Power Play (A Blades Hockey Novella Book 1) Page 5

  The line of his mouth lifts with hope. “How great?”

  I grapple for a believable lie because who am I to be such a hope-killer? “I’m almost done. Maybe just one or two more paragraphs left; some editing.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yup!” My voice emerges on a high-pitched squeak. I sense the onslaught of Doom approaching quickly.

  “I’d like to see what you’ve got so far. Maybe we can squeeze it into tonight’s edits, so it can go live tomorrow on the website.”

  I’m nowhere near complete. Hastily, I scan the papers on my desk, praying that I’ve got something on hand that I can thrust forward as an almost completed project. The sheets fly out from under my palm, drifting down to the floor like my soul.

  I’ve got nothing.

  I am so screwed.

  “You know,” I say, still fervently searching for something that can save my butt from getting the boot, “maybe it’ll be best if it’s a surprise.”

  Josh’s brows furrow. “I don’t like surprises.”

  Yes, I want to shout, we all know how the editor-in-chief hates surprises. Once, when I first was hired, I walked into Josh’s office to find him turning his socks inside out to, and I quote, “Keep Lady Luck with him during his annual dental exam.”

  Give me a scientific study explaining how inside-out-socks statistically make a visit to the dentist suck less, and I’m right there with you. Until then, no.

  I give one more pass over my unorganized mess and sigh. There’s no way I’m climbing myself out of this hole. This is it, I can feel it in my arthritic left shin. The moment I’m fired. “Josh?”

  He pushes his Sox cap back on his head, all the better to stare me down. “Yes, Charlie?”

  “I lied, just now.”

  Casey gasps and then promptly rushes from the room.

  Traitor.

  Arms crossing over his square chest, Josh takes another step into our 1970s replica office. “I know, Charlie.”

  I blink. “You do?”

  “You’re a shit liar,” he informs me with a nod. He invites himself to Casey’s lumpy chair, acting a little surprised when he sits and the chair protests with an audible creeeeek. “You’ve always been a shit liar. Remember when I first hired you and you swore up and down that you’d personally interviewed Tom Brady?”

  “Now, I didn’t say that exactly.” My wince is the stuff of legends; it cannot be concealed. “I’d said that I had interviewed Tim Brady, former Boston University hockey player. Minor difference.”

  My interview with Tim Brady had taken place at a college frat party with BU’s golden hockey boy head first over the toilet. As Tim had prayed to the porcelain gods after way too many rounds of Jagerbombs with his teammates, I had questioned him on his stick play, his love for the penalty box, and why in the hell he’d decided to screw the coach’s wife.

  The meat of the story, ladies and gentlemen.

  Never let it be forgotten that Charlie Denton didn’t pull through for journalism.

  Regardless, Josh is not looking so appreciative at the moment. His hat is resting on his knee and the fluorescent light is reflecting off his shiny head. “You said you interviewed Tom Brady,” he clips out.

  I hold up a finger. “Tim Brady,” I correct pleasantly. “Trust me, I wish I could pull off an interview with the Patriots’ G.O.A.T.”

  Josh’s knee bounces up and down, and he actually bites his lower lip like he really wants to tear me a new one, but is reviewing The Tribune’s HR policies in his head. Then, almost without warning, he blurts out, “Duke Harrison.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Duke Harrison,” he repeats, slapping his Sox hat back on his head and pulling the brim low again. “We talked about doing a feature piece on him. Well, now I want you to interview him personally.”

  I blindly reach for my coffee mug only to remember that I drained the last dregs over an hour ago. “You do realize that it’ll be pretty difficult to nail that down, right?”

  Josh presents me with his back as he heads for the door. “I’m aware,” he throws over his shoulder nonchalantly.

  My hands go to my desk for leverage as I stand, so that I can see him over the desktop monitor. “You’re aware that it might be difficult?” I try to keep my voice level, I really, really do, but I’m also internally panicking. I’ve been hounding Duke for days now, to no avail. And that was before my boss decided to officially assign me the story I was already chasing. “What if I can’t make it happen?”

