by Maria Luis
Uh-oh.
Uncomfortably, I tug at the hem of my jersey, wishing that I had taken a moment to plan all this out in my head.
“Ma’am?” Hunt prompts impatiently.
Here goes nothing.
“I’m looking for Duke Harrison. Is he here by any chance?”
“Who’s asking?”
This time, it’s not Marshall Hunt speaking but another guy. I don’t recognize him, so I’m guessing he might be one of the team’s staff members. He has that admin look about him: pressed chinos, starched button-down shirt, leather dress shoes.
I look from Mr. Admin to Marshall Hunt, debating on how I want to play this. This tête-à-tête could go a few different ways, all depending upon how I form my next few words.
I’m not given the chance.
Someone else creeps up to our little group, and this guy I recognize off the bat. Andre Beaumont, the former Red Wings player who was traded to the Blades after last season. The player who had the whole arena howling tonight when he made two assists for the only two goals on the board. He stares down at me over the broken bridge of his nose and I actually gulp. Beaumont is a bit . . . harsh, shall we say.
(Read: he’s scary as all hell, singlehandedly disproving the stereotype that all Canadians are lovely folks).
“You’re that girl Harrison had here the other night,” he says now, dropping his elbow onto Mr. Admin’s shoulder. Mr. Admin takes it like a champ, though he does wince when Beaumont’s elbow cuts a little too close to his jugular. Andre points a finger at me, waggling it around like I’m a naughty child bent on mischief. “The journalist.”
“How do you know I’m a journalist?” The words are out before I can stop them.
“Duke mentioned you today.” His gaze drops to my jersey, and his nostrils flare. “You have a death wish, Miss Journalist?”
“No!” I clamp my hands around my bag’s thick strap to keep from slapping my fingers over my mouth. “The jersey, it’s just a joke,” I tell them. “I promise.”
Marshall Hunt leans forward, one hand slipping into his jeans’ pocket in a casual, I’m-sexy pose. “It’s not funny.”
I’m dead. My body will be found in a back alleyway tomorrow morning. I can already see the headlines: “Unknown Journalist perishes at the hands of the Blades; it’s suspected that the victim made the mistake of wearing the enemy’s colors before entering the lion’s den.”
This was such a bad idea.
“You’re right,” I say, tentatively backing up, “It’s not funny at all. I have no idea what I was thinking. In fact, I’m going to head out.” I turn for the door, my hand already extending for the doorknob. “Thanks for this little talk. I promise to remember it forever and always.”
I barely get the door before it clicks shut with a force that doesn’t belong to me. Then, I get a hit of pine.
Duke.
“Still wearing that jersey, Charlie?”
The heat of his body warms my back, though I keep my gaze locked on the wooden door. Hot, unexpected anticipation curls through me. Let’s face it: since I left the arena almost two hours ago, I’ve been waiting for this moment.
It’s all for the article, I tell myself.
Realistically, I know that the only thing tying Duke Harrison and I together is the interview. Romantically (i.e., not real life), I’m so attracted to him, that I’m not really thinking straight.
As in, there is no reason I should want to lean back into his arms right now.
No reason at all.
In a husky voice I barely recognize as my own, I murmur, “Thought you were reneging on our bargain, Harrison.”
His hand curls around my wrist. He doesn’t give me a verbal response, but with a slight tug on my hand, he’s pulling me away from his teammates. Marshall Hunt whistles, and I swear I hear Andre Beaumont say something along the lines of someone being “whipped.”
No one stops Duke’s trajectory path.
We round a few tables, cut past the bar, and enter a back room, which seems to be a near replica of the main bar area. Dartboards line the walls and two sets of pool tables are positioned parallel to one another in the center. A few guys are lounging on a pair of couches in the corner, but with one glance at Duke and I, they leap up from their spots and vacate the room.
Maybe I should be nervous.
Whisper a prayer, that sort of thing.
