“Are you jealous because they want to put her on the cover?”
Ty folded his arms over his bare chest. He hadn’t known about the cover. “I’ve been on the cover three times, and I don’t give a flying fuck about the cover. What I do give a fuck about is picking up the magazine and reading softball questions that she can’t answer. Or picking up the magazine and reading a recap of her Playboy years that makes us all look ridiculous.”
“That’s understandable. Everyone is concerned about the team’s image. Especially Faith.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “I admit that when she first called and set up a meeting with me, I was more curious about seeing her than wanting to take the job. Virgil fired me five years ago for talking shit about her.”
“What did you say that got you fired?”
Jules looked him in the eye and answered. “He overheard me telling the head scouts that he’d married a stripper young enough to be his granddaughter.”
Ty dropped the towel on the bench beside him. “Doesn’t sound like something to get fired over.”
“It wasn’t, and if I’d stopped with that, I would have kept my job. But I’d seen her layout and I described her in detail for the guys. Everything from her big boobs to her bald…you know.”
Yeah, he did know.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Anyway, I resented her for a lot of years, but it wasn’t her fault I was fired. Any more than Virgil dying and leaving her the team is her fault. It landed in her lap and she’s trying hard to deal with it the best she can.”
“I am aware that it’s not her fault.” He reached behind him into his locker and pulled out his sports bag. It wasn’t her fault she’d inherited the team, and his hard-on wasn’t her fault either. The former was Virgil’s doing and the latter was his horny imagination. He had to figure out a better way to deal with both. “I’ll try to be…”
“Nicer? Make her happy.”
“More respectful. It’s your job to make her happy. Maybe you two can go shopping, buy matching sweaters, and have a girls’ night.”
“What?” Jules folded his arms over his big chest, again looking like he was big, bad trouble. “I’m not gay.”
Ty stood and dropped his towel. “I don’t give a shit if you’re gay or straight or somewhere in between.” He knew several gay players who hit like freight trains.
“Why do you think I’m ‘gay or straight or somewhere in between?’” Jules looked truly baffled. “Do the other guys think I’m gay?”
Ty shrugged.
“Because I use hair product?”
“No.” He stepped into his underwear. “Because you say ‘hair product.’”
Chapter 7
A discordant wave of cheers and cowbells rose from the arena below and clashed with the clinking of wineglasses within the skybox inside the Key Arena in Seattle. Faith leaned forward, her fingers gripping the arm of her chair as she gazed down at the scrum in front of the Chinooks net. Sticks and elbows flew in the crease, and of course Ty Savage was right in the center of the action. Goalie Marty Darche went down in a butterfly, stacking his pads while the players on both teams battled it out in the second period.
“Clear the puck,” she whispered, just as the blue light at the back of the cage spun, tying the score at two.
“Shit,” Jules swore as a small contingent of loyal Sharks fans went wild in the stadium below. “Who Let the Dogs Out” blasted from the speakers, and Faith put a hand over her eyes. Now that she was so invested in the game, it was painful to watch. It made her nerves jump and her stomach knot and had her wishing for something stronger than the Diet Coke she had sitting next to her right foot.
As if she’d read her mind, Valerie took Faith’s hand from her eyes and pressed a glass of wine into her palm. “This will help.” Then she went back to the buffet set up in the box to entertain her girl friend, Sandy, up for a few days from Vegas. Valerie hadn’t even asked if Sandy could stay before she’d invited her. Faith had known and liked Sandy all her life and didn’t mind,
she just wished her mother had asked.
After the game, her mom and Sandy planned to hit some bars and “raise hell.” Faith wasn’t sure who was the most pathetic. Them, for wearing spandex and “raising hell” at their age, or her, for going home and going to bed early.
Faith took a drink of her Chardonnay as the goal was replayed over and over on the sports timer suspended in the center of the arena.
On the ice at the other end, Marty Darche rose to his feet and grabbed a water bottle from the top of his net. Ty stood in front of him while the goalie shot water into his mouth. Marty nodded and Ty patted the top of the goalie’s helmet with his big gloved hand before skating toward the bench.
On the big sports screen, the camera zoomed in on the back of Ty’s broad shoulders and the white letters spelling out SAVAGE across his blue jersey. The San Jose Fans booed. The Chinooks fans cheered and Ty moved across the ice with his head down; the hair at the back of his neck curled up around his helmet. Last night in the Chinooks locker room, she’d run her fingers through his hair and a warm little flutter had tickled her stomach. The kind she hadn’t felt in years. But later that night after she’d returned home, the little flutter had turned into a burning stab of guilt. Virgil had been dead less than a month and she shouldn’t be feeling warm little any things with any man, let alone the captain of Virgil’s hockey team. Correction:
her hockey team.
Ty stopped in front of the bench and glanced up over his shoulder. His blue eyes looked out from the sports screen. One corner of his mouth kicked up into a half-assed smile as if he enjoyed both the booing and cheering fans, and that traitorous, horrible warm flutter settled in the middle of her stomach once more. It had been a long time since she’d felt little flutters and tingles for any man. Why Ty Savage? Yeah, he was beautiful and confident and comfortable with his virility. He wore it like an irresistible aura of hotness, but he didn’t like her. She wasn’t especially fond of him.