Page 45 of Pucked and Pregnant

“You know what I don’t get?”

“What’s that?”

“That so many people believe that you and Max are a couple,” she says as we head back upstairs to our office. “Any idiot can take one look at you guys and tell you’re related. You’re about as identical as it gets for fraternal twins.”

The smell of bad cologne is the only warning we get before Travis rounds the corner of the hallway.

Great, just what I need this morning.

“It seems like congratulations are in order, Red. How’d you manage to bag the team captain? You never struck me as the clubbing type.”

“Not just any idiot, apparently,” I whisper to Grace.

I can see her cheeks color, but she manages to hide the laugh with a moderately convincing cough.

“No need to get green with jealousy, Grace,” he continues. “I’m sure you’ll find someone eventually.”

He turns his attention back to me. “So, where did you two meet? Was it at a club, or did you hook up after one of our away games?”

You got me. It was at a very exclusive club called Mary Winter’s uterus.

“It was New York, wasn’t it? I thought you looked a little disheveled when you opened the door that morning. Was he there?”

Why does he remember what I looked like? That was more than two weeks ago.

Do you really want to think about why he committed your image to memory?

Hell no.

“Do you have any work-related questions, Travis? Because that’s the only thing I’m going to discuss with you.”

“Someone’s cranky this morning. Lighten up, Red.”

“My name is Olivia,” I say firmly.

He holds up his hands in surrender. “I’ll wait until you’ve had your coffee. Message received so there’s no need to bite my head off. Speaking of coffee, I'm going to go grab one for myself. You’re not going to trip me when I walk past, are you?”

“Go get your coffee, Travis.”

He makes a big show of cowering as he walks past us.

“What a jackass,” I mutter under my breath

“I’m just relieved he was heading out to get coffee instead of returning with it,” says Grace. “That’ll give us at least twenty minutes of peace.”

“I’m going to go back to my desk and try to get as much done as I can before he comes back and bothers me again.”

“Good luck.”

I raise my coffee cup in salute then disappear down the hall into my office.

The first thing I do when I shut my door is flip the sign so that the “busy, please knock” side is facing out through the glass.

The team is on a bye week, so I’ve got an ocean of statistics to wade through and several reports to compile. The last thing I need right now is a stream of people in and out of my office looking for more gossip.

To be fair, most of my coworkers respect my sign in general, but in light of the recent pictures and articles going around, I figured today could be the exception. To my delight and relief, I am left alone. It’s a nice reminder that not everyone I work with is a boundary-violating asshole.

Maybe the rest of today won’t be so bad after all.

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