She leaves, the door closing with a thunk, her parting words like a post-orgasm jolt of pleasure. I glance at my watch. There are seven minutes before the team bus leaves. I can’t quite figure out if I reassured her at the end, but there’s just enough time for me to do something else for her.

  Quickly, I tuck in my shirt and zip my pants. Running a hand through my hair, I try to straighten up so it’s not obvious I just got the blow job of a lifetime, then I yank open the door. But the second I step into the hallway, I’m greeted by the smiling face of Elias.

  Fuck me.

  “Hey, Max! Great game tonight. You were on fire,” he says, but his gaze drifts down the corridor, and my brain races with worry. Is Everly walking away? Did he spot her leaving before me? Is it obvious we were in here together? But when I steal a glance down the hall she’s nowhere to be seen.

  That’s good.

  “Thanks, man,” I say. But I don’t make up an excuse about what I was looking for in the equipment room. The more you say, the more obvious it is that you’re covering up something.

  Elias’s brow knits. “Working late?”

  “Or hardly working,” I joke, keeping it casual. I nod to the end of the corridor, a subtle sign I should go.

  But maybe he doesn’t do subtle since he doesn’t let up. “Anything you need in the equipment room?”

  The dude doesn’t sound suspicious, but the fact that he’s asking the question tells me he is.

  Think fast.

  This fucker wants Everly’s job. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her from him. “Actually, I need a Sharpie. I was going to sign a hockey stick for you to give away during the next home game. If you want to, that is?”

  Here’s hoping a distraction play works.

  His gray eyes pop. A smile forms on his face, big and wide. “I’ve got a Sharpie on me.”

  “Great. Then I can do it now.”

  I head back into the equipment room, grab a stick, and return to the hall, signing it for the guy I hate, then thrusting it at him. “Here you go.”

  “I seriously appreciate this so much,” he says, beaming, and I guess the play worked.

  “Happy to help,” I say, then nod to the exit. “Got to catch the bus.”

  “Have a great road trip.”

  “We will.” I take off, but make a speedy pit stop in the locker room before I go. If I’m fast, I’ll have just enough time.

  25

  THE REAL CLICHÉ

  Everly

  I’m still amped up a half hour later, even after I’ve edited then posted the video of Max’s comment on the team’s social media. I’ll put it on his feed in the morning. With that done, I slide into bed in a cami and sleep shorts. I open the nightstand drawer, reaching for my favorite toy, then stop. I should take a picture now for him. Since, well, these panties are coming off in three, two, one…

  But my phone buzzes before I set up the shot. A text from Max lights the screen.

  Max: There’s a package coming to you in ten minutes. Local courier. Can you meet the driver at the door?

  I have no idea what it could be but I’m sure I want it.

  Everly: Yes.

  I grab a hoodie and tug it on, then wait for a notification that the driver’s arrived. When it lands, I race downstairs and open the front door. A man in a ball cap hands me a gift bag that’s stapled closed and says, “Here you go.”

  Anticipation curls through my veins as I rush back upstairs to my home. The second I’m inside, I rip open the staples, and…I know. My nose twitches, and I jam my hand in the bag faster than a kid dipping her paw into a cookie jar. When I pull out the delivery, I swallow roughly.

  It’s his shirt. The one he wore tonight after the game. The white dress shirt, and it smells like his cologne. I bring it to my nose. I close my eyes, feeling weak in the best of ways. Feeling woozy as I savor the scent of him. What is he even wearing right now on the team plane? No idea, but I guess he has multiple dress shirts in his stall and grabbed another one so he could send this to me—and send it quickly. But then again, services like Uber Connect are ridiculously fast.

  When I open my eyes, I feel like I’m melting. I’m not sure I can walk. My phone buzzes again. Tingles spread down my spine as I open the next message.

  Max: Wear it to bed. Send me that picture. Because you’re so incredibly beautiful, I can’t stop thinking about you. Guess I’m bad at resisting. But you know that.

