Page 20 of The Game Changer

“Hey, stranger.” Her sweet voice fills the waiting room. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought that you could use some lunch today. A little birdie told me that you had a bit of a rushed morning.”

“That was sweet of you,” she says, closing the distance to stand in front of me. I grab her hips and pull her closer before leaning down to kiss her.

“I’ll let the sweet comment pass if I get to have lunch with you,” I say against her lips.

“Come on back, we can either sit in our tiny-ass break room or go outside and sit at one of the picnic tables.”

“I should be okay with outside, the sun hasn’t bothered me yet,” I tell her, knowing she gave me the option because of that.

“It’s a nice, shaded area, so hopefully that will help.”

“Sounds good,” I say, grabbing the bag of food. Jill grabs the drink carrier and I follow her down a hall, through a door that leads us down another hall with a few open doors off of it. Looking in as we pass by the rooms, I see these are the rooms with her ultrasound machines set up. We also pass by the break room she mentioned and what looks like her office before we leave through a back door. Once outside, the building has a nice little courtyard area with a few benches and picnic tables for employees of the businesses here in the building to use. We select one that is under a large tree, offering the most shade. We sit down across from one another and I pull everything from the bag.

“I didn’t know what you’d want, so I went safe and got a ham and turkey club and a roast beef. Do you have a preference?” I ask, setting them both out between us along with the wrapped pickles and bags of chips.

“The ham and turkey is great,” she says, reaching for it. “Thank you.” I get a flash of a smile as I hand over the sandwich.

“You’re welcome. I also got pickles and chips.” Her face scrunches up in a disgusted look and makes me laugh at how repulsed she is about one of those things. “What’s wrong?”

“Pickles. Yuck! I can’t even stand the smell of them,” she says, shaking her head, her nose still all scrunched up.

“Noted. I’ll just have to eat both,” I tell her, snagging them and putting them back in the bag. I laugh at how disgusted she is over a pickle, of all things.

“How has your morning gone?” she asks between bites of her sandwich.

“Good, my nephew called me, and we talked for a little while. I also talked to my agent. I’m meeting him at the team offices at two today to have a meeting with the GM and team owner.”

“That’s good, right?” she questions.

“It’s a start. I’m sure they won’t be shocked about the news, hell, my agent told me that he’d been waiting on the call from me all week.”

“Well, I hope everything goes smoothly.”

“I’m sure it will, the family that owns the team, the Ericksons, are a pretty stand-up group of people. The managing partner, Laura, is actually married to our team captain.”

“Now that you mention it, I remember reading about them. There was a big article on her when she took over as the managing partner when her dad stepped down, right?”

“Yep. She’s worked in the organization’s office for as long as I’ve been with the team, and when David had a heart attack a few years ago, it was time to retire and hand over the reins to Laura. She’s done a pretty great job as the team’s president. Broke some glass ceilings being in her position for a professional sports team, especially one that has had such success in their relatively short existence in the league.”

“That’s so awesome. I love hearing stories about women kicking ass, especially in such male-dominated positions.”

“She’s definitely turned some heads. I think there was some apprehension on her part when she started dating Mark. She was married before and the guy was a total asshole. Mark was traded to us right around the time she got divorced, and he just waited quietly in the wings until she was ready to start dating again and swooped in and they’ve been together ever since. They have a couple kids now. She even went into labor the night we won the cup last year. It was kind of crazy, she was out on the ice with us for the presentation of the cup and her water broke while she stood at center ice. I’ve never seen Mark move so quickly. He had to strip out of all his gear still. Missed most of the celebration that night, but I guess the birth of your daughter is a little more important.”

“Wow, that is pretty cool, but also a crazy place for her to go into labor. I had a patient, once, whose water broke while I was doing an ultrasound to check on the baby and the fluid level. That was an experience.”

“I bet. What did you do?” I ask.

“It was all so surreal. I’d just put the gel on her stomach and set the transducer on top of that. We both heard a little pop sound and she looked at me with the biggest eyes ever. We both looked down and saw the small gush of fluid. Thankfully, this was at her doctor’s office, so I stopped and popped my head out of the room to get one of the nurses and doctors. They helped her down to the labor and delivery unit to give birth.”

“Amazing,” I say, a little impressed about the situation. We both fall into a comfortable silence as we finish off the remainder of our sandwiches.

“What are your plans after your meeting?” Jill asks once she’s finished her sandwich. She balls up the paper wrapping and sets it aside as she reaches for her drink.

“I don’t really have any. I was kind of hoping this beautiful woman who I had dinner with and the most amazing night last night might want to have dinner with me again tonight.”

“Is that so?” she muses as she plays with her straw. “And what’s in it for the woman?” she asks, looking at me with questioning eyes.

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