Page 62 of On the Power Play

"My face is on fire, Mary. Jack’s arm around my shoulders on the way into the studio is the most action I’ve gotten in—I don’t even know! I can’t feel my toes. Jack is going to see my splotchy skin!"

Mary grinned like the Grinch. "Are you going to tell him that you're imagining tripping and falling into a pile of sweaty hockey players?"

“I’m serious!” Delia smacked her shoulder just as Alvin opened the back hatch. The guys on the sidewalk moved to the back of the car, and Delia snapped her mouth shut. Holy shit was right. In less than a minute, all their bags were out of the trunk, the backseat was clicked back up, and Delia and Mary were standing on the sidewalk watching a line of men walk their bags into an adorable brick house.

"I think I've landed in someone else's erotic fantasy," Delia whispered.

"Not yours?"

"My imagination is not this good."

Mary linked arms with her and pulled her up the walkway. "This is the surprise, by the way." She gestured at the house. "Tony reached out to Jack to see if he had any recommendations for places to stay. Turns out his teammate Tyler and his fiancee Emma restore historic properties in the city. This is one of the first ones they completed, and they offered to rent the whole thing to us."

"How many rooms?"

"There are only four, so Alvin will have one, you and I will have ours, and then . . . well, it's totally up to you, but the other one could be for Jack. If you two thought it would be convenient to be in the same place."

Convenient. Delia blinked. "But Jack has a place."

Mary nodded. "Right, so probably unnecessary. But it's available for whatever. Maybe your mom could come out and visit. More importantly, there won't be random people staying here and realizing they're next door to Delia Melise."

Delia and Mary walked into the building, and she wondered if she had secretly been submitted for an episode of Property Virgins. She half expected someone to jump out with confetti. That or all the players to start stripping. Instead, Jack walked toward her with a man who had a perfectly straight nose and a smile too pretty to belong to a hockey player.

"Hey." Jack shoved his hands in his pockets, and Delia's throat swelled like she'd just gulped down boiling hot tea. "This is Tyler. He owns the place."

Delia nodded, her hands clamped around the straps of her backpack. Her voice came out like she was in the middle of being strangled. "Hey. Thank you so much for letting us stay here."

Tyler nodded. "Emma will be here later, she had a shoot she couldn't get out of."

Delia wondered what kind of shoot but couldn’t find her way to words with the thousand other questions bouncing around her head like ping-pong balls.

Jack motioned to the other players, holding their bags. "Want to tell us where to take these?"

"Oh, right. Yes. The ones with the ribbons are mine, all the others are Mary's."

Jack nodded and passed along the instructions. The guys hoisted their bags up the stairs like they were white-gloved servants from the Swan Princess. Delia watched in awe until she realized Jack was still standing next to her. And suddenly, the words coalesced. "What just happened?"

Jack grinned. "You got Snowballed." Delia pursed her lips, and Jack ran a hand over his face. "That didn't come out right."

Delia breathed a laugh. "I mean, depends on your definition of ‘right.’”

Jack chuckled. "These are all my teammates from the Snowballs."

"I got that much. But don't they have better things to do on a Friday?"

He shrugged. "They do, but I told them you were coming in, and after Mary signed the contract with Tyler, they were all magically available." He leaned in. "I think they just wanted to see you in person."

She blushed. "They don't know . . ."

He shook his head. "My sister Clara and her husband are the only people who know about the contract. I signed the nondisclosure, remember?"

"Sure. Of course." Delia glanced around at the cozy living room. The window that let streams of light into a white-washed kitchen with a chrome hood over a gas stove. One by one, players made their way back down the stairs. They smiled at her. Raised eyebrows at Jack.

"You bring things to move in, too?" a clean-cut guy wearing a puffy vest asked, clapping his hands on Jack's shoulders.

Jack shook his head. "No, I?—"

The player held up his hands. "Sorry, no pressure. You've only been dating for what, a couple of weeks? I didn't mean to make it weird."

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