Silently I pull away from Duke’s grip and wander over to the dartboards. I’ve never been good, that’s for sure, but that doesn’t stop me from picking up a dart and testing the weight in my palm. The arrowed tip is heavy and cool against my skin. It gives me something to think about other than the hot guy watching me intently.
“You play?” His voice is cool as his long-legged gait eats up the distance between us.
I tap the shell of the dart against my open palm. “Depends on the day.”
He takes the dart from my hand. “Is that a yes?”
“It’s a sometimes.”
His lips quirk up, just a little, at the corners. “I’ll take a ‘sometimes.’ Let’s play.”
Panic turns my palms clammy. “I don’t know the rules.”
“I thought you sometimes play,” he murmurs, laughter rich in his voice. When he spots my face, no doubt pinched with anxiety, he returns the dart to me, folding my fingers over its cool hardness. “We’ll make up rules. Twenty-one rounds.”
Twenty-one rounds? Does he want to be here for the rest of the night? I opt for sarcasm when I mutter, “You want to beat me that badly?”
“Gotta recoup my losses from the night.”
It’s the first time he’s mentioned the Blades’ defeat against the Detroit Red Wings, and my gaze slithers away with guilt for wearing the red jersey of the opposing team.
“This is how it will work,” Duke tells me, already having bypassed his mention of the Blades’ loss. He approaches the closest dartboard with a confident swagger that weakens my knees, before tapping his finger on the red center. “Each round, whoever gets closest to the bull’s eye has the opportunity to ask a question. Any question.”
“A question for my interview?” I ask, hardly able to restrain my excitement. “Thought you’d limited me to just one question per meeting.”
“I’ve changed my mind for tonight.”
My eyes narrow and I fold my arms over my chest. “You don’t expect to lose, do you?”
“I don’t lose, Charlie.”
“You lost today.” I pretend to think on it, tapping my chin, and go the whole nine yards when I cock my head and stare him down. “In fact, the Blades have lost the last four games. If anything, you are on a losing streak.”
He doesn’t rise to my bait, not that I expected him to. Duke Harrison is much too controlled to fall prey to sharp words.
“One question per round, winner asks it. Can be about anything.” He points the dart at me, looking so sexy in a black T-shirt and worn jeans that it hurts. His tattoo edges out from beneath the sleeve, covering the length of his left arm all the way down to his wrist. The black ink swirls this way and that, creating abstract images of light and dark spaces over his naturally tanned skin. Right now, he doesn’t look like Duke Harrison, pro-athlete. He looks handsome and approachable, a regular Joe that just so happens to be a near-identical twin to the Hollywood actor Charlie Hunnam. “You got it?”
I nod. “I got it.”
We take our positions, lining up for what might be the battle of the century. I know what I want—this interview; him—but his motives are unclear. For all I know, he could be gathering intel on me so that he can slam me in the media’s headlines.
“You want to go first?” he asks, holding out a dart. “Ladies first.”
Nope. No way am I taking the bullet first, especially as I haven’t thrown a dart since my last year of college. I need to work my way in to this, start slow and methodical. “Age before beauty, right?” I gesture at him with my hands. “You go first.”
His mouth twit
ches, and he slowly shakes his head. “Subtle, Denton, real subtle.”
Black sneakers toe up to the line. His hand raises, dart clutched loosely, and he bites his lip as he takes aim and fires. I’m so distracted by the curve of his hard bicep and his sexy tattoo that I hardly notice him clap his hands together in victory.
My gaze shoots to the board, and, sure enough, he’s scored a full fifty points. I wouldn’t be surprised if the dart’s tip hasn’t plowed through the board itself, his aim was so precise.
There’s no way I’m going to hit the bull’s eye to tie him.
As I’ve never been someone to throw in the towel, I put an extra sway in my step as I grab for an extra dart. “Beginner’s luck, right?” I ask over my shoulder as I position myself on the line.
Duke gives a soft chuckle from behind me. “Sure, Charlie, beginner’s luck.”
I screw my eyes shut, take a deep, mobilizing breath, and stare at the board. Might as well go for broke. I fire off the dart—
It bounces off the metal rim and clatters to the concrete floor, an echo so loud that I can hear the sound ringing in my ears.