  With the shirt clasped to my chest, I walk to my bedroom in some kind of trance. I set the shirt down on the bed, pull off the hoodie and cami, then strip off my sleep shorts. Briefly, I glance at the wooden box on the lower shelf of the nightstand—the one with the Post-it notes.

  All those say yeses.

  “That’s the problem. I keep saying yes,” I whisper to my silent home.

  But Max makes me feel pretty and powerful. And that’s catnip, so I say yes one more time.

  Tomorrow I’ll do better. Tomorrow I’ll be done with this dangerous tryst. For one more night, I’ll say yes—this time to wearing his clothes that smell like him. I slide my arms into his shirt, turning my neck to the collar. The shirt hits me at the thighs, and I love how big it is. I’m wrapped up in him, in his scent, in the memory.

  Briefly, I contemplate buttoning the shirt before I snap a pic.

  But instead, I sit on the edge of the bed, arranging it so it covers up all the places I don’t want him to see—my upper arm, then the scar on my left shoulder. The one he possibly caught a small glimpse of. I’m not sure how I’d handle it if he saw more. The memory of Gunnar’s shock still stings.

  But Max and I are one-and-done. So getting naked with him won’t happen.

  Making sure my face isn’t in the shot, I snap a pic from the neck down. Send it to him. Inhale him one more time.

  Then I vow to resist him for real.

  As the sun streams through my bedroom window early the next morning, the light feels too bright on me. Like it’s highlighting all my flaws as I get ready for work.

  I try to ignore the squirmy feeling in my gut as I pick out a red bustier with embroidered cherries on it, put it on, then slip on black slacks next.

  Before I grab the black blouse that’s hanging on the door, I look in the mirror in the corner of my room. Each day since I began this routine—I started it after Gunnar ghosted me—I try to like the view more.

  “I am pretty and powerful,” I tell my reflection.

  But the words ring hollow. It’s not the pretty part of my mantra that’s the problem. It’s the powerful part, since that’s the lie the morning light is exposing. Lately, I’m powerless to these feelings for Max.

  I’ve been giving in at night when I shouldn’t. Taking risks when I ought to be cautious. Listening to the lies I tell myself—that it’s no big deal to say yes to these wild feelings.

  It is a big deal though.

  I’ve worked too hard in my field. But last night I was foolishly risky. Locked doors or not, that was world-class levels of dumb. I can’t be the kind of woman who blows superstar athletes in equipment rooms.

  Max’s words to the press might have been a cliché, but they were a safe cliché. I’m the real cliché. I stare angrily back at my reflection, my jaw set hard, my nostrils flaring. “You’re not powerful when you do that stupid shit,” I hiss at the woman in the mirror.

  I think of Erin, a woman I admire, and the question she asked last night.

  How steady and strong she was in the media room. She wanted one thing—Max on camera. She knew she wouldn’t get salacious answers from him with me there, so she didn’t ask an aggressive question.

  And what did I do to show I’m good at my job? I gave a pro athlete a blow job. What the hell would the reporters I work with think of me if they’d seen me on my knees with his dick down my throat?

  I jerk my blouse off the hanger, stuff my arms into it, and button it up. I leave in a cloud of loathing.

  At the office, I am all business. I repost the clip on The Real Max Lambert.

  When that’s done, I do my morning rounds online, checking sports news sites and feeds. As promised, Erin ran with his comments in a wrap-up report on The Sports Network last night. I hit play on my laptop.

  “And in a rare appearance off the ice, the Sea Dogs goalie had this to say about tonight’s game,” she says, then leads into the quote from Max. When the video returns to her, she looks to her co-host and says with a wry grin, “It’s not as if he cracked open the playbook. But maybe he didn’t need to.”

  “His numbers this season have been speaking for themselves,” her co-host, Rowan, says.

  Erin wags a finger at him. “Hey, don’t jinx me, Rowan. I want him to keep talking to The Sports Network,” she says, then cuts to a report on the Supernovas, and how Fletcher Bane has been playing recently.