  He pauses. Twists around. “The same way you couldn’t make that interview happen with Tom Brady, NFL megastar?” This time, Josh doesn’t even wait for my response. “If this interview doesn’t happen, then you’re not a real sports journalist, Charlie.”

  “Josh,” I say slowly in a tone that’s mostly reserved for dealing with wayward children on the verge of a temper tantrum, “I’m not sure what’s changed from yesterday. I’m going to get you that article, I promise. I’ll whip something up, get it prepped. You’ll have it by three p.m. this afternoon.”

  “The Duke Harrison feature,” he announces curtly. His face is a mask of ambivalence and I’m more than positive that mine is red and blotchy from sudden stress. “I’ll be nice and give you until next Friday. That’s all of eight days from now.”

  Eight days. I have eight days or . . . I gulp back my fear and ask, “What happens if I don’t make the deadline?”

  Josh straightens out the brim of his hat like he means business. “You’ll be demoted.”

  “To what?” There’s nothing below me. It’s not like The Cambridge Tribune is teaming with interns. Each “department” is bare bones. Hell, we clean our own offices—or, we did, until the vacuum broke. I suspect even the vacuum couldn’t take the 70’s throwback décor anymore.

  “You’ll be my secretary.”

  My mouth drops open at Josh’s words. I can honestly think of nothing less I would rather do than to be his go-to grunt girl. His last three secretaries have quit within a week. Not, however, because he’s demanding, but rather because he grows a bit too touchy-feely during late work nights.

  Rumors spread.

  I’m not about that life.

  “Josh,” I try again, giving one more go at reasoning with the man who’s universally known among the office staff for being unreasonable, “Let’s think this over, maybe? How about we let go of this Duke thing and go for someone more realistic, like someone on the . . . the Kennedy High School’s basketball team. I can swing that, easily.”

  “No.”

  Would it be too embarrassing if I cry right now? I think it just might be.

  Josh turns for the door one last time. “It’s Duke Harrison or nothing, Charlie. Oh! And before I forget, I recommend that you stop using your work computer for job hunting. It’s against company policy.”

  And with that, my boss struts his way out of the room. I promptly drop to my chair, ignoring the way it jerks and twitches under the sudden onslaught of my weight. I do, however, gird myself for abruptly falling to the floor.

  When it seems that I’m safe for yet another day, I stare sightlessly at the computer. Sure enough, I actually have the Careers page pulled up for The Boston Globe. I wouldn’t think that Josh is smart enough to have my Internet browser tracked, but clearly I’m wrong on that score.

  I should probably tell Casey to stop checking her online dating website, but since she skipped out and left me to the wolves, I’ll hold off . . . for now.

  So, it has come to this: Duke Harrison or becoming Josh Wharton’s office bitch. If there was ever any doubt in mind about what moves needed to be made next, none of it still exists in the aftermath of my conversation with Josh.

  I snag my phone from its place in my top drawer and open the Twitter app. Duke’s message about me having a good day is the last one that came through. Not. Any. Longer.

  My fingers fly across the touchscreen, and this time there’s no deliberation. I hit SEND within fifteen seconds and
then stare down at the words:

  I need that interview. Name your price.

  Chapter Six

  “This is where we’re discussing terms?”

  I hiss the words at Duke’s broad back as I follow him down a dark, dank hallway. I’ve lived in Cambridge for my entire life, and yet have never known this place even existed.

  “Dive bar” doesn’t even begin to adequately describe the state of The Box, a name I’m presuming derives from the “penalty box” in hockey. I could easily be wrong; perhaps it’s referring to the almost cage-like, prison-y vibe this hallway is giving off. I’d say that it’s a cross between traditional English pub and local neighborhood bar, but honestly? That would be giving this place way too much credit.

  Then my mouth nearly drops open when we pass a life-size wax figure of Bobby Orr, the best hockey player to ever exist, as well as a hometown hero here in Boston. Naturally, I have to touch it.