Duke’s already there, swooping up the dart. He turns to me, his blue eyes gleaming with laughter. “Might need to buy you a serving of Beginner’s Luck from the bar. What do you say?”
I’m not a good loser, and I grumble a bit when I snag the dart from his grasp. “The dart’s faulty.”
His rich laughter curls around me like a warm blanket on a cold, cold night. “Your aim’s the faulty one.”
I roll my eyes, not willing to lose my bravado. There’s a good chance I’ll be losing every round tonight. “Just ask your question already.”
“Fine.” Retrieving his winning dart from the wall, he fingers the tip casually. “Why are you wearing that Red Wings jersey?”
“My dad bought it for me before he passed away.”
His expression turns somber, the twinkle in his blue eyes dimming. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “Was he a Detroit fan?”
I hold up a finger. “That’s two questions, Duke. You scored only once.”
With a shake of his head, he lets me evade answering. I appreciate it more than he’ll ever know. After my dad passed away, my life teetered on the edge of uncertainty for a while. Did I attend university, like I’d always envisioned? Did I pick up whatever job came my way, just so that I could afford to pay the bills? Jenny and her family, lifesavers that they are, came to my rescue, offering me her family’s couch to crash on while I figured everything out.
Within six months, I’d sold my family home so that I could afford tuition at Boston University. Sometimes, I still drive past our old house in East Cambridge, pulling up to the sidewalk so I can stare at the brown triple-decker and immerse myself in the memories.
But whereas the memories I’ve always been able to carry with me, the house funded my education. It’s what Dad would have wanted, though that didn’t make my decision any easier.
“You go first this time,” Duke tells me, a hand lightly touching my shoulder as he comes around to my other side. One peek at his face confirms my fears: he knows that he struck a nerve with his question and wants to distract me.
Against my better judgment, I give him a grateful smile.
This round goes much the same as the first one, and by that I mean, Duke wins by a landslide and I’m forced to answer another question.
“Why did you want to become a journalist?” he asks, leaning against the pool table, his long legs outstretched before him.
“I like to pester people.”
He catches my sarcasm, and points the sharp tip of a dart at me. “Give me the real answer.”
I sigh. If I manage to lose every round, he’ll know my entire life story by the end of the night. “I’ve wanted to be a journalist since the time I realized that while I was good at sports, I wasn’t the best. When I was on the ice, I had heart, and, yeah, I was in the top percentile when it came down to stats. But I wasn’t good enough for anything beyond college hockey, and I had no interest in coaching. Sports journalism seemed the next best thing, a way for me to still be in on the action.”
“On the ice?” His brow furrows in thought. “You played hockey?”
I let this second question slide. “Since I was six years old. Sometimes, when I have time, I still hit up rec leagues, but it’s been a while. Works gets in the way.” I flash him a shy smile. “Adulting, you know? It’s a nuisance.”
He still seems fixated on the fact that I once played hockey, and I note the way his gaze skims my body, taking in the thick thighs, the strong mid-section that doesn’t nip into a teeny, tiny waist. Although it’s been years since I played regularly, my body has never lost the shape of a powerhouse athlete.
It’s safe to say that I am no Gwen James, who has the body of a Victoria’s Secret model.
When his gaze lifts to mine, his eyes are smoky, nearly black. “We should play some time. See what you’re made of.”
The air between us thickens. My heart pounds in my chest. I need to pull myself together, now. Flicking my hair back in a move that belongs on the big screen, I reply, “Wouldn’t you know, Duke Harrison, but I’m made of victory. Let’s do this next round.”
We keep pace with each other, though I lose more often than I win. He asks me frivolous questions—what’s my favorite book, movie, song—in between more serious ones. I tell him about my mother leaving when I was young, and my struggle at work to be seen as a successful sports journalist in my own right, despite the fact that a penis does not dangle between my legs.