  Irrational irritation ratchets up in me as they talk about what a great season Bane is having on the LA team. Next, they cut to a clip of him in the locker room last night after a win. “We capitalized on the power plays. We’ve been skating well and matching our opponents. And we just played hard all around.” Then he flashes a charming grin worthy of all the toothpaste commercials in the land. “What can I say? You have to jump on the opportunities life affords you.”

  I want to reach through the computer and smack him. And smack Lyra for hurting Max. And then smack myself for feeling all of these feelings.

  I drop my head on my desk, sighing listlessly. I shouldn’t care about Max’s ex-girlfriend. Or his rival. I shouldn’t care about how they hurt him. Maybe I should even be grateful she cheated on him. If she’d been faithful, I probably wouldn’t have had that screaming set of orgasms the other night.

  I groan. What is wrong with me? I can’t actually be glad that he’s single so he could…please me?

  Besides, nothing more is going to come of that brief two-night tryst with Max. I lift my face from my desk, smooth out my hair, and return to my job. Reading and watching everything that was said last night. Jamie, one of the podcasters, has stitched the barrage of questions from the press together, then his commentary comes next with, “And now, winning cliché of the month, is Max Lambert for this chestnut.”

  Before I can watch more, my phone trills with Zaire’s ringtone.

  I answer it right away, and she says, “Good job last night with Lambert.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You coaxed more than a one-word grunt out of him. You got a real comment,” she says, laying on praise I don’t deserve. “What magic did you work?”

  “I guess it was the right time,” I say, like it was nothing, when in fact it was my magic panties.

  “Keep up the good work. You are a makeover queen,” Zaire says, then moves on to other topics.

  But the thing is—she’s right. I am damn good at my job. I do know how to handle the press. I want the promotion badly. I want to live my boldest, brightest life. I want to be the best that I can.

  A tryst in the equipment room simply can’t happen again. Too much is at stake. The job, the potential promotion, and especially the reputation rehab. It’s too important to too many people.

  Which means it’s time to call for backup.

  When I get off the call, I text my friends and request an emergency meeting this weekend. I need a girls’ night this weekend. Fair warning—I need a major strategy session. Bring wine.

  Seconds later, Josie responds first with: On it!

  And it’s a relief to speak the complete and utter truth.

  26

  A DAMN GOOD MOOD

  Max

  I’m still in a damn fine mood a few hours before game time. Maybe because I spent a good long time in my hotel room in Dallas on Tuesday and Wednesday night with the pic Everly sent of her looking like sin in my shirt.

  Spent extra time with that snap last night, and this morning, too, here in Nashville.

  With the endorphins still fueling me, I’m damn near strutting down the hallway with Asher at the Nashville arena, all cold concrete and an intimidating atmosphere that only fuels my desire to beat the other team tonight.

  “Hey, Miles,” I call out since he’s up ahead several feet, and I can’t resist giving my teammates hell. It’s part of my good mood.

  Miles turns back to me with a chin nod. “What’s up?”

  “You’re avoiding me, and I know why.”

  Miles isn’t a gamer for nothing, since he adopts a blank face as he asks, “What would I be avoiding you for?”

  Like he doesn’t know. “My three-of-a-kind last night on the plane. I beat you in poker. Bryant and Callahan paid up. You did not. You owe me one hundred bucks too. Don’t try to get out of it again.”

  Miles glares at me as he stops, lifts his phone from a pocket, and makes a show of Venmo-ing me the money. “Someday I’m going to figure out what your trick is with poker,” he says, defeated, like he was last night too.

  Shame.

  Asher snorts. “Good luck with that. Lambert’s unbeatable.”

  I want to bask in the praise and the truth of it. But I can’t let either of them think that or they’ll never play poker with me on the plane again. “Not true.” I scratch my beard, as casual as can be. “I lost the other week. Don’t you remember?”

  That’s a bald-faced lie, but I try to sell it with a lazy shrug.

  Asher lifts a doubtful brow, studying me for several seconds. “You’re bluffing.”

  Miles’s jaw drops. “Holy shit. He is. That’s your tell, Lambert.”

