Game Breaker (Portland Storm Book 14)

by Catherine Gayle

She stopped and scowled at me. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but I’ll remind you that based on the contract the Storm has with my production company, and your contract with the Storm, you can’t keep brushing me off forever. You’re contractually obligated to cooperate, whether you’re happy about it or not. Your friends and family don’t have to be part of this series, but everyone involved with the team does.”

  I jerked open my car door and leaned on the frame, thinking through my options. They seemed to be slim and growing slimmer by the moment. “So what happens if I brush you off again today?”

  “I’ll take it up with Jim Sutter,” she said without hesitation.

  Jim was our general manager—someone who could make my life hell if I made Anne’s life hell.

  I ground my jaw and looked at RJ for help. He frowned and shrugged, which meant he was as lost as I was when it came to coming up with anything better. Damn it.

  “We’re walking dogs at the International Rose Test Gardens,” I bit off. Then I climbed into my car and slammed the door.

  “Got it,” Anne said, taking off into the building at a run. She spun around, jogging backward on those heels. “We’ll meet you there! Thanks, Nate.”

  Lucky me.

  “If they’re bringing the cameras along, you need to be on your best behavior,” RJ said.

  “I’m always on my best behavior,” I grumbled.

  “You know your mom’s going to be watching this. Just…try to act like you normally do around Anne.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning why don’t you flirt with her again or something?”

  “I don’t want to flirt with her right now.” I wanted to give her an earful about how I felt about her turning this into a bigger deal than it was.

  But RJ was right. If I gave in to the temptation, I was stooping to her level. Time to put on a brave face and convince the world that I hadn’t been fazed by all the shit being thrown my way. Even if it was a fucking lie.

  I KNEW THE reasons Nate had been avoiding me. Hell, I’d avoid me, too, if I were in his shoes. But that didn’t change the fact that I had a job to do and a show to produce, and at the moment, everything surrounding him was the focus of the story I had to tell.

  I’d spent the morning and early afternoon holed up in the cutting room with my editor and a couple of assistants, poring over hours and hours of footage from the last week so we could meet our deadline. The first webisode was scheduled to go live tomorrow evening, about an hour before puck drop for the first game of the playoffs.

  We had a ton of film to sift through. Maybe too much, to be honest. But now we had to determine which angles to use from the game sequences and how to combine it with interviews and other behind-the-scenes moments in order to present a sound narrative arc, making the determination of which pieces were important and which could be left behind without losing impact.

  On top of that, the story we’d thought we were telling the whole time we were filming? It had been turned on its head in the final moments of the last night of filming, so now we were in a panicked rush to reframe everything to fit the new story line.

  Yes, story line. That wasn’t me using the wrong word in terms of this journalistic endeavor. I had to remind myself that Eye of the Storm, the web series I was producing, wasn’t strictly news. It wasn’t pure journalism. There was a bit of a documentary feel to what we were doing with this, which meant we had to pull from the world of fiction in order to properly present it for our audience.

  We were presenting what had happened in the world of the Portland Storm, true, but doing so in a way that made it entertaining for the viewer. The episode needed a beginning, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a denouement. There had to be a narrative arc, taking the viewer from the opening moments all the way up to the end, and it needed to leave them wanting more so they’d tune in again next week. That meant we had to take some creative license in the way we pieced everything together.

  We weren’t changing facts; we were simply sorting out the best way to present it to the people who watched, in order to keep them riveted. Not an easy task.

  At the moment, my editor and his assistants were still hard at work putting together the first episode, using the guidelines I’d given them before leaving, but I had to shift my focus to what we had in front of us for the second episode. The playoffs starting tomorrow would certainly get a lot of attention, but we couldn’t ignore what had happened in the first week.

  Which meant I had to get Nate Golston to talk to me.

  Which was why I’d pulled rank and threatened him with taking things to the general manager if he didn’t cooperate.

