Page 36 of On the Power Play

Delia ignored her flaming cheeks and grabbed her coat and purse. "Thanks for making me sound good, Finn. Wednesday?"

"Bring Jacky boy. My sister’ll be a narky hole if I get a picture with him before she does." Finn swivelled in his chair, his hands laced behind his head.

Delia laughed. "I highly doubt he'll be interested in any of this."

Finn picked up the headphones and winked. "Well then, I'll at least look forward to an explanation of the glitter on your neck."

Chapter Ten

Jack's flight out of YYC had been late, but thankfully he didn’t have to work too hard to keep a low profile. Most of the people on his plane were too tired to try to introduce themselves even if they did recognize who he was. When he woke from his two hour nap, he connected to the free onboard WiFi and found messages waiting for him on the Snowballs’ chat.

Tyler

I don't know about you, but I could use more Harrison on my Instagram feed

Country

Hope you don't mind, Jack, but I'm milking Jenna's footage for all it's worth. Reposted a video with you in it and it's already at 100k views

Jack

Use and abuse my dude

André

You're worse than Country, you know that? Need details on this Delia chick

Jack

We had tacos

André

Like YOU had a taco?

Sean

Shut the hell up André. And I blocked the word "crema" from the chat, FYI

Jack laughed, grateful he didn’t need to respond to that. Joking about women and sex? Easy. Actually getting in a relationship? Not so much.

How long had it been? Clara had been relentless about him getting out of his apartment after he’d moved in, and he had tried initially. But no matter how many women approached him, the idea of "getting over" Angie always slammed him down to the same place. Regret. Anger. Guilt.

He hadn't even come close to bringing someone home for the night because any kind of fling felt pointless after what they'd had. All the conversation and flirting was cheap, and sleeping with someone for the hell of it didn’t equal fun.

Holding someone close after laughing until you were sick was fun. Climbing into the shower with her and helping her wash her hair after she'd been knocked out by a cold all weekend was fun. Cuddling up and eating nachos in underwear and a T-shirt to watch the latest Survivor episode was fun. And “fun” didn't begin to cover it.

"Excuse me." A woman with a brunette bob and a sleep mask holding back her hair like a headband tapped his shoulder as he pulled his carry-on bag from the luggage compartment. "Would you mind grabbing mine? It's the silver one." She pointed to the bag that had been sitting next to his.

"Sure." He reached up and grabbed the suitcase, then set it in the aisle in front of him and motioned for her to go first.

"Thanks." She gathered her things and slipped into place, waiting for the doors to open.

He hated that he wondered if she knew who he was. Hated that he was already thinking about that interaction showing up in a headline somewhere. He wouldn't ever complain about where life had taken him over the last month, but sometimes he wondered if he was a good enough person to handle it.

It was easy to see how athletes became pricks. Being fed a constant diet of praise and public interest could turn even the most humble soul into a narcissist.

His phone buzzed.

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