Page 22 of Slap Shot
“An asshole? Why?”
“I thought you showed up to the arena ten minutes before you took the ice. I had no idea you put so much time into your job before you actually did your job.”
“It’s a lot of fourteen-hour days, and that doesn’t include the nights we fly to our away games right after the buzzer sounds at our home matchups.”
“What I’m hearing is you don’t have a lot of free time, so I think meal prepping is going to be a good route for us to take. I can batch cook food that will last you two or three days, and all you have to do is heat it up. I can be here as often as you want, but I also want to be respectful of the hours you get to yourself.”
“Speaking of hours, talk to me about money. I know this might be an awkward question, but what were you making back in Vegas?”
“A hundred and ten thousand dollars after tax, and it was a fair salary.”
It doesn’t sound like a fair salary to me for the amount of hours she was working, and I do some math in my head.
The Stars organization was willing to spend everything they had to keep their core group of athletes together. After our Stanley Cup win this summer, my agent negotiated a monstrous deal on my behalf: six years. Sixty-five million. A contract that will take me to retirement and give me more money than I know what to do with.
It gives me the luxury to spend that money on people who deserve it.
People like her.
“Everything we’ve talked about has been really encouraging, Madeline. I think this would be a great fit, and I want to offer you two hundred to start.”
“Two hundred?”
“Thousand. For your salary. DC is more expensive than Vegas. Rent is at least three thousand dollars a month, and that’s a robbery for some of the places around here.”
“You want to pay metwo hundred thousand dollars? After tasting only one of my meals?” Madeline shakes her head.“That’s a very generous offer. Too high, actually, and way above the average rate for a private chef according to Google.”
“Ah, you know how Google is always right,” I say, tempted to laugh when she huffs. “You’re going to be cooking here multiple times a day. You’re going to have to come up with weekly menus and do food shopping. That’s going to use up a lot of your energy, and you should be fairly compensated for it.”
She eyes me and rolls her lips together. “Will you let me prove it to you?”
“Prove what?”
“That I’m worth that much.”
I already know she’s worth that much and more, but I give in. “Sure. Are you going to spin a knife again? You did that at Piper’s, and I’m still trying to figure out how you didn’t slice a finger off.”
“Not my first rodeo.” Her smile is sharp. “Can I make lunch for you?”
“If you can find something around here that could be turned into a meal, have at it.” I sit up on the barstool, intrigued. “But good luck.”
Madeline fumbles through her bag and pulls out a dark blue apron. She slips it over her head and jumps to her feet, her hands settling on her hips.
“Can I have free rein of the space?” she asks.
“Of course. The stove might weep if you turn it on because it’s so excited to be used, so be careful. I don’t want the place to go up in flames.”
A laugh spills out of her, and it sure is a pretty sound. “I’ll be careful.” She does a lap around the kitchen and drums her fingers against her cheek. She opens the fridge then moves to the pantry. Gus and Millie watch her, and she stops to give them a pat on the head. After five minutes of looking in every cabinetand drawer, she washes her hands and glances at me. “I’m ready.”
“Should I get a stopwatch out or something? Do you want me to put on a hat and sayyes,chef?”
“You sound like you want to make this a game.”
“It’s the competitive nature in me,” I offer, and she smirks. “NHL player, remember?”
“Oh, I remember. Okay, Hayes. We’ll play by your rules. How much time do I have?”
“Thirty minutes.” I pick a random number and grin. “You really think you can make something out of nothing that quick?”
