I should be out there. I should be filming. I should be––
Angry roars explode from where I came from, and I hang my head. I missed something. I don’t know what it was, but the Lions pissed off the home team. They could’ve scored or blocked a shot or started a fight or…something, and I missed it. I won’t have the footage for later. I won’t be able to use it to promote the team.
“Fuck,” I seethe under my breath as I drop my camera, letting it hang from the strap around my neck. Shoving my hands through my hair, I push it away from my face and attempt to steady my breathing.
I should go back. I should ignore him. It’s not like he could’ve reached me, anyway. It would’ve been fine. I’m safe. He can’t touch me. Not when there are so many people around. He probably wouldn’t touch me anyway, even if I was alone. Not all guys are Shorty. Not all guys are out to get me.
It’s fine.
I’m fine.
“Does Buchanan pay you to be in here during a game?” a cold, detached voice demands. It mingles with the familiar sound of shoes on concrete.
My spine straightens as I balance my camera in one hand and face the culprit.
Seriously?
The guy hasn’t said two words to me since our initial meeting in the arena at my first practice, and now he shows up? Jeffry needs to get laid––and soon––because the stick up his ass is starting to get on my nerves.
“I needed to use the restroom,” I tell him.
“You missed the highlight of the game because you couldn’t hold your bladder for three more minutes until the period ended?” Jeffry challenges with his hands shoved into his pockets. “You really think that’ll fly with the board when they find out?”
Man, I want to punch him.
Instead, I raise my chin and hold his gaze. “It won’t happen again.”
“What won’t happen again?” Buchanan interjects.
Seriously? Is the locker room the place to be tonight or something?
“She missed one of the game’s biggest highlights,” Jeffry explains. His tone is thick with condescension.
Buchanan’s stone-cold gaze turns from Jeffry to me. “Is there a reason you aren’t where you’re supposed to be?”
Is there a reason you aren’t where you’re supposed to be? I want to spit back at him, but I close my eyes and count to three as all the reasons why I’d be smart to keep this job flash through my mind. It doesn’t matter how much I want to reach out and smack Jeffry across the face. I need to keep my impulses in check.
Need. Not want. Need.
Breathe, I remind myself. Peeling my eyes open, I paste on a smile. “I needed to use the restroom. Like I said, I’m sorry. I’ll make sure to not drink as much water before a game from now on. It won’t happen again.”
Silence follows my excuse as Buchanan’s eyes thin. It’s like he doesn’t believe me. To be fair, I wouldn’t believe me, either. But right now, I don’t give a shit. I need to get back to the rink. I need to do my job. I need to be stronger than this. To not let random assholes affect me.
“Everything okay?” Buchanan prods, watching as I shift my weight from one foot to the other. His question isn’t warm. But it isn’t necessarily cold, either. It’s…detached. Bland. But with a sharp undertone hinting he almost cares. Almost. If I didn’t know him better, I might even believe him. But I do know him. And if there’s anything I’ve witnessed more times than I can even count, he’s all about the bottom line. All about the rules and how they must be followed. All about the job and how it must be completed. No. Matter. What.
And the fact I’m in the locker room instead of filming more content for the Lions? Well…I dropped the ball, and we both know it. Which means I better have a good excuse locked and loaded if I don’t want to piss him off. Too bad I can’t give him one.
I force myself to nod, answering, “Everything’s great, grand, and wonderful. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Without a backward glance, I head to the rink as the buzzer sounds, ending the second period.
The team ambles past me before I even have a chance to reach the bench, but I don’t follow them back to the locker room. My feet stay rooted to the concrete inside the tunnel. Because I don’t want to face Buchanan or Jeffry again. But I don’t want to go to the rink by myself, either. It’s stupid, but I can’t help it. The desire to blend in. To not be seen or noticed. Not when my head is a jumble of regret, guilt, and…fear.
Is he still out there?
Is he waiting for me?
Once the next period starts, I keep to the shadows, avoiding the stands as if my life depends on it, only casting a peek into the crowd when I can’t take the niggling sensation in the back of my mind for another second. Thankfully, the guy’s gone.
If only he’d taken the heebie-jeebies he gave me with him.
17
HENRY
With her iPad in one arm, Erika walks into my office, announcing, “Quite the game last night.”
Jeffry is already seated across from my desk. We flew in from Michigan early this morning, but there is still plenty we need to catch up on.
“The game was fine,” I agree. We won during the last fifteen seconds of the third period. It almost takes away the sting from the Creekside loss.
“And the videos Mia is posting seem to be bringing in quite a bit of traction,” Erika mentions.
“Too bad she missed two of the best plays in the whole Michigan game,” Jeffry counters.
As Erika continues toward her seat across from my desk, she argues, “Personally, I don’t blame her for needing a minute to herself after all the goading from that man.”
I freeze, the words washing over me like a frigid bucket of water.
“What man?” I sit forward in my chair and lace my fingers in front of me.
“The man in the stands,” Erika clarifies. She casts an awkward look at Jeffry as if hoping he’ll take the hint and fill me in, but he stays quiet, so she turns to me again. “The one who wouldn’t stop leering at her? And the awful things he was yelling at her? Well…” She clutches the strand of pearls around her neck. “Needless to say, I don’t blame Thorne for putting him in his place and making him leave.”
What. The actual. Fuck?
Someone was leering at her? Someone was making her uncomfortable?
“When did Thorne make him leave?” I growl.
“Right at the end of the second period. After Mia disappeared down the tunnel, Dawson pulled Colt from the ice as Theo was escorted to the penalty box, and he let the guy have it.”
Scratching my jaw, I replay the scenario from the locker room. It was a fluke I was even in there, but when I walked in on Jeffry and Mia, my blood boiled at the way he was speaking to her. But what’s worse? I couldn’t figure out the reason behind my frustration.
He was right. Mia should have been at the bench.
Or was he overreacting?
I didn’t have enough information to analyze everything properly. It was even more muddled when I found myself caught between being Mia’s boss and the guy who fucked her with his tongue the night before.