Page 23 of What It Means To Be Found

“You think?” Connor asked, the way his eyes trailed up and down the social media manager’s body made me want to roll my eyes.

“Oh yeah.” She ignored Connor’s perusal and met my gaze, a smirk tugging at her lips at my clearly annoyed expression. “If I wasn’t head over heels for my wife, I would definitely follow his account, specifically.” She smiled at me before glancing down at her iPad and tapping away on something. At the mention of a spouse, Connor noticeably took a half step away from her side.

God, the guy was the worst.

But he was all I had. He was the one who was willing to work with me after my previous agent quit. Connor stepped in during that clusterfuck, when my previous team was desperate to trade me because I was an aggressive asshole on the ice. Connor kept what was left of my career afloat, so I couldn’t just ditch him. No other agents, or even teams, have shown interest in me in the last few years, even after I had attended therapy and improved my overall performance.

“Can you look over there?” the photographer asked, making me turn my face to his. When our eyes met, he gulped and quickly hid behind the camera.

“Logan,” John Larsen, number thirty-one, called out right when the photographer snapped a photo. I was pretty sure I turned towards his voice too quickly because I heard the photographer grumble as soon as the flash went off. “Tug your pants down a little more.”

I furrowed my brows at him.

I glanced at the photographer, Connor, and the social media manager. They all gave me expectant looks.

Marketing.

I obliged, tugging them indecently low, earning a whistle from John. I lifted my middle finger at him in response.

“Sex sells, buddy.” John laughed. The photographer snapped a few more images and waved for the next player to take my place. I could feel every muscle in my body relax as I stepped off-set toward John.

You okay? John signed. John’s husband was completely deaf, which resulted in his ability to communicate with me via ASL. I was grateful because when I joined the team, he was a ringleader in getting the coaches to learn a few shorthand phrases that would help me be able to communicate on the ice since I couldn’t shout like everyone else.

I lifted a shoulder and responded, Just don’t like being paraded around like a show dog.

“Yeah, I’m sure your paycheck will help you get over it,” John replied. I flipped him off again before signing, asshole. I quickly tugged a shirt on, hating the feeling of the sticky oil against the fabric.

“Hockey romances are really having their moment,” John shrugged, “Having read a few myself, I understand Angie’s angle here.” John was always upbeat and good-natured, never irritated about anything. He was my opposite and sometimes reminded me of a guy version of Courtney.

I remembered Courtney telling me about hockey romances a while ago because she was introducing Josh to her love of reading romance novels, and for a while that was literally all they would talk about. I had gotten good at disassociating whenever the topic came up because I hadn’t read a romance novel once in my life and didn’t really plan to.

I remembered Eloise’s random declaration a few nights ago, I read alien erotica. The thought brought a smile to my face. It was so out of left field, and for some reason seeing her so embarrassed about it was almost endearing.

…Did Eloise read hockey romance novels? Or was she specifically into aliens?

Perhaps the social media manager (Angie, apparently) was going to be more helpful to me than I thought.

“All right, that’s it for today!” Angie clapped her hands after calling the group. Half the guys started clapping and cheering, too, as if we had all actually done something instead of lip sync pop songs and stand around half naked for the sake of sales.

“Hey, can I ask you guys something?” Connor had walked up to John and me right when we had each grabbed our bags to leave for the day.

“Sure, what’s up?” John replied. Connor thumbed away at his phone for a second longer before pocketing it and making eye contact with the two of us.

“If I had an opportunity for you guys to work with kids, would you be interested in that?” I hesitated, but John shrugged.

“Depends, what is it?”

“My daughter, Stella, used to go to this early intervention clinic”—Connor’s words were ringing a bell in my head for some reason—“It’s basically a place where kids with Down Syndrome and other conditions go for help. Anyway, if I set something up where you guys got involved, would that be something you’re into?”

“Yeah, I don’t mind kids,” John smiled, glancing over at me, and waited for my answer. I faced Connor and shrugged before a nod, confirming that I was okay with that.

Working with kids seemed better than stripping for the camera.

“It would be a good PR move, obviously,” Connor lowered his voice, as if discussing PR strategies was secretive, “And it’s not like we don’t need positive PR.”

Over recent years, many men in the NHL were getting expelled because of women speaking out about their sexual harassment. Recently, a number of claims have come up across the country. This was also happening with almost every male-dominated sport, ever. Based on what I had personally heard men say in the confines of the locker room over the entirety of my life, I wasn’t shocked that women were coming forward. Men in this field tended to have fragile egos, and women were almost always the victims of that.

So, in a roundabout way, I guess hockey really did need a bit of rebranding.

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