  “Charlie, hands to yourself,” Duke grumbles ahead of me. He must have eyes in the back of his sexy head. How else would he know that my fingers are mere inches away from landing on Bobby Orr’s wax nose?

  I skip ahead a step to catch up. “Seriously,” I say, infusing as much authority as I can into my voice, “We could have discussed everything over the phone. When I said ‘name your price,’ I didn’t mean that you had the right to kill me. This place looks like something straight out of the Investigation Discovery Channel.”

  “I’m not going to kill you.” He says this with a shake of his golden head, like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.

  “Obviously not. If you did, your career would be over. Not even The Mountain can escape—”

  My voice cuts off as my gaze lands on another figure, and this one looks incredibly familiar. Golden hair. Robin’s egg blue eyes. Thin scar. Sharp jawline.

  My eyes widen when realization strikes.

  Holy. Cow.

  “Duke,” I say, “Do you seriously have your own wax figure?”

  This time when I reach out, my fingers hit cold hardness. As expected of a wax figure, not real flesh.

  What’s not expected is the way Duke’s fingers snag my wrist and pull my hand away from his likeness. “I said, don’t touch.”

  His mouth is frowning, handsomely sullen. I’m struck with the sudden urge to run my fingers across his face, just to see if he is as warm as the wax figure’s face is cold. But there’s something more to it, too; I’m practically itching to discover more about this elusive man, a man who lives in the spotlight but who, aside from his rarely touched Twitter page, hasn’t left much of a personal imprint on the Internet. In today’s day and age, such a feat is so incredibly rare it might as well be extinct.

  Slowly, I become aware of our closeness in the dimly lit hallway, and my breath catches. Shadows dance across the masculine planes of his face, hollowing out his cheeks and slashing across his full, unsmiling mouth. He doesn’t release my hand, at least not right away. Instead, his thumb swipes down, over the heart of my pulse. It’s barely a caress, but it feels . . . telling.

  Of what’s to come.

  Don’t be an idiot, Charlie.

  Right. Nothing is happening between Duke and I, even if his blue eyes do appear warmer in the dark. And even if his thumb has now started a soft back-and-forth motion across the width of my wrist that has my knees wobbling with desire.

  I mentally pull myself together with the reminder that if I do not make this interview, my butt is toast. Giving a little tug of my hand, his fingers fall away as though they were never there in the first place.

  Cradling my hand to my chest, as though he’s done irreparable damage to it, I murmur, “You didn’t answer my question.”

  The groan he gives me is low and sexy. “You ask too many questions.”

  “Hey, it’s not my fault. We’re standing next to your own wax figure and you don’t think that’s weird.”

  “I’ve walked past it hundreds of times.”

  “Okay, well, why is it here?”

  “The owner is a hockey fan. You’ll see.”

  Turning on his heel, he continues down the same dark path that seems to stretch on for forever. In reality, we walk for perhaps another ten seconds before he raps his knuckles on a wooden door and swings it open.

  I blink.

  Then, I physically ball my hands into fists and rub my eyes because surely I’m not staring at the Blades hockey team shooting the shit over pool tables, and lounging out on the couches.

  “What is this place?” I whisper in awe.

  “The Box.”

  “Yes, I read the sign at the front of the building.” I wave my arm at the sight before me. “But why am I staring at your entire team?”

  With a hand to my lower back, Duke moves me to the side so he can shut the door behind me. I can feel that large hand of his like a permanent imprint to my skin, even after he’s stepped away and opened the distance between us.

  “The Box is split up into two separate bars,” he tells me. “Front of the house”—he jerks his thumb toward the door we just came through—“and back of the house for us. The owners are huge hockey fans, and they’ve been operating this place since the 80’s, at least.” He offers a roll of his shoulders. “Sometimes it’s nice to just relax and not have to worry about the media hounding us.”

  The look he gives me indicates that he’s talking about me and me alone. I flash him my toothiest smile and he glances up to the ceiling. Probably begging the Heavens to take me off his hands.

  Eight days, I want to tell him, you have me for eight days.

