Page 86 of Playing to Win

Right.We’d kissed, but it hadn’t been excessive. It had been sweet and romantic. How could they?—

“And someone took a picture of me leaving your house one morning.”

Oh. That was a little harder to explain in any way except that we’d been sleeping together. “If they were okay with us fake dating, what’s the problem?”

She shivered. How the hell could she be cold under all that fabric? “Your reputation with the fans is good. And now that I’m not a player, just an employee, we no longer have a loophole to be dating.”

“What?” I wanted to go out and get drunk again, say something stupid. Make it vital that I keep dating Jayna for my reputation. But things weren’t adding up. “Are you here to break up with me?” I wanted to sound calm and professional, but a panicky feeling was pressing on my chest. Jayna needed her job. How could I expect her to put us, something this new, up against that?

I had feelings, and they were deeper than I was prepared for. I wanted to be with Jayna. There had to be a way to make this work. Then her words came back. Jayna said she’d lost her job.

“Did you quit because of that?”

She didn’t answer right away, and I was clenching my fists so hard my knuckles were white. Were we that serious? There was excitement with the idea, but also a lot of panic. Was I ready to be serious? Would it affect my playing? I felt like an asshole to even think that, but I wasn’t used to drama. I didn’t want to risk my hockey career?—

Iwasan asshole. Jayna had just lost her career, and she was just as committed to hockey as me.

While I had a mental freak-out, Jayna finally turned to look at me. Her eyes were dry but her face was pale.

“I didn’t choose dating you over my job.”

Now it was disappointment and relief dancing around in my chest. I was a mess.

“I didn’t even think about what I would choose—Radner and Kira just assumed. We had to create a breakup story, and when we went through the options, the best one for you was if I cheated.”

“What the fuck? They wanted you to cheat on me?” There were definite tinges of red around the edges of my vision. This was a fucking shitstorm.

“No.” She raised her voice to get my attention. “I didn’t have to do anything. They’d release something to indicate we were broken up, please respect our privacy, blah blah blah. But people would want to know the story behind it. And we couldn’t mess up your reputation, not with the playoffs coming. We also couldn’t have anyone think it was my retirement because that would make you look bad. It would only require a couple of unofficial hints. Maybe they’d use the photo of me with Superfan when I was drunk, and you’d get tons of sympathy, just like JJ.”

Ducky had told me about JJ. “That’s horrible. Fucking horrible. Messing up your life like that?”

A trace of a smile appeared on her face. “They didn’t even think that for the rest of my life I’d have a reputation as a cheater. They didn’t care. Just worried about protecting their asset.”

I was their asset. Fuck, that was wrong.

“You quit.”

She nodded. “I was so fucking angry. Once they painted me as a cheater, they’d find some reason to get rid of me. It doesn’t look good for the organization to employ someone who cheated on a player. If I was going to be out on my ass anyway, might as well have a decent reputation to come with me.”

“Can I hold you?” I didn’t want to push her, but I needed to feel her. Know that she would be okay and that she didn’t blame me for the whole thing. It was my stupid mistake that started all this. And now I had the good rep, hockey, and a girlfriend, and Jayna had…

She threw herself at me and I wrapped my arms around her. Her body started to shake. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I don’t have a job. I don’t have a team?—”

“You’ve got me.” I pushed down those nerves, wondering if I was taking on too much. “We’ll figure it out.”

I sure as hell hoped so.

* * *

Jayna stayed the night.We didn’t even have sex, just watched some mindless TV on my laptop till she crashed. I slid my arm from around her shoulders and watched her snuggle into the covers before I quietly walked out of the room and went down to talk to Luke.

He paused his game when he saw me. “Jayna okay?”

I shook my head as I sat down beside him. “She lost her job.”

Luke dropped the controller and slid back to face me. “What happened?”

I gave him the cheat notes version. Ending with her here.

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