Kingston and I part ways when we reach the arena so he can train with the team and I can get to work. I check my phone on the way down the hall. I have messages from Stevie about getting together for another double date and a girls’ night when I have time.
I love that I’ve made such great connections with the women here. And that they’ve accepted me so openly as part of their circle. As challenging as it can be, I’m lucky that I get to travel with the team, because it means I don’t have to miss Kingston. On the flip side, it also means that I miss out on the girl time. Although I don’t plan to have this job forever, so eventually I’ll be in the same position as the rest of the hockey wives and girlfriends—if Kingston and I last, anyway.
I’m aware I’m a lot to handle. And while he seems pretty enamored with me, that could easily change. He’s the calm and I’m the storm.
My dad’s office door is still closed, which means he’s either on the phone or still in a meeting. I’m not sure exactly what the meeting is about, but I know he was pretty worked up about it last night.
I settle in at my desk, prioritize all the things I need to accomplish today, and start on my emails. I scan all the necessary documents and tab them in the appropriate places. The tablets have proven to be a success. At the last meeting I snapped a few great candid photos and posted them to the team’s social media accounts, which made the company very happy. I’ve tried to streamline everything, and it’s been a pretty easy transition for everyone. This job may not be the one I want to do for the rest of my life, but I’m determined to make sure I’m effective while I’m doing it.
I’ve just finished uploading the most recent paperwork file when Violet pops her head in the door. “Hey, Queenie, have you seen Alex? He’s not in his office.”
“Sorry, not since I got here, and that was about forty-five minutes ago. My dad’s in a meeting, though, so maybe he’s involved in that?” I thumb over my shoulder to the closed door.
A little head of wavy auburn hair pops out from behind her legs, and huge blue eyes register recognition.
“Hey, Lavender!”
She ducks behind her mother’s legs.
“You remember Queenie, don’t you, Lavender?”
She looks up at her mother and gives her a serious nod. Then she turns that beautiful blue gaze back on me, and a huge smile lights up her face. She lifts her hand in a wave. “Hi, Keenie.”
Violet’s eyes flare, and she blinks a bunch of times before she strokes her daughter’s hair and beams down at her. “Good job, sweetheart. Maybe after we’re done here I should take you for ice cream. Would you like that?”
Lavender nods vigorously, her smile growing even wider.
Based on Violet’s reaction and my previous interaction with Lavender, I’m taking it that it’s a big deal for her to have actually said hello to me and used my name.
Violet checks her phone. “They’ve been in that meeting since eight thirty this morning. I hope this works out, or it’s going to be a lot of headaches and hours spent negotiating for no reason.”
I lower my voice. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“Only that they’re trying to negotiate a contract, but there’s some huge NDA attached to the deal, so he can’t even say who they’re negotiating the deal for.”
“It must be a pretty high-profile player.”
“Has to be; otherwise he wouldn’t be so tight lipped about it. Anyway, I was dropping by to see if the deal was done, because I’m nosy and I want to know all the secrets, but Lavender has a doctor’s appointment, so I guess it’s going to have to wait.” She reaches for Lavender’s hand, but she’s no longer standing beside her.
Instead she’s next to me. She tugs on my sleeve and holds out a piece of artwork.
“Did you draw this?”
She nods. “For you,” she whispers.
“You drew this for me?” I take it from her when she nods.
While it looks very much like the art of a child, it’s clear that Lavender has an incredible eye for the use of color, which is cool to see, since she’s so young.
“Good remembering, Lavender. She’s been holding on to that for weeks now, asking when she can see you.”
“Well, I love it. Thank you very much, Lavender. And the next time you stop by, we’ll have to draw something together. Sound good?”
She ducks her head with a smile and rushes back to the safety of her mother’s side. Violet and Lavender head out, and I find a place to tack up my new art. When I was a teenager, I used to go to an art camp in the summer for a couple of weeks. My favorite part was always working with the younger kids. When I started my college degree, I’d wanted to do something with art and children. At least until I lost my confidence and dropped out.
I’m about to get back to work when laughter comes from behind my dad’s office door. A few seconds later he steps out, followed by Alex. They’re smiling widely, which I’m taking to mean that whatever they were negotiating went well.
“Queenie, honey, it’s great that you’re here. I want to introduce you to the newest member of our team, and then you can help me get his paperwork together.”
“Of course, I’d be happy to.” I push away from my desk, preparing to greet the unnamed player. As far as I know, it’s uncommon for a trade to happen once the season has already started, but he and Alex seem pretty pleased.
A man appears, and my dad claps him on the shoulder. “Queenie, this is Corey Slater.”
I have to fight to keep my smile from turning into a grimace.
I know Corey.
Not because he’s an NHL player and is always in the media for some bullshit or other, but because he’s my ex.
CHAPTER 17
THE STORM IS A DOUCHE
Queenie
This isn’t happening.
Not today. Not when I’m rocking a seriously sweet postsex high. Or was.
Because now a horrible blast from my past is here, ruining everything.
Corey Slater is a giant dick.