  It irked me to stoop to that level, but the guy hadn’t left me much choice. And that was how I’d ended up at the International Rose Test Gardens, attempting to keep my heels from sinking into the soft ground while I fitted Nate, Riley Jezek, and Jezek’s fiancée, Amanda Morris, with mic packs, at the same time as two dogs the size of small horses tried to climb me.

  Did I mention I’d always been afraid of dogs, even the small yappy ones? Just being in the same vicinity of these two had me shaking uncontrollably. At least no one seemed to have noticed. And once I had the mics in place, they could go about their business, and Dave and I could keep our distance to film them without interfering.

  One of them—the bigger one—gave a happy bark and put his front paws on my shoulder, further pressing my heels into the grassy earth.

  “Down, Max,” Jezek said, laughing.

  I noticed there wasn’t a whole lot of authority in his tone. The guy was amused by his dog’s antics. Nate didn’t seem too bothered by them, either. In fact, he wasn’t doing much to keep the dog on his leash under control. I bit down on my tongue to keep from saying anything I’d regret and hurried to finish getting them situated.

  One more mic to go—the one for Nate. “Turn around for me,” I said.

  He winked, the first hint I’d seen since that final game of the regular season of our former flirtation. “You just want to check out my ass.” But he passed the leash into Jezek’s hand and turned around like I’d instructed him to do. “Don’t get me wrong,” he added. “I don’t mind you checking out my ass. I’d check it out, too, if I could.”

  “If you were a contortionist,” Jezek added, trying to keep both massive animals under control. They probably each weighed as much as he did, though, and it looked like they were all muscle.

  “As long as I’m not an extortionist,” Nate replied.

  “I wouldn’t make any promises on that score,” Jezek said with a snort-laugh.

  I bit down on my lower lip to keep from joining them in inappropriate laughter since I was trying to keep everything professional. Finally, Nate lifted the back of his shirt the way I’d had Jezek and his fiancée do moments before. Only he lifted it a lot higher than was necessary, giving me a nice glimpse of his muscled back. I handed him the mic pack and quickly strung the wire up and over his shoulder, my fingertips accidentally brushing his skin. It was soft, damn it. Not what I needed to be thinking about. I dropped my hands to my sides like he’d burned me. “There you go. Just hook that into the waistband of your pants—”

  “You could do that for me,” he cut in, with a definite hint of laughter in his tone, which left me struggling to keep my composure. He’d always done that when I was with the Storm’s broadcast team, too, trying to throw me off my game by flirting with me. Outrageously. And I’d flirted back, because he’d made it so easy to do.

  Even though it felt a lot better to be treating each other the way we’d always done before instead of going at each other, I knew it was a bad idea. I had to keep this aboveboard. I had way too much riding on this job, and I couldn’t afford to jeopardize anything by getting too personal with one of the players. My boss had made that abundantly clear when he’d reluctantly given me the assignment, and he’d only done that due to not having anyone else on staff who had any experience whatsoever doing the sort of work I wa
s doing. Because of the Storm’s timeline for getting this series going, there hadn’t been time for him to do a massive search for a producer and bring in someone from the outside.

  He’d have more than enough time to do that over the team’s summer break, though—which served as a constant reminder to me that I could have Eye of the Storm ripped out of my hands at any moment. Right now, it was my baby. But for how long?

  “—and we’re all set once we pop the mic through a buttonhole in front,” I finished firmly, not taking Nate’s bait. I took a step back, trying to get both some distance and some perspective. “In fact, you can handle that part yourself. Then you three can go about your business and forget all about the two of us.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” Nate said.

  Dave smirked at me, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

  “All right,” I said, brushing my hands on my thighs because they were sweating. Nerves. Getting that close to him, touching him ever so slightly, had brought out my inner geeky teenager. Bad timing for that. “You’re good to go. Just pretend we’re not even here.”

