Page 362 of Branded
Cas
The game was fast and furious and bruising.
But I never got close enough to Lake Jordan to warn him to lock down his teammate and make sure the fucker kept his distance from Jules during and after the game.
Every shift was moving too fast, too filled with contact and rushes and skating my ass off for me to get that chance.
When the buzzer went off after the third, the teams returned to our respective locker rooms, exited out separate corridors (because things often got intense during professional games and that separation was good…even if I had friends on other teams, a cooling down period was often required to leave hockey on the ice and return to friendship off it).
But all of that meant it still wasn’t easy to get Lake alone, to warn him that Jules was here, and he needed to help me run interference between Jules and Ethan and Nate.
So now I needed to run interference between Jules and Ethan and Nate by myself.
Except, she wasn’t picking up her phone.
Christ.
“You good, bud?” Smitty said, and for once, his voice wasn’t a boom, wasn’t blaring across the room.
It was quiet and concerned.
“What do you think?” I muttered, jabbing at my phone to call Jules again as I tore at my laces.
Thank fuck, I didn’t need to do press today—or rather, thank fuck that my teammates had stepped in to take over the interview requests so that I didn’t have to.
“Hand it over,” Theo said, putting his hand out. “I’ll keep calling. You get changed.”
I didn’t bother arguing, just slapped the phone into my friend’s hand, who immediately tapped at the screen and lifted it to his ear.
“I’ll call security,” Smitty said, still quiet and not like Smitty. “She was going to meet me by the training suite. I’ll get them to meet her and bring her and Ethan to a room well away from—” A shake of his head and he didn’t finish that statement, just stood up from the bench and walked from the room, still fully dressed.
I got my skates off, tore off the rest of my gear, yanked on a sweatshirt, and shoved my feet into my shoes.
Ridiculous to wear dress shoes with my tight under layers and sweatshirt, but I wasn’t bothering with anything else, especially as the press were starting to come into the room. Marcel stood up, meandered over to one man, intercepting him when he seemed intent on coming for me.
Thank fuck for my captain.
Shoes on, I glanced at Theo, brows lifting in silent question, asking for an update.
Theo pulled the cell from his ear and shook his head. “Nothing,” he muttered, ending the most recent call, and handing the phone over.
“Fuck.” I shoved it in my pocket, then thrust a hand through my hair.
“Go, man. Start at the training suite,” Theo said. “Smitty and security and the rest of us will help.”
Right.
I began to leave, but Eva Moreno—sports blogger, smart and talented journalist, and a woman who was able to sniff out a story (and especially a scandal, no matter how small)—stepped into the room right as I hit the door.
Fuck.
But then Theo was there.
Theo was there. Theo, who hated Eva, not only because she wrote no shortage of snarky stories about him and his exploits. Theo, who couldn’t stand Eva because she was immune to his playboy charm and never failed to ask him questions that left Theo—and, frankly, all of us—scrambling for good answers. Theo, who despised giving interviews in the first place—and who especially despised giving them to Eva. It was Theo who voluntarily intercepted Eva, engaging her quickly despite all of that.
Despite the fact that they were oil and water and constantly tried to one-up each other’s snark.
That probably wasn’t going to go well.
