Page 37 of Make the Play

I snap my notebook closed. “I’ll consider it.”

John nods. “Good. We’ll reconvene tomorrow.”

Chase stretches lazily and stands first, all effortless confidence.

As he brushes past me, he leans down close. “You know, sweetheart,” he murmurs, just for me. “If you wanted to date me, you could’ve just asked.”

I don’t hurl my pen at his stupid, beautiful face.

But God, I want to.

Chapter nine

That’s not very girlfriend-like of you

Chase

The last thing I expect when I walk into The Rink Rat is to see Zoe sitting at the bar with a drink in her hand, looking like she’s ready to commit a crime.

I stop in the doorway, processing the scene of the dingy dive bar owned by Gary, everyone’s favorite grumpy old bastard. The place is quiet. Dim lighting, old sports memorabilia on the walls, and a jukebox in the corner that probably hasn’t worked since the early 2000s.

The usual crowd’s here—a handful of old-timers nursing beers, a couple of guys playing darts, one dude passed out in a booth like he’s spent the last forty years chain-smoking Marlboros. This is the kind of place where no one gives a shitthat I play for the Storm, which is exactly what I need after the absolute clusterfuck that was today’s meeting.

Except now I’ve got a very pissed-off-which-only-makes-her-hotter PR executive sitting twenty feet away, and something tells me she’s not in the mood for casual conversation.

Gary looks up from behind the bar, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth despite the no-smoking sign directly above him. He squints at me like I’ve personally offended him just by existing.

“Oh, come the fuck on,” he mutters, tossing a rag over his shoulder. “Why areyouhere?”

I grin and drop onto a stool. “Missed you, too, old man.”

“Bullshit.”

I chuckle, tapping the bar for a drink. “Whiskey.”

Gary grumbles under his breath but pours anyway, muttering something about his dive bar not being a goddamn social club for hockey players.

He says this every time one of us shows up, and yet he’s never once kicked us out.

Instead, he just suffers through it with boomer-level exasperation, occasionally dropping some weirdly insightful wisdom that none of us are ready for.

I take a sip of my drink, letting the burn settle in my chest, and force my brain to slow down.

“What the hell did you do now?”

Gary never assumes I’m here for a casual drink. Because in his mind, if I’m showing up at his bar outside of a Storm team night, it means one of two things:

I’m running from a PR disaster.

I’m about to start one.

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