  I took another step backward, but my heel plummeted through a soft spot in the grass, and I fell on my ass. As soon as I was on the ground, both dogs took that as a sign that they should pile on and wrestle with me. Jezek tried to hold them both back, but it was no use. They were too big, too strong, the pair of them overpowering him and leaping onto my chest.

  Out of instinct, I screamed like a petrified little girl and put my arms over my face to protect myself. Didn’t do any good. Two enormous canines shoved my hands out of their way with their noses, and then they started licking my face, holding me down with their front paws. Both Jezek and Nate tried to drag the overly exuberant dogs off me, adding their weight to the mix, and then Dave dropped his camera and joined the fray, leaving only Amanda standing off to the side, watching with a dazed expression.

  I giggle-shrieked. Couldn’t help it. This was the most bizarre, hilarious, painful thing to have happened to me in months. Maybe years. My adrenaline shot through the roof, and I was fully in self-preservation mode. It was a sad realization that my natural gut reaction when presented with one of my greatest fears was to laugh my head off in a psychotic panic. That didn’t bode well.

  Finally, they got the dogs off me, Jezek manhandling the bigger one and forcing him back while Dave—who was easily as big and strong as most of the guys on the team—practically laid on top of the smaller dog to keep her off me.

  Nate reached out a hand to help me up, with a sexy-as-sin curve of his lips. He was probably trying not to laugh as maniacally as I was. “Unless you’d rather stay in the dirt,” he said when I sat there a little too long staring at him. “Too bad you didn’t get any of that on film. That’d make a much more entertaining show than anything you got on me last week.”

  He was wrong on that score, but I still reached up and took his hand, allowing him to drag me to my feet. As soon as I was standing, I wished I was back on the ground again. My ankle felt like I’d done a serious number on it, one of my heels had broken off the shoe, my tan suit was covered in dirt and grass stains, and I didn’t think I’d be able to fix the rat’s nest of my hair until I could dunk my entire head in a vat of shampoo. That sobered me up pretty fast. If I wasn’t careful, my laughter would turn to sobs of pain—both real, physical pain and the sort that rips you apart from the inside when you’re embarrassed in front of a crush.

  “Please tell me they didn’t hurt you,” Jezek said, cutting through the fog of humiliation eating me alive.

  I shot my gaze over to him, taking my hand out of Nate’s before I got too comfortable with holding on to him. “I’m fine,” I forced myself to say, brushing some debris off my butt.

  Nate dropped his gaze down to my hips, just long enough that it was obvious, before bringing his eyes up to meet mine again. “Yeah. Fine.”

  I kicked off both my shoes since they weren’t going to do me any good as they were. “You came to walk the dogs, right? So walk the dogs.” Then I tossed my shoes in my purse, slung the strap over my shoulder, and turned to Dave, trying not to put too much of my weight on my right foot. Unsuccessfully, I might add, but I did try. “Come on. Get your camera set up. We have a job to do.”

  All the flirtatiousness drained off Nate’s face in an instant. “Yeah, you sure do.” He grabbed the dog’s leash from Dave, and he and his friends took off without us.

  “You’re not fine,” Dave said once they were gone.

  “I’m as fine as I have time to be.” I could put my foot up and have a good cry when I got home. Until then, I had to grin and bear it, even if it was the last thing on earth I felt like doing.

  RJ HAD BEEN right. It was too early for many of the roses to be blooming, which led to Amanda’s disappointment—and pouting. Her histrionics didn’t stop Max and Lola from having the time of their lives, though.

  We didn’t walk them so much as they walked us. The pair of them spent the afternoon racing from stranger to stranger, from one new scent to another, dragging me and RJ along for the ride while Amanda hung back and alternated between laughing her head off and remembering that she was supposed to be sulking.

  Anne and her cameraman kept up with all of us well enough, which was impressive in Anne’s case, given that she was limping around in bare feet and nursing an obviously sprained right ankle. At least I hoped it was only a sprain. It seemed to me she was stubborn enough that it could be worse. If so, she was likely causing herself more damage by continuing to hobble around on it.