His man unit is anything but, however.
He’s the reason I stopped watching hockey for a good six years. Especially when he first made the NHL and played for my favorite team. Even now I tend to avoid the games when I know his team is playing. But I can’t do that anymore. Because he plays for Seattle.
For half a second I consider pretending I don’t know Corey, but I realize it’s probably not a great idea.
Especially with the way he’s smirking.
Corey tips his chin up. “Hey, Queenie.”
“Hello, Corey. It’s been a long time.”
My dad looks between us, head whipping back and forth a few times. Sort of like a cat following a digital mouse on an iPad screen. “You two know each other?”
“We went to college together a long time ago. My first year.” I sound like a robot, but I’m sort of freaking out.
I never thought I’d have to see Corey up close again. Sure, I knew that I’d see him eventually during the season at a game, but he was supposed to be playing for Philly, so I’d only have to see his last name scrawled across his jersey. Not his stupid, smug face every single damn day. Minus my rare days off.
And there’s no way I’ll be able to keep this from Kingston. I realize that it doesn’t look great. Not at all.
“So you’re working for your dad now, huh?” Corey asks.
To most people it might seem like he’s trying to make polite conversation. But I know better. He’s judging me. Because I’m still relying on my daddy to help me survive and he makes millions of dollars a year to shoot a piece of rubber across a slab of ice.
I realize it’s a lot harder than that oversimplification, but again, I’m not excited about seeing him. It means I’m mentally lashing out, because I can’t actually lash out at all. I have to be professional.
“It’s a temporary position. My father’s previous assistant had to take early retirement and I was asked to help out, and since I know hockey, it seemed like
a good fit.”
“You definitely know the ins and outs of hockey players,” Corey says, nodding solemnly.
That might sound like a compliment, but really he’s insulting me and insinuating that I’m a stick chaser. And now that I’m working for my dad and dating a member of the team, that’s exactly how it looks.
“Corey needs to complete some paperwork, and it would be great if you could show him around the arena.” My dad usually gives directives with authority, but right now he seems uncertain.
I turn my fake smile on him. “Of course. I’ll need to set up a tablet for him, but if you want the forms completed today, I can see if you have paper copies in your office.”
It’s my way of getting my dad alone for a minute so I can explain and, hopefully, set his mind at ease. Although I’ll be adjusting the amount of information I intend to share, because he sure as hell doesn’t need to know all the details. I’ll give him the bare-bones story and hope like hell Corey is on the same page when it comes to leaving the past where it should stay: buried under a pile of red plastic cups in a college frat house.
I brush past Corey into my dad’s office. He tells Corey to make himself comfortable and follows behind me. My whole body is vibrating with anxious energy, and I’m sweating. I take a deep breath as I turn to face my dad.
“What’s the history between you two?” He thumbs over his shoulder at the closed door.
I have to work hard not to fidget like I usually do when I’m nervous, which I very much am right now. I busy myself by opening his filing cabinet so I can look for the paper copies I made of all the initial paperwork. “It’s nothing to worry about. We dated briefly my first year of college.”
My dad crosses his arms. “How briefly, and which college?”
I’ve been to a few over the years. “Just a couple of months. During my undergrad, when I was taking art and psych.” I transferred closer to home the second semester because I’d said I was homesick. He doesn’t know that Corey was the real reason for the switch. “It’s not a big deal, and it was a long time ago. It’ll be fine. I’m just surprised, since I had no idea he was even a trade option.”
He runs his hand through his hair, lips pursed and his eyes narrowed, as if he’s trying to see inside my brain and find out what’s really going on. “I would’ve told you if I hadn’t been bound by an NDA.”
I wave the comment away and pull a bunch of forms, checking to make sure there are extra copies before I close the filing cabinet. If I’d known about this in advance, I would have had the tablet already set up for him. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.” I’m not entirely sure that’s true. It depends a lot on whether Corey can keep his trap shut. It’s not something he’s been notoriously good at over the years.
He’s an absolute pain in the ass on the ice, always pushing the opposition’s buttons and generally being a douchebag. He was the same off the ice, and I’m not sure much has changed. But he’s one of the best players in the league, so he gets away with a lot of shit.
I don’t even want to know how much money they must have offered to get him to come to Seattle. I also don’t want to think about how this will change the team dynamic. I can’t see Bishop liking this guy or keeping his mouth shut if he happens to pull out his douche card, which is highly likely.
“You’re sure you’re okay to show him around?”
“Of course. It’s my job.” I flash what I hope is a seminormal smile.
“That’s not what I mean. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“It was six years ago, Dad. Besides, doesn’t he have a pregnant fiancée or something?” I accidentally stumbled on an article a month ago on some hockey site or other. There was a picture of him and some woman in a supertight dress showing off her baby belly and her giant rock.
“He does, yes.”
“So he’s moved on, and so have I.” I shuffle all the papers into a file folder and print Corey’s name across the top, internally cringing as I remember how I used to make the O into a heart. But then, at eighteen one does cheesy things like that. “We shouldn’t keep the superstar waiting longer than necessary.” I close the folder and tuck it under my arm, then think better of it, since I’m sweaty.
