Page 11 of Doc Defence

Hel froze, he was touching her. Why was he touching her? Oh, he was being friendly. Yeah, that was it. He was being polite. Nothing else. His girlfriend was right there. Choosing an umbrella as if she were searching for a cure for cancer. Hel controlled the errant snort of laughter, but only just.

The longer his hand was on her shoulder, the more flustered she got, and then a bucket of water was thrown on her when Sadie coughed and said, “Ethel.”

Turning her head, she glared at her friend, who was standing there looking as innocent as a lamb.

Opening her mouth, she was about to berate her ‘alleged’ friend when she realised every hockey player was on their feet, and they were all looking at her and applauding.

Staring in surprise, she took in the wall of men in front of her, and it really was a wall, with none of them below six feet tall, and a fair few of them must have been six foot five.

Hel wondered what she was supposed to do. Should she bow? No, that was weird. Wave? Also a little weird. Run away to the other side of the bar and pretend all the men weren’t looking at her, and some of their girlfriends—hookups—weren’t glaring daggers at her.

In the end, she settled for saying, “Hi.”

And then gave a small, involuntary wave, which turned out to be as awkward as she thought it was going to be.

“I’ll find you ladies’ chairs.” Frost took his hand off Hel’s shoulder as he spoke, and a wave of disappointment washed over her.

Nope, she was not doing this. He was attractive, tall, muscled, had tattoos smothering his arms—wait, what was she thinking about? Oh, that’s right. She definitely wasn’t thinking about a hockey player who had a girlfriend, who was currently rifling through umbrellas.

“I like his accent,” Sadie murmured into Hel’s ear. “Where’s he from?”

“Canada,” Hel supplied so quickly that she winced. Shit, she had already told Sadie that. Her friend was baiting her.

“Good knowledge. You should go and talk to him.” Sadie nudged her in the ribs, a massive grin splitting her face.

“Orrrrr. I shouldn’t talk to him.” She subtly gestured to his girlfriend, who took her second, no, third, no, fourth, no, fifth—well, it was turning out to be a massive number of photos of her drink. “What is she doing? How can a drink be that interesting?” Hel murmured loud enough for her friend to hear.

Sadie sidled across so she could see the screen of the young woman’s phone. “She’s on Instagram.”

“Is she posting the photos of the drink?” Hel craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the screen too.

“Yeah, but it looks complicated. There are filters, stickers, and some loopy video thingy.” Sadie tilted her head a little to see better.

“Why is she doing that? Who could possibly be interested in a drink?” Hel whispered.

“Her Star-lifers.” Frost’s voice was right next to her ear.

Hel jumped in surprise and stumbled against Frost, who caught hold of her and gently set her back on her feet. Her eyes fell to his calloused hands as they gripped her arm and touched her waist. She tried to make out what the ink peeking out the bottom of his sleeve was, but it was too dark in the pub.

Sadie cleared her throat, not so subtly, and Frost released Hel, stepping away.

For a moment, Hel felt cold without the warmth of his body against her back. She actually rolled her eyes at her own stupidity and instead concentrated on what he had said.

“What’s a Star-lifer? And why are they interested in a drink?” Hel looked up at Frost, meeting his stormy green gaze, which was a big mistake as she wanted to keep on looking.

So instead, she turned to Star, who was now taking another thirty or forty photos of her drink, but this time with a different coloured umbrella.

“She’s an influencer. She’s got a huge number of followers she calls ‘Star-Lifers’, and they eat up every little detail of her life.” Frost sounded exasperated, and Hel guessed he wasn’t keen on the details of his own life being documented.

“Hence the umbrella crisis?” Hel gestured to the little pile of cocktail umbrellas.

“There’s always some kind of pointless photo crisis,” Frost muttered.

Hel barely heard him above the music and was pretty sure she wasn’t meant to have caught him being rude about his girlfriend, so she politely ignored his comment.

“Thanks for grabbing the chairs.” Hel gestured to the two stools he had placed on the floor next to them.

“No problem, you can come and sit by—“ His words were interrupted by Star’s nasally voice.

---