  I had to remind myself that I hadn’t done anything to hurt her, and I hadn’t been the one to invite her along. This was all her. She’d insisted on coming, and she hadn’t bothered to put on sensible shoes. All her fault, even if Max and Lola had probably been responsible for at least some of the damage.

  I felt bad for her, which was stupid considering all the crap she was putting me through. Earlier, I’d only flirted with her because of RJ’s reminder that my mother would be at home glued to her computer, watching every moment of this show Anne was producing. But then it had started to feel natural again. Comfortable. Like there was no other way we ought to be together than overly playful, cracking jokes and making each other laugh.

  Anne and I had chatted each other up far more than was good for either of us over the last couple of years, and now that we’d started it up again, I wasn’t so sure I wanted it to stop. Lord knew I enjoyed the way we were together like this a hell of a lot better than how we’d been the last couple of days—even though that was all on me. I was the one avoiding her at every possible opportunity, not the other way around.

  That said, I couldn’t let myself forget that she was not my friend, no matter how I looked at it. Letting something as important as that slip my mind would be setting myself up for a world of hurt. Since the banana peel incident, I’d already had enough crap to deal with to last for years. Anne Dennison was determined to do her job, to get her story, and it didn’t matter one bit to her if she destroyed me in the process. I had to remember that. Always. Even if I’d rather forget it.

  Still, watching her limp around in the grass as she followed us, her pain overly apparent, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling sorry for her.

  The worst part of it all—at least for Anne—was that I doubted she’d gotten any useful footage all afternoon. All we’d done was get dragged all over the place by these two beasts, laughing our asses off. How the hell was that going to fit into the story she was trying to present of me being this poor SOB getting picked on by racist bigots everywhere I went? I didn’t have a clue.

  Finally, it seemed Max and Lola had worn themselves out. They plopped down on a stretch of grass in the middle of the gardens and lay on their sides, breathing heavily. Looked like a good plan to me. I collapsed next to Lola and rolled onto my back, looking up at the few wispy clouds dotting the otherwise perfectly clear sky. Lola took that as an open invitation to drape hersel
f across my belly, forcing all the air out of my lungs.

  “Oof,” I said, trying to shove her off. It was no use. She was right where she wanted to be and had no intention of moving again until she was good and ready. “Seriously, RJ, you’ve got to find a way to convince them they’re too big for this shit.”

  “She can’t help it that she loves you. We don’t choose who we love.” He took a seat next to Max and rubbed his belly. Amanda looked at the grass, then at the light-colored shorts she was wearing, and remained standing with her nose crinkling ever so slightly in distaste. She couldn’t stand getting dirty. Lord only knew why she’d wanted to come to the gardens today, because the chances of her getting dirty increased by an enormous degree outside the house. I still hadn’t figured out what RJ saw in her other than the fact that she was hot as hell, but oh well. Maybe he really believed what he’d said, that he couldn’t choose who he loved.

  On the other hand, I wasn’t going to fall into that trap. “You sure about that?” Because I’d definitely decided I wasn’t going to even like Anne Dennison any more, and I had no intention of ever doing more than that. Wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t let it.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed her slipping into position next to her cameraman, giving him silent instructions as he filmed us. Couldn’t even lie here basking in the sun without them trying to capture every inane moment of my life.

  “Pretty sure,” he said, rubbing Max on the belly. That was apparently the right thing to do in Max’s opinion. He rolled and writhed around like a puppy, four paws flying through the air in glee and barking like he was possessed.

  “He’s going to need a bath when we get home if you keep that up,” Amanda griped.

  RJ rolled his eyes and kept doing what he’d been doing. “He’s going to need a bath when we get home anyway. He’s sweaty, smelly, and covered in dirt and grass. So is Lola.”

  “Well, have fun with that,” Amanda said.

  “It wouldn’t kill you to help me out with them.”