Page 31 of Make the Play

Shit. John doesn’t call me unless something has hit the fan at high velocity.

I swipe to answer. “Carlson.”

“We have a situation.”

My pulse spikes. “What kind of situation?”

There’s a pause, just long enough to make my skin itch.

“Chase Walton is trending, and it’s bad.”

Internally, I groan. Of course it’s Chase. Because if there’s one predictable thing in my job, it’s that hockey players are absolute disasters, and Chase Walton is the fucking king of them.

I exhale sharply, gripping the phone a bit tighter. It’s been two weeks.

Two weeks since the wedding. Two weeks since I woke up tangled in him, in his sheets, in the kind of warmth that lingered in my skin for days. Two weeks where I’ve actively avoided every single opportunity to be in the same room as him.

And it’s been hell on Earth.

Not just because Chase Walton is impossible to ignore, but because avoiding him means avoiding everyone else, too.

Charlie and Jake took the kids to Disneyland for a surprise summer vacation, a last trip before the baby comes. Eli and Tamara are on their honeymoon. Most of the team is off onbeaches, fishing trips, or holed up in their off-season training routines.

Which means, for the most part, it’s been just me and Chase left in Denver.

And the kicker is, I haven’t spoken to him once.

Not when he came into Pulse to discuss sponsorships, not when we passed each other at the arena. Not even when he looked at me across the conference room with that smug, unreadable expression like he knew something I didn’t. And yet somehow, he’s still managed to make my morning exponentially worse.

Fantastic.

“Zoe?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, inhaling deeply. “Define bad.”

Another long pause.

“It’s easier if I show you,” John says finally. “Get to the arena.”

He hangs up, and I stare at my phone, jaw clenching.

What the fuck has he done now?

I shove up from my desk, grab my keys, and storm out of my office, already plotting Chase Walton’s demise.

***

By the time I push through the glass doors of the Colorado Storm’s main offices, I’m already seething, because I know this is bad.

I know because the entire front fucking office is here.

John Raines. The assistant GM. The social media and marketing manager. The team’s legal counsel. Hell, even the damn team psychologist, and—fuck—Coach Benson.

That last one is rare. Coach doesn’t usually sit in on PR stuff, not unless it’s serious.

Whatever Chase did, it’s huge.

The energy in the room is tense. John looks five seconds from a breakdown, while the legal team is grim-faced, tapping at their tablets.

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