On the few occurrences where I beat him (and I’m convinced that he lets me win), he opens the door on a few secrets of his own. He admits that his parents never come to his games, as he’s from upstate Minnesota and his mother is deathly terrified of flying. He assures me, however, that they’ve never missed a game on TV, and that they often blow up his phone while he’s in the net, so when he gets to the locker room, he can hear their screams/excitement/joy in real time when he plays back their voicemails.
I learn about his brother, who played hockey in high school and college, but wasn’t good enough to be picked up by the NHL. His brother is older, and for a few years in the beginning, they rarely spoke because, in his words, “It took a while for my brother to get his head out of his ass and let the jealousy go.”
As each round presses on, Duke and I slowly eliminate the distance between us. His fingers linger when I take the dart from his hand. My hand brushes up against his back when I amble toward the board to tally up our scores. His hip softly taps mine when I actually manage to win three times.
Make that four.
Duke groans when my dart skirts closer to home base, and though I know he’s exaggerating for effect, I can’t help but do a little victory dance, throwing my hands in the air and stomping my feet.
“Another point for Charlie Denton!” I exclaim, making pistols out of my hands and blowing off the imaginary smoke from my index fingers. “Your turn to fess up, Harrison.”
He throws up his hands, a wide smile on his face. “Give it to me, girl. What you got this time?”
His tone is nonchalant, but the heated look in his gaze is anything but easy. For almost an hour, we’ve been doing this little dance and I have no idea what it means. I should be focusing on the job at hand, gathering information that I can use in my feature. I have one week to get that article on Josh’s desk. Seven days.
But, like every other question I’ve posed to him tonight, I don’t choose one that directly links to his career. Instead, I find myself asking the one question lurking in my conscious that just won’t quit.
“What’s going on with you and Gwen?”
Duke has been relatively chatty for the whole night, despite the way it started off, but at the mention of his Public Relations agent, he clams up and his blue eyes slide away. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I pluck the dart out of his hand, so he’s not tempted to progress on to the next
round. “Sure you do,” I say brightly, wishing that I didn’t sound so . . . fake. “Obviously something happened with you and Gwen at some point, otherwise she wouldn’t have this perception that the two of you are an item.”
When he gives a groan this time, I know he’s about to dish the dirt. His hand rakes through his hair, then clamps down on the back of his neck. “We went on a few dates.”
My heart plummets and I remind myself that I do not care. “Mixing business and pleasure must come naturally to you.”
I don’t necessarily point out that I’m referring to the two of us, and our little game of Twenty-One Questions. He catches my drift and frowns. “We went on those dates before my sports agent hired her to handle the press.”
“Oh?” I hate how hopeful I sound, and I hide my pathetic bent by squinting at the TV in the corner of the room. The news cuts to a replay of Duke letting in the first goal of the night between his legs. I grimace at the sight.
“Two dates,” Duke continues, our game all but forgotten. “Somehow she’s gotten it into her head that because we work together now, we’re something more than we are—than we’ve ever been. Not to mention that those dates came months before I even saw her at that fundraiser.”
At the mention of the fundraiser, I turn back to him. “Didn’t she say that you two met there?”
His broad shoulders lift in a shrug. “She’s crazy. She also frequently asks my sports agent out on dates, even though he’s got a long-time girlfriend.”
“Then why keep her around?” I ask, because the question is already there on the tip of my tongue. No use holding it back, since he’s opening up and I want to know the answer.
“Honestly?” Duke rubs the back of his neck again. “She’s damn good at what she does, probably the best in the Northeast. She might be certifiably off her rocker, but no one doubts that she’s good at her job. And since my career, as of late, hasn’t been . . . ”
“Hot?” I offer, immediately wishing I could snatch the word back.
He pauses, dropping his eyes to sneakers, before releasing a deep sigh. When he looks up at me again, his gaze is a little less bright. I feel the regret tugging at my lungs, stealing the breath from my body. “Yeah,” he mutters bitterly, “A little less hot. Anyway, for all of her other faults, Gwen has been good to me. Good for my career, especially in the last two years since she’s come on board.”