  “So, what, you guys just camp out back here, hiding from us plebeians?”

  “Something like that.” The corners of his mouth lift, and damn, but his smile is sinful. Fake tooth and all, this man is a walking billboard for sex. Then, he breaks the spell, gesturing for me to follow him to the bar.

  We catch a few side-eye glances and I return them fully. I can’t help it. I’m a hockey junkie and I’m in a room with some of the best players in the NHL.

  Baylor “Zombini” Jeffs.

  Ryan “The Hitter” Markssen.

  Andre Beaumont.

  This is nuts, totally mind-boggling.

  Duke doesn’t take the free barstool. He invites me to it with a dip of his chin, and I casually take the offering, as though a professional hockey player giving me his seat is regular scheduled programming in the life of Charlie Denton.

  It’s not, and I thrust away the unbidden thought that this feels a lot like a date.

  As he waits for the bartender to come our way, he removes his leather wallet from his back pocket and idly taps the worn corner against his palm. “You look awestruck.”

  There’s no point in lying. “A little bit, yeah.”

  His gaze cuts to mine, seeing through the layer of bullshit I’m offering up on a silver platter. “Just a little?”

  “Okay, so I might be on the verge of a minor anxiety attack right now.”

  The air vacates the room when his blue eyes dip to my mouth and linger. “You gonna need mouth-to-mouth, Charlie?”

  My breathing hitches. “You offering, Mr. Harrison?”

  His eyes crinkle at the corners, and he turns away as the bartender finally approaches us. I fend off disappointment that he didn’t respond to my attempt at flirtation. Not that I’m surprised, though. Flirtation and Charlie Denton aren’t exactly synonyms.

  “What are you two having?” the bartender asks, snagging two napkins from a black dispenser and popping them on the bar top.

  “My usual,” Duke says, then glances over at me. “What are you in the mood for?”

  You.

  Thankfully, for once, I don’t voice my thoughts out loud. Quickly I scan the rows of glass bottles beneath the backlit wall. “Gin and tonic?”

  The bartender doesn’t even blink. “Lime or lemon?”

  “Lime, please.”

  As he heads off, Duke returns his focus back to me. Seated as I am, I
can’t help but notice his massive size. I wasn’t kidding when I said he was monstrous. For a goalie, he’s got the right frame: tall and broad, lean. Today he’s wearing dark-washed jeans and a soft-looking sweater, no hint of his tattoo in sight.

  Disappointing, to say the least. I was hoping for another peek, shameless hussy that I am.

  “What made you say yes?” I finally ask.

  “To meeting here and discussing your interview?”

  “Yeah.” I thank the bartender when he delivers our drinks, and then stifle a pleased smile when I reach for my wallet and Duke makes a point of handing his credit card over. “I’m not complaining, but somehow I don’t think that this”—I motion to the secret bar he’s brought me to—“is what your ‘price’ is for helping me out.”

  He brings his beer bottle up to his mouth. “You’re right,” he murmurs in a gravel-pitched voice, “it’s not.”

  “All right.” I wrap my hand around my cocktail and take a sip through the short, tiny straw. “Then let me have it.”

  Chapter Seven

  “You ask questions on my time schedule.”

  I stare at a speck of lint on his sweater. Not because it’s all that noticeable (it’s not), but because I’m desperately attempting to riddle out his words. The overhead lights pitch darker, giving the bar a soft romantic glow though I must be the only female in the house.

  The Box is proving to be a very intriguing place.

  After sipping my gin and tonic, I ask, “Are you referring to scheduling the interview around your games, that sort of thing?” If so, I’m not sure what would make this any different than any other interview I’ve ever done.

  My job at The Tribune might not come with prestige but I’m not incompetent. I’m on the verge of saying this to him when he shakes his head and murmurs, “Not exactly.”

  “Are you going to make me guess what you’re talking about?” I fiddle with the straw in my drink, doing my best not to notice the way we’ve started attracting more attention from his teammates. Surprisingly, they stay away and give us space, though I feel them watching us.