Jane groaned. Hours later she was still writhing with embarrassment. “Don’t,” she pleaded and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “The only consolation I have is that I will never see Luc Martineau again.” But she didn’t ever think she’d forget the look on his face. Kind of stunned surprise, followed by laughter. She’d wanted to die right there, but she couldn’t even blame him for laughing at her. He probably hadn’t been called a big dumb dodo since grade school.
“Bummer,” Caroline said as she raised a glass of wine to her lips. She’d pulled her shiny blond hair back into a perfect ponytail and, as always, looked gorgeous. “I thought maybe you could introduce me to Rob Sutter.”
“The Hammer?” Jane shook her head and took a drink of her gin and tonic. “His nose is always broken and he always has a black eye.”
Caroline smiled and got a little dreamy-eyed. “I know.”
“He’s married and has a baby.”
“Hmm, well, someone single, then.”
“I thought you had a new man.”
“I do, but it’s not going to work out.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said through a sigh and put her wine on the cherrywood coffee table. “Lenny is handsome and rich but soooo boring.”
Which meant he was probably normal and didn’t need fixing. Caroline was a born fixer-upper.
“Do you want to turn on the game and watch it?” Caroline asked.
Jane shook her head. “Nah.” She’d been tempted, real tempted, to grab the remote and surf by the game to see who was winning. But that would only make everything worse.
“Maybe the Chinooks will lose. That might make you feel better.”
It wouldn’t. “No.” Jane leaned her head back on the floral print sofa. “I don’t ever want to see a hockey game again.” But she did. She wanted to be in the press box or a seat near the action. She wanted to feel the energy run through her, watch a flawless play, a fight break out in the corners, or Luc reach for the perfect glove save.
“Just when I thought I was making progress with the team, I get the sack. I beat Rob and Luc at darts, and they all kidded me about having lesbian glasses. And that night I didn’t get nuisance calls in my room. I know we weren’t friends, but I thought they were beginning to trust and accept me into the pack.” She thought a moment and added, “Like wild dingos.”
Caroline glanced at her watch. “I’ve been here fifteen minutes and you haven’t gotten to the good stuff.”
Jane didn’t have to ask what her friend was talking about. She knew Caroline too well. “I thought you came over to cheer me up, but you just want to hear about the locker room.”
“I did come to cheer you up.” She turned toward Jane and laid an arm across the back of the sofa. “Later.”
It wasn’t like she owed any of them any sort of loyalty. Not now. And it wasn’t as if she were going to put it in a tell-all book. “Okay,” she said, “but it wasn’t like you’re thinking. It wasn’t all really hard bodies and me the only woman. Well, it was, but I had to keep my eyes up and every time I walked past a player he dropped his cup.”
“You’re right,” Caroline said as she leaned over and plucked her wine off the table. “It isn’t what I was thinking. It’s better.”
“It’s harder than you think to talk to a naked man while you’re fully clothed. They’re all sweaty and flushed and they don’t want to talk. You ask them a question, and they just sort of grunt out an answer.”
“Sounds like my last three boyfriends during sex.”
“It wasn’t as much fun as sex, believe me.” She shook her head. “Some of them wouldn’t talk to me at all, and that made it really difficult to do my job.”
“Yeah, I know that part.” She waved a dismissive hand. “So, who has the best body?”
Jane thought a moment. “Well, they’re all incredibly built. Powerful legs and upper bodies. Mark Bressler probably has the biggest muscles, but Luc Martineau has this horseshoe tattoo low on his abdomen that makes you want to fall right to your knees and kiss it for good luck. And his butt… perfect.” She held her cool glass to her forehead. “Too bad he’s a jerk.”
“Sounds like you like him.”
Jane lowered the glass and looked over at Caroline. Like him? Like Luc? The guy who got her fired? More than all the other players combined, she felt most hurt and betrayed by Luc. Which, when she thought about it, probably wasn’t all that rational, since she didn’t really know him and he didn’t know her. It was just that she’d thought they’d developed a tentative friendship, and if she was honest, she’d admit that she’d also developed a slight infatuation for Luc. No, infatuation was too strong a word. Interest better described what she’d felt. “I don’t like him,” she said, “but he does have one of those Canadian accents that is only detectable with certain words.”
“Uh-oh.”
“What, uh-oh? I said I didn’t like him.”