My dad seems reluctant to let me leave the office. “We’ll talk more about this on the way home.”
“Sure. Sounds good.” It actually sounds the exact opposite of good, but I’m not going to tell him that.
Corey’s lounging in one of the waiting room chairs, long legs stretched out and crossed over each other, phone in his hand, smarmy smirk firmly in place. I’m sure he’s going through one of his social media accounts, looking at all the comments from the women who want to hump him and the would-be hockey stars who want to be him.
“All set, Corey. Would you prefer paperwork first or a tour of the facilities?” My face feels stiff with how fake my smile is.
He clicks away on his phone for an inappropriately long time while my dad and I stand there, waiting for him to acknowledge us and respond. Finally he shuts down his phone and slips it in his pocket. “I’ll take the private tour first.” While the words themselves aren’t inappropriate, his tone is slick and slimy.
I’m pretty sure I hear my dad’s teeth grind together beside me. Or maybe they’re mine.
“Great. We’ll be back in a bit.” I do an about-face and head for the hallway, not checking to see if he’s following. “I’ll show you the gym first, and then you can tour the locker room and the rink.”
After several long seconds of silence, I finally give in and glance over my shoulder. Corey’s phone is back out and he’s thumb typing away, shambling along like he has all the time in the world and I’m absolutely irrelevant.
Which I suppose I sort of am and honestly probably always have been. You’re just a warm hole to fill, like the rest of them. Those were the words he once used, while drunk, after I caught him cheating on me. In the bed we shared. With some puck bunny he’d met by the keg in the living room of the frat house we were shacking up in.
Obviously my taste in men wasn’t great at eighteen. And truthfully, until Kingston my poor taste was an unfortunate trend that extended throughout college. It’s sad, really, considering I have such a great father, and logistically I should have been able to make better choices when it came to men and dating. I’ll blame low self-esteem and insecurity for all the less-than-stellar boyfriends. And possibly flat keg beer.
I don’t bother to slow down or look over my shoulder again to see how far behind he’s fallen until I reach the gym. Unfortunately, it’s empty, since the team has long since finished its preskate workout.
“I remember when you used to come by the college gym to see if I was working out.” He’s right behind me. So close that I can feel his breath on my temple.
I open the door forcefully and elbow him in the side, smiling at his oof. Letting go of the door so he has to catch it or risk getting his fingers caught between it and the jamb, I step inside and create some space between us.
“First of all, you don’t get to stroll down memory lane with me. Ever.”
“Come on, Queenie, we had some good times.”
“I can probably count all of them on one hand. And that time I found you banging a bunny in our bed pretty much cancels out every single damn one of them.”
“I was drunk.”
“As if that’s an excuse.”
“I thought she was you.” He says this while picking his nail.
I hate him so much. “She was blonde and I am not. The only way she resembled me even remotely was because she had boobs and a warm hole.”
Corey sneers. “Still the same bitchy attitude you had back in college. And you wonder why you couldn’t keep anyone entertained for longer than a few months.”
I grit my teeth, aware that he’s needling me on purpose and that if I have an outburst of any kind I’ll be giving him exactly what he wants—a reaction. It will also make me look unprofessional. I have to see his jerk
face on a regular basis, so if I feed into this now, it’s just going to make it infinitely more difficult in the future.
“Although if I remember correctly, you could do a few things with that mouth that were worth hanging around for.”
I spin to face him and give him my widest, most syrupy smile. “I think we need to set some ground rules.”
He leans against the closed door. I know it’s meant to make me feel like I’m trapped, but I know all the exits out of here, while he does not. Still, it’s annoying that he believes he can use these kinds of tactics to intimidate me. “I’m engaged, in case you didn’t know, and she’s preggers, so you and every other bunny are off limits. For now, anyway.”
God, he’s disgusting. And worse than he was when I first started dating him all those years ago. I hold up a finger. “One, I’m not a bunny.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
“Ex-fucking-cuse me?”
“Rumor has it you’re chasing guys on the team.”
“Well, rumor has it wrong. Secondly, even if you were the last man on earth and the entire welfare of our species hinged on me sleeping with you, I would gladly forfeit my own life and that of the entire living, breathing universe to avoid ever having your hands or any other part of you on my body.”
“That’s not how you felt in college.”
“It took about six weeks for me to develop a strong aversion to you, since your misogynistic asshole side didn’t come out until we were living under the same roof. You need to keep your mouth shut about what happened between us.”
“You mean when we—”
I hold a hand up in his face. It’s annoying how high I have to reach because he’s so tall and I’m not. “Do not finish that statement. Ever. You will take it to the grave with you, and so will I.”
“Or what?” He sneers, body bowing forward so he can get up in my space.
I try to take a step back, but there’s a piece of workout equipment behind me, so there is quite literally nowhere for me to go. It’s rather unfortunate, because Corey must’ve eaten something spicy and garlicky recently, and he’s breathing it right in my face.
A Secret for a Secret Page 14