“You should be more afraid of me than God,” Jack replied softly.
“Oh, please, you’re the weakling of the league. Too nice and too harmless to scare anyone. Your parents must have raised you too well.”
Jack smiled slightly. His parents hadn’t raised him at all.
“If only you played half as well as you bullshit, Andre, you might stand a chance,” he replied calmly.
His opponent narrowed his eyes but didn’t get a chance to answer because the starting horn sounded and Jack’s arm shot out and secured the puck…and then all the talk and posturing was jettisoned from his mind.
There was only his team and the ice, and he did what he did best: win.
Chapter Eleven
The Hawks won 5-2. Still, confusion, not joy, was the dominant feeling when Penny arrived an hour later at the hotel where the entire team and their fellow travelers were staying.
Had Jack waved to her earlier?
Did people still do that? Wave instead of texting? And if he waved, was it at her? Because she had ignored him for the past week, and the last time they’d talked, he had been in a whining mood, not a waving mood.
But he had been looking at her, right? It was ridiculous, but she thought she had felt his gaze on her even from that distance and through his visor.
“I’m twenty-six, I’m allowed to drink beer! Oh, my goodness, but yes, check my ID.”
Blinking, Penny returned to the present and glanced up at her companion as he presented his ID to the waitress, his face a bright red that matched the color of his carrot hair. In the waitress’ defense, Freddie Cravitz, personal assistant to General Manager Thomas Lyle, did look young. And that was coming from her! When he’d spoken to her in the VIP lounge during the game, she briefly thought that one of the investors hadbrought his son. When he had introduced himself as the General Manager’s right-hand man, she had thrown her head back in laughter, confusing the poor guy beyond belief. Then she had hastily explained that something on the ice had made her laugh before returning his handshake.
As Penny quickly discovered, Freddie’s unassuming appearance was deceptive. He was in fact a complete hockey nerd – actually, a nerd in general. He did not hide this well with hisGame of Thronest-shirt andIron ManVelcro wallet — neither of which made him seem any more mature.
However, Thomas Lyle had hired him for his brains, not his demeanor, which would have made Penny feel almost sympathetic for the general manager if he hadn’t been such a rude jerk to her.
“I’ll take a Laphroaig Select whiskey,” Penny said, smiling at the waitress. She had earned after, upon congratulating a bunch of players on their win, they’d asked if she’d enjoyed the champagne and if the chill of it had bothered her after her foray in South America.
The PR department had assured her that her father always watched from the VIP box — but, apparently, the players had different standards when it came to her. Gareth, at least, hadn’t received any stupid comments about expensive alcohol, as far as she knew.
“It’s the same every time,” Cravitz complained grumpily. “They always ask for my ID! Even when I’m with people who are obviously over thirty.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. It happens to me a lot too,” Penny said, refraining from informing him that men with Daenerys, the Mother of Dragons, on their shirts generally had a harder time in a Michelin-starred restaurant than others. Unfair, but true.
“Yeah, but you’re not wearing makeup and you’re wearing clothes that…” He snapped his mouth shut and blushed. “Sorry. That was inappropriate.”
She laughed. “I prefer honest and inappropriate to dishonest and polite,” she confessed. “And I know I could do more to stop looking so young, but do you know how hard it is to take makeup off? I grew accustomed to not using it in the South American heat because the stuff would have turned to goo, anyway. And it’s hard to break old habits.”
Freddie smiled, even if it was a little embarrassed. “I like the way you dress. It’s less intimidating.”
Yes, maybe that was the problem – that she didn’t intimidate the players like Gareth did…well, Gareth intimidated everyone as a matter of course.
She sighed heavily and peered past Freddie into the room full of Hawks players. She didn’t know how they managed it, but everyone seemed to be sitting with their backs to her. No, not everyone. There was one…
She glanced away and helped herself to a roll from the basket. “I don’t like to use it to my advantage to scare people,” she said, shrugging.
“Hm.” Freddie looked at her skeptically. “You’re different from all the rich guys in the world. I like it.”
Oh, she liked Freddie. He was sometimes pompous and liked to make himself seem important by throwing around big numbers, but at least he was nice! She couldn’t really expect a dinner invitation from the players, after all. The only consolation was that Gareth hadn’t received one, either. But he had gone directly to his room to make some important phone calls and probably fire a few more people.
A few of the players who had finished eating walked in her direction. Penny smiled at them…and was rigorously ignored.
She sighed. Everyone was being oh so very grown-up. It wasn’t her fault that her father had arranged this silly competition.
“They were probably distracted by the pretty women at the bar,” Freddie said diplomatically, squinting to the right so that it was undoubtedly clearwhowas distracted by the pretty women.