Page 3 of Secret Pucking Unicorn

Daphne gets up and walks through a second door in my office, leading to a dining area. We can choose from juice, water, coffee, and some mass-produced tea bags. Hot water is from the water cooler. I sigh. I should be used to this, but I miss making a proper cup of tea. I’ll need to see if I can find a tea shop and get some good loose-leaf tea. I can pick up an electric kettle.

The girls grab drinks too, and we wander back into my office. My office. I like the sound of that. In Auckland, I had a cubicle in the offices of the professional rugby team I worked for. It wasn’t my own private space. I could get used to this.

“Keep these doors closed and maybe locked if you don’t want the players walking in randomly or using your office as a pass through from the locker room to the dining room,” Daphne advises.

Mallory winks. “Or get an eyeful of naked shifters walking back from the showers.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks. “Thanks for the tip.”

“That’s what she said,” Daphne cries, holding her hand up for a high five.

Mallory and Kendall laugh as I slap Daphne’s hand. I don’t get it.

“Just the tip of his penis,” Kendall explains. She’s used to me not getting jokes.

My cheeks are blazing hot now, and I curse my fair Irish complexion.

“Back to Mac…” Kendall doesn’t give up when she gets a thought in her head.

I nod. “He’s my best friend’s older brother. We grew up together. Our parents were best friends. I stayed with them while my parents were traveling with clients.”

My parents are equine veterinarians, and when I was a child, they worked at different estates and race tracks throughout the UK, Ireland, and Europe. It was easiest to leave me with the Mackenzies when I was younger. They had a houseful of kids, and adding me to the mix was no problem.

“Hey,” Kendall exclaims., “I thought I was your best friend!”

I shrug. “She’s my best friend from childhood. You’re my best friend from college, besides being the best roommate ever. Honestly, you and Sophie would get along great.”

“What’s up with his number? Does eighty have some special significance?” Mallory asks.

“His initials are AD—Alexander Declan. It sounds like the number eighty, and he always said it would be his number if he was ever on a team.” I take a deep breath. “I didn’t know he was playing here. Playing at all, actually. We haven’t spoken lately.”

When I contacted Trevor to see if he knew of any job openings with the Devil Birds, it didn’t occur to me to ask about the players. Everything came together quickly. I was rushing to tie up the loose ends in New Zealand and preparing to come here, and I didn’t bother researching the team roster. I assumed Trevor—I guess I should get used to calling him Carter like his teammates do—was the only person on the team I knew.

My degree is in sports management, and eventually I want to work in the front office of a professional sports team. Advancement wasn’t going to happen with the rugby team I worked for in New Zealand and I didn’t want to settle there permanently anyway. I want to be close to my friends. And my parents are here now. We aren’t close—I haven’t spoken to them since before I left for New Zealand—but I keep hoping to have a closer relationship with them and we need to be near each other for it to happen. I wanted to be back in New Jersey anyway, and discovering they were at a racetrack near where I went to high school and college sealed the deal. They couldn’t be here for the six years I went to school in New Jersey, but within a year of me moving across the globe, they find a spot.

I’m thrilled to see Declan, of course, but my goal is to work hard, prove my value to the team, and make this a long-term situation. I’m tired of moving all over the world at the drop of a hat. From the ages of ten to sixteen, I went to eleven different schools in five different countries. Some schools I didn’t even stay for the entire term. It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I landed at the boarding school I graduated from. Then I spent four years at Wickham University with Kendall and Carter. It was the most stability I’d had since I left Ireland and the Mackenzies when I was ten.

I want to settle here. Find a house with a little bit of land where I can plant flowers and watch them grow. Maybe get a cat or a dog. Live somewhere no one can make me leave. It would be mine and no one could take it away from me. I can’t let my silly crush on Declan distract me from my goal. He’s here while he’s playing hockey. Once he’s done, he’ll move back to Ireland to start the horse farm he’s always dreamed of.

Love of horses is what we have in common. We’d spend time sitting on fences, watching them run around the practice track or grazing peacefully in the fields. Discussing bloodlines. Dreaming of the day Declan would have his own farm and could breed the horses he wanted, train them, and coach riders. His father’s stable was full of thoroughbreds for racing. Declan wanted magnificent black Friesians for dressage and warmbloods for eventing. He wanted to raise horses to do more than run around a track. I was his first coaching project. I didn’t need him to coach me. I took to riding like a duck takes to water. But it was a way I could spend time with him, and it made him happy. Even as a little girl, I had a crush on him, despite not realizing that’s what it was.

I realize staring off into space, lost in my memories, is not going to go unnoticed by my friends. Hopefully, they’ll chalk it up to jet lag. I focus on them and try to get conversation rolling again with topics other than me and Declan. Daphne is wearing a baggie team hoodie, but I can see the start of her baby bump. She’s expecting her first child with her husband, and I couldn’t be happier for them.

“When are you due?” I ask Daphne.

“End of May. We tried to time it for the offseason, but it turns out I was already pregnant when we started trying on purpose.” She shrugs with a blissful grin.

“Oops,” I say with a giggle.

I turn to Kendall. “You’re dating the captain? How did that happen?” I’m impersonating a talk show host interviewing my friends, but if I keep them talking about themselves, they won’t ask awkward questions about my life.

“We pretended to fake-date, but with real benefits.” Kendall wiggles her eyebrows. I can’t miss what she’s implying. “So people would stop trying to fix us up with each other or with other people. There were some hiccups along the way, but fake became real. You and Declan…”

For a cougar shifter, she has the memory of an elephant.

Shrugging, I say, “There is no me and Declan. We were friends as kids.”

“So you haven’t seen him since you were a little girl?” Mallory asks.

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