“Ah, I’d rather discuss your relationship with Miss Barrow in more detail. I read that she’s not only Moreau’s agent but also Fox’s. He’s going to need an extension soon, too, so maybe you should work through your anger at each other and…”
“Shut up, Penny,” Gareth remarked impatiently and abruptly pushed her through the door into the meeting room.
Too bad. She would have preferred to poke around in his life a little longer. In here, she had to be brave and speak her mind on practical matters. She didn’t have a big problem with either — but it was usually followed by a lot of annoyed or irritated people calling her crazy, and she wasn’t in the mood for that.
But it was time to prove that she was neither her father nor Gareth and that she still brought something useful and innovative to the organization.
She greeted Coach Gray, Freddie, and Lyle with a raised hand while Gareth nodded to them all. Her fingers started to tingle as soon as she pulled out the paperwork she had been preparing for days. Gareth hadn’t brought any documents with him, but Thomas Lyle passed around two sheets of paper, each of which had a printed photo of a hockey player staring grimly up at her.
One had olive skin and pretty blue eyes, while the other looked like he had rubbed his hair with bleach and then fallen asleep in the sun where, unfortunately, someone must have knocked out a tooth. It was the Canadian Jason Devreaux and the Swede Fynn Anderson, who she had already talked about with Freddie. They were both possible strikers for the team.
“Devreaux is currently with the Whales but unhappy, and Anderson has feelers out and could perhaps be won over with a nice trade,” Lyle noted, getting straight to the point. Small talk was not a priority with management.
That was good, so now Penny could just jump in at the deep end. She just had to wait for the right moment.
“Devreaux has a mean wrist shot, but Anderson has better stamina,” Gray interjected. “He’s averaged almost eighteen minutes of ice time during the last ten games of the season.”
Penny opened her mouth…
“Yes, he may have been on the ice for eighteen minutes each time, but how did he use it?” Gareth wanted to know. “He hardly scores goals.”
Penny opened her mouth again. She just had to…
“He’s setting up dozens! We’ve got Payne, West, and Temple to score goals,” Gray replied calmly.
Okay, the right moment hadn’t come. She had to wait for the next...and she took it when Parker Gray inhaled a breath.
“Excuse me? I have several thoughts on this,” she said and almost raised her hand. Like in school. She stopped herself in time.
All the men turned to her.
“And they are?” Lyle asked. His voice sounded impatient, but Penny had to give him credit for at least trying to seem interested.
“Well, I’ve already hinted at it with Freddie,” she said and glanced briefly at Lyle’s assistant, whose face promptly changed hue to match his hair. He widened his eyes and shook his head as if he wanted to stop her from saying the next words.
But, no one had ever managed to stop her, once she got going. No security guard had been able to stop her before she cut off the rooster’s head and no one would stop her now. Shecontinued. “I think we should consider using Leon Alvarez as a winger before we get a new one.”
Absolute silence followed.
Penny thought she heard crickets, but maybe that was the blood whooshing through her ears at double speed.
Thomas Lyle was the first to recover. “What?”
She cleared her throat audibly and handed out the copies she had made. “I’ve been watching him for the last few weeks and studying his stats. I believe he’s in the wrong position.”
“What?” Coach Gray hid his disbelief only half as well as Lyle and made no effort to look at the paper that was now in front of him.
“Oh, Penny,” she heard Gareth mutter.
She glared at him. “What? I know it’s not common practice to let a player switch positions, but…”
“What do you meannot common practice?” Gray interrupted, confused. “It’s absolutely insane! Alvarez has played defense his whole life!”
“I know,” she stated firmly. “But he’s always too far forward on the ice. He’s set up an incredible number of goals, more than any other defenseman in the league. And that raises the question of what it would look like if he…”
“No, the question is: Are you out of your mind?” the coach interrupted her again.
She sighed softly. There it was again. The accusation that she was crazy. She’d grown accustomed to it after a while.
