Page 24 of Anatomy of a Player

I was hoping to go out as soon as everything wrapped up here, possibly with Whitney. My reasoning for wanting to spend more time with her wasn’t only for the bet, either. Not that I planned on admitting that to the guys, especially since Dane had finally backed off a little. This past week had been busy, tons of study sessions crammed into the barely-there spaces between classes and practice. I’d fallen asleep with my headphones on the past few nights, studying until my eyes literally gave up and closed. It was one thing to act like a bookworm during the week, but the weekend was for slamming guys into the boards and letting loose, and I was more than ready to let loose.

A tight blonde bun entered my peripheral vision—Whitney had stepped into the hubbub and was talking with the guys nearest the door.

I stripped off my jersey and pads and, after debating a moment, stripped off the shirt underneath. We’d dealt with one other female sports reporter during the playoffs last year, and she’d insisted we treat her just like a guy. No covering up required, her interest was only professional, and she’d even added that it wasn’t like she’d be checking us out.

Which was ridiculous. Not only because most of us got plenty of female attention wherever we went, but if the tables were turned, there wasn’t a single straight guy who could walk into a woman’s dressing room without being affected. Women liked to pretend they could draw the line between professional and personal, but I didn’t buy it. They were as into looks as guys were, they just didn’t like to admit it.

Whitney turned to me and her mouth dropped open a few inches as she ran her gaze up my torso.That’s right. Take it all in.Shirt off was definitely the right decision.

She swallowed and rearranged her features into her neutral, all-business expression. “Number Nineteen. You had quite a game tonight.”

Warmth unfurled in my chest. She was covering the accent, but her voice had a smooth honey quality, and it brought the other night back to the surface. “You remembered my number. I’m honored.”

I took a step toward her and dipped my head. “Hey, I was wondering—”

“See, it’s my job to ask the questions,” she said, taking a step back. “That’s how this works.” She seemed to be trying to tell me something with her eyes, making them go comically wide and adding a head bop. Did she really think I was going to figure it out?

“Oh, does it?”

She lifted her chin, her signature don’t-give-me-crap move, and one fist even went to her hip. “We’re not going to have another problem like last time, are we?”

“No, ma’am,” I said, and I couldn’t hold back my smile.

She pressed her lips together, and I could tell how badly she wanted to come up with a retort to that. This was almost as fun as the pool game. I took another step forward, and she retreated one. The urge to chase her around the entire locker room like that was strong. Not conducive to my objective, but I wanted to see how far she’d go to stay out of my orbit.

Her eyes flicked down to my chest for the briefest second before rising back to my face. She licked her lips and lifted her notebook. “Now, before you interrupted, I was—”

Dane draped an arm over my shoulders, but his gaze was on Whitney. “Hey, you know about the after-party at the Quad? You should come. Decker will be there.”

The grip on her pen tightened, and like on her first visit to the locker room, I worried she’d snap it and ink would go everywhere. “Why would that matter to me?”

Dane eyed me, and the tilt of his head and arched eyebrows made it clear he thought I should throw out a flirty line right about now. While it might be my usual move—one with an extremely high success rate, I might add—I knew enough about Whitney to know that would bring out the angry reporter from last home game. I thought things would be different now, but my guess was that she’d been attempting to warn me to act professional and pretend our night at the pool hall had never happened.

Finally, when the silence stretched to the awkward point, Dane said, “No reason. I just thought you might want to come have fun.”

“I’m not sure she knows how to have fun,” I said. I was pretty sure this version of her didn’t, either. I’d heed her warning, but if she thought I was going to stand here and be her puppet, she was dead wrong. Since she thought we could communicate silently, I lifted a challenging eyebrow.Your move, Reporter Girl.

A flame flickered in the depths of her blue eyes. “I’m not here to talk about fun. I’ll get to you later, Dane, but I need to finish up here first.” She shot him a look that made him drop his arm and back away. I swallowed the chuckle that wanted to come out, but then she turned the look on me, and I automatically straightened. “As I was saying, you had quite a game, Decker…”

The way she enunciated my last name kind of turned me on. That meant she was in on the game, right?

“…but you did lose that fast break during the last quarter,” she said, adding a tight, cutting smile.

My defenses prickled. “I might’ve— Wait. During the lastquarter?”

“When Number Twelve from the other team stole the puck? Do I really need to refresh your memory? Don’t you think you might’ve kept hold of it, and maybe even scored, if you hadn’t been showboating?”

Damn. I’d thought we were playing around, pushing each other’s buttons more as a front than anything else, but she’d pulled out the hard-ass reporter. “I’ll admit I got carried away on that fast break, and while I didn’t see that defender, I made sure to keep him from scoring after my screw-up. That was in the lastperiod,though, as hockey doesn’t have quarters.”

“I…” The tough girl facade crumbled, and she glanced around quickly, as if to see who else had heard her mistake. Most everyone had backed away, though, probably not wanting to be the next recipient of her death glare. “I cover other sports, too. It was just a slip of the tongue.”

“Ah.” I took a large step forward and looked down at her, using the opportunity to get back on top. “Speaking of slips of a tongue…”

The flame in her eyes spread, a blazing anger-fueled fire now, and I got exactly what she was conveying:Don’t you dare try one of your lines on me, or there will be hell to pay.

“I think what Dane was trying to say was that we’ll all be at the party, and we’d be happy to answer further questions you had there, in a more relaxed environment.” I gave her a wide smile. “You know what relaxed means, right?”

“Better than you know what ‘behave’ means,” she said, taking a step back. Then she sighed. “Look, I’m trying not to do anything that undermines my ability to conduct my interviews, or makes me look less serious about my position.”

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