Page 46 of The Tape Job
I approach Bella, who’s seated at a fold-up table with the office laptop.
“Vicky, I’m sorry,” she offers.
“Don’t worry. He can be a goddamn pest when he wants to be.” I pull up a chair and sit next to her, focusing on the laptop while we wait for the mic playback to come through.
“So, I was thinking about the questions to ask,” Bella offers. “I’ve been looking at the other team’s social media streams. A good one would be to ask how they picked their number.”
“No,” I snap. It comes out a lot harsher than I intended. Bella’s eyes widen. “Sorry, but no. Leave the questions up to me.” That’s the last question I wanted to ask. But I wonder what he would say. “Are you ready to start the live stream, Bella?” I ask, eyeing the time.
She nods and reaches for the work phone.
“Try and focus on Liam when you can but be mindful that he’ll still be doing his usual routine. No interview from him today, but you will need to pull Johnny into the live fora quick segment. Free talking, no planned questions—but Johnny knows what he’s doing. Just give him a wave and ask him how training is going, and he’ll take care of the rest.”
“Right,” Bella says, her hands visibly shaking.
I give her a winning smile before she heads off to stand at the Zamboni entrance. Someone has already opened the doors for her, and there’s a small bit of rubber matting set out on the ice for her to stand on.
I put the headphones on, flicking through the social media screens while I wait for Liam to talk. There’s a muffle of conversation before I hear Liam reply, “—season three? Yeah, I liked the first two seasons.” His voice is loud and clear through the mic.
He’s talking to Hutch about a television show as Jen snaps the right headphone off my ear and sits next to me on a folding chair she’s brought with her.
“Feeling better?” she grins, glancing towards where Liam is. “I hope he’s more exciting than Ryan was.”
Ryan spent his whole-time mic’d up explaining to Scotty, a winger from last season, about his pre-game routine. It was horrible and obviously scripted, but Ryan’s not good with media stuff.
“Only talk about a TV show so far,” I reply.
I listen for a few more moments. Liam is now telling Hutch about his thoughts on the season finale. Yawn. I give Jen a dejected look. She stands up and makes her way to the boards, eyeing Bella to make sure she stays out of the shot. Jen waves at Ryan; he glides over straight away.
They’re whispering and giggling before Ryan nods and skates back towards Liam.
“Just told Ry to make it more exciting,” Jen says, sitting back down.
I watch and listen as Ryan closes in on Liam, challenging him to a ‘keepy-uppy’ with the puck. I must admit, the content does become a bit more interesting. A few minutespass and Liam is appearing more relaxed. Then, I hear the usual boyish banter of hockey players and realise that what I get, is what I get. I pass the headphones to Jen to give myself a break.
Twenty minutes later, Bella shouts that the live has ended and everyone can go back to normal, but no one pays any attention. The microphone Liam is wearing causes a crackling through the headphones, and Jen takes them off and puts them down on the table.
“I’m going to get a drink. I’ll grab you a coffee.” She heads off, and I automatically put on the headphones as I flick through the socials. I expected to hear things in the ‘NSFW’ category, but what followed surpassed all expectations.
“—and the only thing I can jerk off to are those videos of Vicky. From when we did long distance—”
I hastily glance at the ice where Liam and Ryan stand near the now empty net. My stomach is in my mouth, and the blood rushes away from my head; dizziness washes over me. He’s been doing what I’ve been doing, then. Fuck.
“Are you okay, Vic? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Jen places a cup in front of me.
Thank fuck, Jen wasn’t listening in on this. Not that she won’t find out anyway since Ryan is a blabbermouth. I take a breath and take the headphones off, knowing I’ll one hundred per cent be listening to that last bit again.
“Either Liam’s forgotten he’s being recorded, or he wanted me to hear him.” I look at Jen, eyes wide and eyebrows arched.
“What did he say?”
“I’m sure you’ll find out later,” I tell her.
Liam and Ryan huddle close while they chat until Coach calls them in.
I feel something, but I can’t put my finger on it. I take a few moments to realise that it’s my arousal screaming at me. Ifeel really fucking horny at the thought of Liam still getting off to my videos. Crap.
“Do you want me to help tidy up?” Jen asks. “I’m hanging about, anyway. I need to chat with Danny quickly.”
