Page 4 of What If I Hate You
“Both,” I snap, unstrapping my leg pads. “And she didn’t ask if I was losing my nerve. She implied it, right in front of a dozen cameras, with her little murder face and her fake professional smile.”
Meers, who until now had been scrolling through his phone, tosses it aside, grinning just like asshole Ollenberg did. That makes them both bastards.
“She’s got you pegged, Bear.”
“Peg this,” I say, kicking off my skates as I flip him a double bird. I yank off my chest protector so thuds hard on the bench beside me. “The only thing she’s pegged is my patience.”
I don’t like how Ollenberg’s smile says otherwise, like there’s a joke I’m not in on or something. “Dude, she’s in your head already,” he says, rolling his shoulders, voice all easy and warm like he’s talking about the weather.
“No kidding,” Roche agrees, pulling on his shorts. “I know you don’t usually do a ton of press interviews, Bear, but I’ve never seen you this rattled. Also, you have to give her props. She didn’t even blink when you tried to roast her with the lipstick thing.”
“Her questions were legit though,” Dayne pipes in from the bench in front of his locker. He tosses his wet towel into the bin and runs a hand through his hair, eyes gleaming with mischief. “She’s not wrong about your five-hole.”
“Eat shit,” I growl, but my heart’s not in it. I take two deep breaths while reminding myself I’m not actually mad at my teammates. Hell, I’m not even mad at Rivers. Not really. I’m…what? Impressed? Outplayed? Outsmarted for sure. But the way my chest thrums when I think of her, kneecapping me in the press room with no warning and zero mercy, it’s not rage. Not even close. It’s something else.
I’m still thinking about her when I get to the showers. The mix of sweat and salt have coagulated into a film, thick as oil, and the water pressure is the only thing strong enough to beat it off my skin. Jets hiss and echo in a perfect white noise. I lean my forehead into the tile, let the steam work at my locked jaw, and try to push Blakely Rivers—her mouth, her eyes, her fucking voice—out of my head.
But she doesn’t leave.
She’s there, in my peripheral, picking apart my game tape with clinical precision, exposing my flaws while the rest of the league is still trying to figure out how to spell my last name. I hate her.
Fuck.
Okay, I don’t hate her.
I respect her audacity but I’m pissed she swung her huge balls in my direction. It’s a sick, coiling contradiction that makes my stomach clench.
What the fuck ever.
She can do whatever the hell she wants. I don’t fucking care.
I’ll let her win this little battle for now, but if she keeps this up, continues to call me on my shit like she did today, Blakely Rivers will absolutely not win the war.
CHAPTER TWO
BLAKELY
He didn’t need to be such an asshole.
I know he’s the grumpy player of the team. I know he may not have the best sense of humor but he also didn’t have the best plays tonight either. The Stars didn’t have their best night, sure, but Cunningham is the one who let the pucks into the net. Those points are on him. I know he feels that way and I get it. What I don’t get is the attitude he gave me as I interviewed him.
“You, with the lipstick.”
His words replay in my head as I roll my eyes. Of course he would say that. Of course he would treat me like every other son of a bitch in the room. I know the men in that press room don’t respect me. No doubt they think I’m sleeping my way to the top. That I’m trading this job for sexual favors to someone above me.
Fuck them.
They can think whatever they want, but I got myself here fair and square and I’ll be damned if I’m going to cower to the likes of anyone in that room just because they have a penis and I don’t. And I’m not going to ask the easy, fluffy questions either. I can see through the bullshit because I’ve been there. I played collegiate hockey. I spent years of my life perfecting my sport. I know better than most of the people in that press roomwhy Barrett Cunningham isn’t blocking the pucks like he usually does. I saw his weakness. I’ve studied him. I’ve watched his plays time and time again so I brought it up when I had the chance. And the look I got from him was as if I was actively trying to castrate him in a room full of lions.
I know it sucks to be called out for doing your job poorly but fuck him. He gets paid millions of dollars to play hockey. The least he can do is fix his mistakes so they don’t happen again. But instead, he sneered. He seethed. He tried, with all the force of his enormous, goalie-shaped ego, to intimidate me into backing the hell down. It’s almost funny, if I think about it. For all his size and all his snarl, Barrett Cunningham is still just a guy. And I’ve seen better men try to make me break.
I’m still fuming when I step out the side exit of the arena into the bouncing parking lot lights. Someone needs to get out here and fix those damn things before they’re all blown out. It’s not safe. My stilettos click against wet asphalt, the only sound louder than the pounding of my fuming heart. The night’s turned cold and mean, even for Anaheim. The sky is thick with the promise of rain, but I have to walk off my anger or I’ll do something stupid like fire off an email to my boss that just reads: I quit, I’m done, find a different piece of ass to stand at the glass.
I keep my head down, muttering the transcript of our post-game interview to myself. Hating how his stare lives at the top of my spine like a fever, even now. Double hating that the flashbulb piece of my brain already has a headline: GRUMPY STAR GOALIE PUNKS ROOKIE SIDELINE REPORTER. Because I refuse to be a damn footnote in this narrative.
There are only a few cars left in the dimly lit lot. My hands shake as I hold my keys between my fingers, nerves tripping over leftover adrenaline and the old, familiar dread that never totally leaves when you’re the only woman in a world built for men.
A shape breaks off in my peripheral vision, a shadow, broad and hulking. My heart does its best hummingbird impression as I inwardly chastise myself for not hearing the footsteps behind me sooner.
