Power Play (Blades Hockey Book 1)

I wait until Monday to make my move.

I’m surprised I’ve contained my nervous energy for this long, actually. This is it—my opportunity to make it into the big leagues. I can feel it in my bones, though I’m hoping that the echoing pain in my shins isn’t an early onset of arthritis kicking in.

“What’s the matter with you?” my coworker demands after I leave my desk twice in the span of thirty minutes to pour myself more coffee.

Casey and I didn’t start out as best buddies. In fact, it’s safe to say that we spent our first year at The Cambridge Tribune hating each other’s guts. Desperation, as well as the creeping realization that we had only each other in a department full of testosterone, soon bonded us in a way that could only be trumped by slicing our forearms and sharing our blood.

I dump a packet of creamer into my mug, swirling the coffee around with the bottom of a plastic fork. “I have this idea,” I tell her as I sit back down in my lumpy office chair. “Do you want to hear it?”

Casey rolls her eyes but gestures for me to go on. Instinctively, I know this means she’s agitated by my jitters but curious enough to keep quiet. We’ve been through this before.

“Okay.” I plunk my mug down and coffee sloshes over the rim. Idly I use a spare paper napkin from yesterday’s Dunkins run to wipe it up. “Guess who I met this weekend.”

“Your future husband.”

She says this so drolly that I glower. Is it so hard to imagine me as the marrying kind? I think of my previous track record and feel my shoulders slump in defeat.

“That was a joke,” Casey tells me, making the defeat feel only that much sharper. “Obviously we’re going to become two old cat ladies together.”

“I don’t like cats.”

“This is why we can’t be lesbians and marry,” Casey jokes, pushing her brown hair back from her face. “I couldn’t be with someone who hates God’s greatest gift to mankind.”

This time, it’s my turn to roll my eyes. The marriage thing is a running joke between us, mainly because our coworkers are sexist pigs and have a hard time believing that, yes, both Casey and I are straight, and yes, we thoroughly enjoy sports.

I cut straight to the chase. “I met Duke Harrison.”

Casey’s eyes go wide and her mouth falls open a little. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. Did you just say that you met Duke Harrison?”

I nod. “Yes. And, before you ask, he’s only marginally better looking in person than he is on TV.”

The doubtful expression she levels on me says it all. “Only marginally better looking?” she demands, dropping her elbows to her desk. “I refuse to believe that Duke Harrison is anything less than a Greek God.”

Sipping my coffee, I offer a shrug and lie. “Sorry to disappoint.”

She doesn’t look like she believes me worth a damn, but we have bigger fish to fry.

Like how we’re going to rope Duke Harrison into an exclusive interview with The Cambrige Tribune. I’ve been thinking about this nonstop for the last two days and my current plan is full of Swiss cheese grated holes. In theory, it’s goddamn brilliant: Duke Harrison agrees to give a one-of-a-kind interview to The Cambridge Tribune and, in turn, Casey and I are taken seriously within our sphere of peers.

Maybe we get offers from The Globe or The Herald (ugh, I’m so not a fan of The Boston Herald). Maybe we don’t. Maybe Duke Harrison laughs in my face and has his security team wheel me out on a stretcher as a mentally unstable patient.

Is moving up my career worth the price of possibly going to jail?

No.

Maybe.

Probably, yes.

I fill Casey in on my plan, choosing my words carefully. When I finish, she leans back in her equally lumpy chair and steeples her fingers, elbows planted on the chair’s armrests. Nervously, my knee bounces up and down, and I press my hand flat against my thigh to keep it still.

“What do you think?”

She watches me from behind thick-wired frames. It’s the same expression my mom used to give me just before she embarked on an hour-long lecture. Instinctively, I gird myself for the worst.

“I think . . . ”

My eyes slam shut.

“I think it’s brilliant! How do we get this done?”

A sigh of relief escapes me. Okay. Okay, this is good. I take a deep breath to steady my nerves. Think of the job, Charlie. Yes, the job. My gaze sweeps over our shared office. It’s a sad-looking time transport to 1976. The only thing missing is a shaggy rug the color of stale Cheetos.

The time has come to take big steps.

I’ve thought about this all morning. Gwen knows him. In theory, I could reach out to her and ask for Duke’s contact information, but something tells me that she’d bury me six feet under before she ever helped a girl out. “I need his email address,” I announce.

Casey rolls her eyes. “Oh, you only need his email address.” She sticks a pen in her mouth and bites down on the cap. “There is no way we’re going to be able to find his email. Maybe an email for his PR agent, sure, but his personal one?” She shakes her head. “You’re out of your mind.”

I knew she’d say that. I down the rest of my coffee, then forlornly glance down into my trash bin at the empty Dunkin’ Donuts Styrofoam cup from this morning. The crappy work stuff will just have to do for now.

“The PR email is blocked,” I tell Casey. “You know, one of those websites where they want a subscription in exchange for your soul? Nothing on the guy’s official website either, which is a bit surprising.”

She blinks. “He has an official website?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

My eyes narrow. “There’s nothing exciting on there. Stats, a few pictures—that sort of thing. I did fill out the contact form, but we all know how those work out. I’ll never hear back from—”

“Is he shirtless in any of the photos?”

“What?” Now it’s my turn to blink. “It’s not PornHub, Casey.”

A blush stains her cheeks, and she busies herself with sorting a stack of papers on her desk. “I didn’t ask if he was naked, just if he didn’t have a shirt on.”

I stare at her. “You’re sick, you know that?”

“No, I’m a woman with hormones and Duke Harrison is one fine male specimen.”

Rolling my eyes, I turn back to my desk. I need to figure this out. From what I’ve gathered, Duke “The Mountain” is a private enough guy. I type his name into Google because, what the hell, no one can escape Google’s web crawler, and I specifically remember bypassing a Twitter page during my research on him last week.

And I’m right—up pops his official Twitter profile. I can work with this. I tap the mouse on the appropriate link, and wait for the little circle of death to do its thing and then I’m in.

His profile photo is one of him posing for a ‘Got Milk’ ad. Truth be told, I didn’t even think they made those commercials anymore. But there he is in all of his glory.

Shirtless.

Mouth-wateringly bare-chested with hard abs for days.

I quickly glance at Casey, but she’s so absorbed in her game of solitaire that I give in to temptation and enlarge the photo.

Eight.

That’s the number of tight ridges he’s got on his washboard stomach. Maybe I’m the one who’s sick.

I squirm a little in my chair and read his profile. It’s short and overtly direct:

NHL Goalie – Boston Blades.

Seasons: Not Enough.

Not so chatty of an individual, is he? If he had an online dating profile, I imagine it would read something like, “I like it hot & dirty in the sheets. No repeats.”

Whereas if I had a dating profile, it would go a little something like this: “Looking for long-term relationship. Likes dogs, Thai food, and needs a boyfriend who doesn’t mind it when girlfriend chooses to watch the Patriots over engaging in sexy-times.”

Now that I think about it, I may have discovered the reason for my constant singleness.

“Casey,” I say, distracting myself from Duke’s naked chest on the computer screen, “if you had one chance to tweet at a hockey player and capture his attention, what would you say?”

“Am I trying to get laid?” she asks. She spins her chair around to face me, and I hastily exit out of Duke Harrison’s Twitter page before she can see that I’ve been ogling his beautiful body.

“What?” I exclaim. “No. You’re trying to get a story out of him.”

Her head tilts to the side. “Be honest. Just ask him for the interview.”

Yeah, I could have figured that one out myself. Flexing my fingers, I turn to my computer and go for broke. At the end of the day, what’s the worst that could happen?