Page 75 of Puck Princess

His fingers curl through mine, our arms swinging carelessly as we walk. “Tell me it’s not something weird like River or Maven.”

“Maven is kind of cute, actually. And gender neutral. I’ll add it to the list.”

He groans. “How about hockey MVPs? That could be a perfect baby name list.”

“Callie!” Jordan, the team’s social media manager, nearly pounces on us the moment we walk through the arena doors.

I don’t know Jordan super well, but she’s always been nice to me. Still, I slam to a stop when I see the camera in her hand.

“Yes?” If the dubious look on my face wasn’t enough, the even more dubious tone of my voice tips Jordan off.

She raises a hand in the air. “Hear me out before you say no. The team thinks this is a great idea, which, yeah, obviously—it was my idea.”

Owen’s hand tightens around mine. “What idea?”

“Walk with me.” Jordan waves us on, heading towards the training room as she explains. “With all the Miles shit still hitting the fan and splattering all over, the team needs some good PR.You,” she emphasizes, hitching a thumb over her shoulder at me, “need some good PR.”

She told me to hear her out, but I’m already shaking my head. If I need any acronym, it’s R and R. I need to rest and relax and stay far away from cameras and the internet.

“Everyone on this team knows how hard you work,” she continues. “But we’re the only ones who see it. We want to show all the fans just what you do for us and the guys on the team. So, my idea is to do a segment on physical therapy in the professional athlete world.”

Before I can ask what exactly that means, we round the corner into the training room. There are yoga mats rolled out on the floor and three different lighting stands. It looks like the scene of some deep internet snuff video.

Jordan must think the same thing because she wrinkles her nose and turns to a guy with thigh-rimmed glasses, wearing a pair of Crocs. “This room is a nightmare. We should move this to the ice, instead.”

The guy pushes his glasses up on his nose. “But the sound. The guys are practicing.”

“Voiceover,” Jordan says, solving that issue in a second. “Good lighting beats everything.”

With that decided, a few interns start rolling up the mats and grabbing the light stands, carrying them out to the rink.

“I’m sorry.” I shake my head, trying and failing to keep up. “You want me on camera?”

“Exactly!” Jordan claps her hands together. She’s excited about this, which makes me feel bad about how aggressively I’m about to shut this down. “All you have to do is your job. It’ll just be you walking one of the guys through some stretches.”

I glance to Owen, but he’s watching the interns wrestle with an extension cord, so I can’t get a read on whether he also thinks this is the worst idea in the world.

“I just don’t think?—”

Before I can get the words out, my uncle pokes his head into the training room. “The goalies are heading out for the day, so the far end of the ice is yours, Jordan.” He sees me and gives me a wink. “You’re gonna be a star, Alley Cat.”

With that, he walks out. I look around the room, watching people setting things up. A lot has already gone into this. If I bail, not only will it look like I don’t care about my job, but so many people will have wasted their mornings for nothing.

Jordan isn’t the same as some random reporter hiding in a bush. She wouldn’t post anything that might make me look bad. This will be fine.

I sigh. “So what am I going to be doing exactly?”

We step into the rink. It’s been less than a minute, but mats are already spread across the ice and the lights are turned on. This set up looks less like a basement kill room, which is a marked improvement.

“You don’t even have to talk,” she assures me. “It will be you and a model working through some stretches. Just keep everything aimed, more or less, at the camera, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“A model?”

“Just one of the guys. This is going to be informational, but it won’t hurt engagement if people get to watch some rippling muscles.”

The way Jordan is almost drooling, maybe she should be helping the guys stretch. She’d be more enthusiastic about it than I’m going to be.

“I’ll do it.” Owen steps in, hand up. “I’ll be the model. Makes sense since I’m already here.”

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