!” Sophie placed a hand on his arm. “We really can’t wait any longer.”
He sent one last glance at Pepper, his gaze drawn to a clump of blue glitter in her hair near her cheek. “We’ll talk later, okay?”
She blinked in that way women got when they were trying to hold back tears, and his heart cracked right there and then. He wanted to tell Sophie to screw the presser and just let him take care of his woman.
Christ on a puck, where had that come from? He and Pepper were not connected like that. Except every time he ran into her—sometimes literally!—something shifted inside his chest. Something tearing open and knitting back together.
Dazed, he walked into the press room and took a seat beside Coach Calhoun.
“How’s it going, son?”
He mustered a smile. “Can barely feel it to be honest. Not sure what all the fuss is about.”
Coach patted him on the back. “That’s the spirit.”
It was true. It would heal much more quickly than before, but as for his ability to work future magic with a stick, he had no idea. This might be the end of the road for him.
The questions started, the first one from Jordan Cooke, who also happened to be married to Bast’s new teammate, Levi Hunt.
“How’s the wrist feeling, Bast?”
Holding his braced arm up, he flexed his fingers. “Not bad. I’ve had worse.”
Everyone chuckled in commiseration and in appreciation of good-natured Bast who always managed to put on a good show.
“Any idea when you might return to practice or even play?”
“We’re looking at a few weeks.”
A few more toothless questions followed about recovery times, what this meant for the line-ups and the early part of the season. Coach handled most of those, which gave Bast time to let his mind wander and dwell on how he might have screwed up here. Sure, that blonde in the front row had caught his interest, but it was still the mascot’s responsibility to not collide with the players. Mascotting 101!
Bast clawed his attention back to the press conference, where the air was thick with foreboding. Maybe he’d missed something, but he suddenly felt more on edge than usual, like he was waiting for a bolt of lightning to strike.
Thunder rolled before the flash.
“Coach Calhoun, how’s your daughter?”
The question came from the back in a voice Bast hated. Curtis Deacon, the Sun-Times’ hockey reporter and one of the team’s harshest critics.
“My daughter is fine,” Coach said gruffly.
“Only, it’s strange that she would be on the ice. What kind of training does she have?”
“There was a miscommunication about going on. She knows how to skate. Usually.”
Usually? What kind of backhanded shit was that?
Deacon wasn’t finished. “Some people are saying that she shouldn’t have been out there at all. Why would your daughter have that job?”
“She doesn’t any longer.”
Even the usually cynical press corps looked shocked at that. Did the man just fire his daughter in front of the whole wide world of sports?
Screw this. “The all-important mascot job—is that what you’re asking?”
That got their attention.
“Are you saying it’s not important?” Deacon asked Bast, digging in his heels and dropping Bast into the bad books of mascots everywhere.