Page 22 of The Tape Job
I get nudged in the ribs by Matt, and he nods towards Vicky, pulling me back into the room. The format turns to quick fire, Vicky obviously keen to get this over with. After a few more questions each, she consults her notepad and smiles to herself.
“Cool. Thank you both, we’re done here. Thanks for your time.” Her tone is dismissive, and I can tell by the way she’s standing that she’s eager to get us gone, but Matt walks straight over to her. He turns on the charm, and I can’t do anything about it except watch and let the anger bubble inside me.
He doesn’t get much flirting in—which is a shame for him, but not for me—before Vicky’s phone rings. She frowns at the screen before bringing it to her ear.
“I need to take this. Sorry, guys. Thanks again for your time,” she says, covering the speaker with her hand. She nods at the door, giving us the hint that we need to leave.
Matt follows me out and pounces on me with a question I can tell he’s been waiting to ask.
“What’s the deal with you and Preston, then? NHL paying you too much?” He forces a laugh.
As much as I want to tell him all about my reasons for calling it a day, I don’t. And Ryan’s business is Ryan’s business—well, partly his business considering the circumstance of him coming here in the first place. If he wants to tell him, he can.
“I’ll tell you about it another time,” I lie, keen to get away from him.
As we walk past the door to the main office space, luck has it that Ryan is leaning against Jen’s desk. I use that as my excuse to say my goodbyes, slipping through the open door towards him.
“How was it?” Ryan asks as I approach.
I take a seat at Vicky’s empty desk and adjust the chair so it reclines fully. I grab a stress ball from an open PR box sitting at the end of her desk and start tossing it in the air.
“Oh, Vicky will be fuming,” Jen says, eyeing the chair.
“She’s already pissed at me, so why not make myself comfortable,” I say, still working with the stress ball.
“How was it then?” Ryan asks again.
“That Matt guy is a douche.”
“Well, that’s what the consensus is. I take it you went in with an open mind, though. What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Did he flirt with Vicky?” Ryan asks.
“He did nothing but flirt with Vicky.”
Ryan moves from Jen’s desk and stands about ten feet away, giving me the opportunity to toss the stress ball to him. Back and forth, back and forth. Then the sound ofVicky’s heels on the tiles of the hallway echo. She comes to a stop at the door.
I jerk my head around to look, missing my turn to catch the ball, and it hits the side of my head.
Her eyes meet mine for a split second and she hesitates for a moment before turning on the spot and leaving.
“You need to sort this shit out,” Ryan says.
“She won’t talk to me,” I say, twisting my head back to look at him.
“Make her. Because like it or not, you’re going to be working together, and the last thing we need is any drama off the ice.”
“Are you expecting any drama on the ice?” I ask, raising a brow. “Because there’s always room for drama.”
“Figure it out,” Ryan says, grabbing another ball from the box and tossing it at me—harder this time. It catches me off-guard, and it drops to the floor, rolling under Vicky’s desk.
I stick my head under, spying a pair of heels which I fight to ignore. I spot the ball, too. And as I reach for it, I notice a letter sticking out of Vicky’s wastepaper bin marked ‘Private and Confidential’. Since I’m a nosey fuck, I want to pluck it out, but Ryan grabs the back of the chair and shakes it back and forth, forcing me to resurface.
“Come on, let’s head out and let Jen work in peace,” he says. I have no choice but to abandon both the ball and my curiosity.
Chapter 6