  “You scratch your beard when you’re full of it,” Asher adds.

  Well, fuck me. I only meant to throw them off the scent, not reveal my hand. So I double down, scoffing as we stride closer to the visitors’ locker room. “Don’t have a tell.”

  “Everyone does,” Miles says.

  I wave a hand to move on. Maybe my good mood has softened me up. “Fine, I’ll go easy on you next time.”

  Miles stares dead-eyed at me. “You will do no such thing. Ever.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” I say, patting him on the back. “Now, let’s go make Nashville cry.”

  As Miles turns into the locker room, Asher hangs back, stopping outside the door. “How’s everything going?”

  “Good. Why?”

  “I saw your comments from the other night got some pickup with the sports press.”

  “You did?” I guess I shouldn’t be surprised Asher noticed—he’s observant.

  But then he surprises me when he says, “Maeve was texting me and telling me. She said she was trying to scroll through calming, time-lapse videos of people painting murals—they’re her favorite, and it’s fucking adorable—but then hockey infected her feed.”

  There’s a whole lot going on in that intel drop. I’m not sure where to start, so I say, “That’s awfully specific.”

  “She’s a painter,” he says, a little proudly. “Anyway, just checking in to see how you’re doing.”

  I’m a lucky guy that some of my friends are so emotionally astute. “I’m actually okay,” I say honestly, opening up some more to him. He makes it easy enough, like he did at the smoothie shop the other week, like he does in my car, too, when I drive him to the rink. “It wasn’t as awful as I’d thought it’d be.”

  “Proud of you,” he says.

  “I just put blinders on, you know?”

  “That’s what you gotta do,” he says. “I’m glad you’re finally realizing you don’t need to make things harder on yourself. You don’t need to fight it. You’ll see it becomes painless after a while—talking to the press.”

  But I’m not buying that yet. “Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.”

  “I’m not worried. You’ve got this,” he says.

  I wave him along. “All right. If I spend too much time with you and your happy attitude, I might not be a dick during the game.”

  He scoffs. “You’ll always be a dick,” he says, then nods toward the locker room. But my phone rings and when I grab it from my pocket, it’s my agent’s name lighting up the screen. A dart of tension stabs me in the chest. I waggle my cell at Asher. “I’ll catch up with you inside. I need to talk to Garrett.”

  “Good luck, man. Let me know how it goes,” he says.

  “Will do.”

  I hit answer then turn around, pacing away from the locker room to a quieter corner of the corridor. “What’s up?” I ask with more trepidation than I’d like to feel with my agent. But that’s how things have been since this whole makeover project started with veiled threats from my very unhappy team.

  “Guess who’s not getting fined?” Garrett asks.

  Pretty sure I know what he means, but I can’t resist teasing him either. “Is it you? Did you get a parking ticket again? I know you like to park that ridiculous Lambo wherever you want. The one I make possible for you.”

  Garrett groans, all over the top. “You say that like it’s a problem that your success and my hard work funded my sweet ride.”

  “Fine, you deserve your sports car. And ten more. Anyway, what’s going on?”

  He’s clearly in a good mood, and I’m damn curious.

  “I heard from Clementine and Zaire this morning,” he begins, businesslike. “They’re both going to be at the dog adoption event next week, and they were very happy you talked to the press earlier this week. Zaire even said the producers at The Ice Men noticed it, and they’re glad to see it too. No idea what inspired you but keep that shit up.”

  I picture Everly. Her effort. Her commitment. Fact is I wanted to do something for her. She’s done a hell of a lot for me.

  “What can I say? I guess it was just the right time,” I reply instead.

  “Now, was it so hard to say something nice the other night?”

  I roll my eyes but I’m glad Garrett is happy. “You think we can get some sponsorships now?” I ask, shifting gears though I immediately want to take it back because I sound a little desperate. But the fact is, I’d like to start moving forward on this front again. Make some progress with my financial plans. Put away enough to take care of Sophie and Kade for life. Help my parents out even more with a big retirement plan for them too.