Rookie spoke with his gaze on the table, “I had an issue.”
“Ain’t no excuse for that, Rookie,” Mikah said.
Coach shifted to Mikah. “And I know you weren’t guzzling hard liquor before taking the ice.”
Mikah chewed on the masculine curve of his bottom lip. “Sipping, sir, season’s not until Friday.”
Piper still felt the heat of a thousand Texas suns inside her body. How did they stand wearing all this gear? Why didn’t they melt right through the rink? Why was Mikah so hot, and why hadn’t he asked her out? “Are these uniforms made of flannel layered in polar fleece?”
Dahlia crooked her finger. “Piper, a word?”
Piper bounced her bound feet on the floor to illustrate that she couldn’t leave.
Mikah bent in front of her and expertly removed her skate guards, skates, and pants. He was kneeling at her feet. Crazy hot move. Piper looked at him from underneath her eyelashes. “Thanks.” Her voice came out husky.
Mikah looked like he wanted her to stay. He said nothing. Piper grabbed her jersey and went to the door.
Kiernan kicked his feet up on the tabletop. “Now that the women are leaving, unfreeze the boobs.”
A middle-aged woman’s voice cracked through the speaker. “Son, is that you?”
CHAPTER 5
Piper ignored her need to strip off all her clothes and plunge into an ice bath. She bowed to propriety and pulled on the hockey jersey over her tank top. The fabric fell to her thighs like a sporty minidress. Now more appropriately attired, if barefoot, she left the conference room to speak with her cousin about the train wreck behind her. How could she explain why the guys back there were such screwups? She couldn’t.
Piper followed Dahlia down the corridor. They didn’t walk far, just stopped in the tunnel leading to the ice. Blessed coolness swept down from the arena. Piper held in the pleased ahh bubbling up from her throat.
Dahlia snagged the bag of players’ confiscated phones from a table.
Aw. Thirty minutes ago, Dahlia’s biggest concern had been disruptive ringtones. Good times.
Dahlia turned to her with a surprisingly cheery conspiratorial expression and passed Piper the phone-filled bag. “You get it.”
Did she? “Yeah.”
Dahlia waved one well-manicured finger. “You’re doing your job, waiting to head into the charity event.” She flared her fingers like fireworks. “Boom, the men fall apart.”
Intuitive fair assessment of what had happened. Piper pursed her lips and nodded. Yeah, shit happened, none of that back there had been her fault.
“If team events ran smoothly, reporters would only see the good in every player, social media would type their praises, and twenty-three pumped-up millionaire athletes would never misbehave.”
Okay, none of that would ever happen.
“They need our help.”
Dahlia had made a legit argument. Before this afternoon, Piper would have said pro athletes were high-achieving adults, let them be. Now, she got why Dahlia wanted a hand protecting the team’s image.
Dahlia checked out her jersey. “I have an idea and need someone I trust to be the project manager. You could use a few more gigs, right?”
Hmm, and here, she’d been thinking that she hadn’t quite earned her paycheck. “A thousand a gig? Part-time? You got me.”
Dahlia clapped. “So good, people should hire more history majors.”
Because they were powerless due to their lack of options and wouldn’t balk at ridiculous assignments? True. Piper arched her eyebrows. “Totally agree.”
“I’m still working on your title, but basically, you’d be a team Purity Minder.”
The impossibility made Piper flinch, one of those whole-body ones that waved from her shoulders to her toes. “Wait. What?”