Page 21 of Just One Season
The laughter of the entire team.
The bare asses. Lachlan’s ass, Atticus informed me.
Kellen Bassey in a towel.
I wave my hand at my face to cool down from just the thought of it. Those broad shoulders, moisture covering ripped abdomen muscles, the V leading down into the towel, hooked criminally low on his hips. Barely staying on. One sneeze could’ve caused it to fall completely off and then I would’ve seen everything.
Everything.
I grip the doorframe of my office.
I’ve been officially broken up with Ron for three months. Three months since I picked up his phone and discovered a text chain with another woman. Then I scrolled down and found another from several months back. And another.
He didn’t try to deny it, just broke down and begged my forgiveness. He told me he’d get help. He admitted he had a problem. And if it had been just once, maybe I would have considered.But he’d been cheating on me the whole time, when we were happy, in love, laughing, sleeping together. When he’d proposed.
I don’t know what I missed. How can I trust my gut when it was so wrong about Ron? I don’t think he’d been faking with me, but apparently I wasn’t enough to satisfy him.
I broke up with him and told him not to contact me again.
But now he has.
Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll go away.
I knock on Lina’s door, and she waves me in.
“Hey! How’s it going? Feeling okay after…” she waves her hand vaguely to her door.
“After what?” I pretend to look confused. “Oh, the locker room thing?” I shrug and make a face that I hope conveys nonchalance. “I haven’t even thought of it since it happened.” I sink down into one of the hard-backed chairs in front of her desk.
“Excellent.” Lina presses her lips together, but her eyes crinkle slightly. “I wouldn’t want you feeling awkward around the players.”
“Never,” I say, but my voice betrays me with a tiny squeak at the end. Lina pretends not to notice.
“Alright, let’s go over your projects.” Lina taps her mouse a few times. “Where do you want to start?”
I give Lina a status update on the work I’d picked up from Fiona and some new ideas for pieces to pitch to publications.
“I think Kellen would be great for that idea, Lucy.”
She looks at me expectantly, so I glance down at the document open on my laptop and type Kellen next to the piece I just pitched to Lina. My brain stutters a bit, and I mentally get sucked back into that locker room.
“Lucy? You okay?”
“What?” I snap my head up. “Yes, of course. Sure, Kellen’s a great fit considering he’s the captain.”
“He’s good with interviews but prefers the questions vetted ahead of time. His private life is mostly off-limits.”
“Okay.”
“There was a whole incident last year with pictures of his daughter that some hockey gossip site picked up.”
A daughter? Did I know that?
“Got it. Is he married?” The bottom of my stomach drops out at the idea of there being a Mrs. Kellen Bassey.
“Nope.”
Kellen, a single dad who’s protective of his little girl. I bite my bottom lip. Why does that make him even more attractive?
