Page 13 of Play Your Part

I looked at Kennedy, resisting the tug on my arm until I had her answer. “I need to clean Silas up.”

“Yes!” Mason shouted, taking her vague response as permission. When he pulled my arm this time, I trailed behind him as he told me about his last hockey game. Izzy shouted for us to wait for her.

When I glanced behind me, I found Kennedy’s assessing gaze following me up the stairs, as if she didn’t even trust me with these children.

7

KENNEDY

MygazeremainedonAlexei as he climbed the steps to the second floor. He looked entirely different this morning, but unfortunately, my heart rate responded in much the same way as at the party, a mix of appreciation and anger. He wore what looked to be workout clothes, a gray T-shirt withWolveswritten across the chest in forest green along with the logo—the scowling face of a Wolf—and black shorts over black leggings. His sweat-soaked brown hair clung to his forehead and neck. A backward baseball cap sat on top of his head. A pink flush covered his cheeks.

His aggravating, self-satisfied smirk also made an appearance.

“Hey, Kens,” Deandra greeted me as she walked past me to the kitchen. The reservation in her voice, her uncertainty about how to talk to me, felt like a punch to the gut.

“You cut your hair,” I said. Apparently, I had no idea what to say to her either.

She grasped the dark tips of her black hair. The formidable blunt cut barely grazed her shoulders, such a contrast to the beach waves that had flowed down her back the last time I saw her. “You know how it is… long hair is such a drag in the summer.”

Like me, Deandra didn’t grow up here; like anyone who wasn’t born to withstand brutal summers, we whined about being soaked in sweat, then blasted with air-conditioning for three months every year.

“Always good to see you, kid.” Peter lightly squeezed my shoulder as he passed. He was half a decade younger than my dad but no longer looked it with a full head of gray hair.

I instructed them to wait in the kitchen while I changed Silas in the bathroom before settling him into his favorite bouncer. When I returned, I asked Deandra, “So, um, how have you been?”

Peter had yet to look up from his phone, leaving Deandra and me to stare at each other. Once friends, now strangers.

“Good,” she said, nodding vigorously. “You’ll be happy to hear I dumped Brian six months ago.”

I allowed a small smile, my chest tightening at the thought of how much I’d missed.

“I also got promoted—lead for media advertising at your service.”

“Wow. Congratulations, D, that’s amazing.”

Deandra and I had talked about running the Wolves organization one day—her in charge of communications and me leading operations. Technically, the team would become mine one day, I supposed, but that was far in the future. Besides, I was less interested in the hockey side of operations and more in the financial, logistic, and general management of running a business.

Silence descended for a beat, but before I could ask her why they were here, Alexei strode into the room and took a seat across from me. He let me know the kids were back at their video games.

Peter dropped his phone onto the table. “Ready to get down to business?”

“Business?” I repeated. “What kind of business could I have withhim?”

Alexei glared. “I see someone still has her panties in a twist over being dumped.”

Peter let out a high-pitched whistle. “Oh, this is starting off swimmingly.”

“Kennedy, we have a proposal for you,” Deandra said.

Peter chuckled. “Let’s be clear.Deandrahas a proposal. I’m chaperoning to make sure this doesn’t go off the rails.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

Deandra folded her hands on top of the table. “There’s been a lot of interest in that photo. I don’t know if you’ve heard, butSportsCentercovered it this morning.” Alexei’s jaw tightened as Deandra continued. “And we’ve been getting a lot of requests for comment, including at player press conferences.”

Three days since the party, and the interest hadn’t slowed. Matt and Gemma had called me in to watch aSportsCentersegment this morning. It included a clip of Alexei storming out of a press conference when he was first asked about it. It also showed him the next day, answering questions with as much joy as someone getting their fingernails ripped out one-by-one. This time, he told them we met at the party, had a pleasant conversation—ha!—and did absolutely nothing wrong. His defensive answers made people believe something did, in fact, happen.

“I fail to see how him screwing up answers to media questions has anything to do with me.”

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