Page 1 of Home Game

CHAPTER 1

RYAN

“Shit,”I said under my breath, looking in dismay at the screen of my laptop. I was in a cafe trying to get my receipts submitted to Frank, my accountant, who had threatened to disown me if I didn’t get him an accurate account of my expenses. I had been doing good but now the screen I had been working on had disappeared and there was nothing. I leaned back in my seat and rubbed my face with frustration. Wasn’t the point of having an accountant was so he could do all this shit?

“You accidentally minimized your screen. That’s all,” a soft voice spoke from my left.

I looked beside me. A tiny punk rocker chick was looking at my screen. Messy black short hair tucked behind her ear that was lined with multiple piercings. She had a tiny silver ring on the side of her petite nose. The biggest blue eyes, lined with heavy black make-up avoided my gaze.

“You know how to get it back?” I asked. She didn’t look like she knew her way around a computer, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She leaned across me, punched a couple keys and my program was back.

I stared at the screen in amazement and then looked back at her. “Thanks.”

Her head was already bent over a beat-up paperback. Her thin, plaid-covered shoulders gave a slight shrug but other than that, she didn’t acknowledge me.

I took a deep breath. Only in Vancouver. People in this city all seemed to walk to the beat of their own drummer. Here, it seemed like anything went when it came to personal style. I started to work again.

God, I hated working on the computer. This was my fault. Krista, my agent, had been bugging me for months to hire a PA but my life had been stupidly busy. First, it had been playoffs. Then when the season ended, they had drafted me to the NHL Vancouver Wolves. It had felt like chaos packing up my life, saying goodbye to my old team and finding a new place to live. I got the keys to my apartment and my boxes the same day I needed to show up for my first practice with my new team. Between off season conditioning and training, trying to get to know my new teammates, and sorting out everything from HR paperwork to changing my bank accounts, there had been no time for anything but what was necessary.

“But this is why a PA would help you. All this stuff that is making you too busy to hire someone is exactly the stuff you can just give to them,” Krista told me yesterday at our dinner meeting. “I’m going to set up some interviews for you.”

If it meant that someone else would organize my receipts, then I was onboard.

“Shit,” I said again, when the program disappeared from my view. I clenched my teeth in frustration.

I glanced over at the little punk rocker, who was reading with intensity.

“Hey,” I said.

Nothing. She didn’t even lift her head.

“Yo, computer genius,” I spoke again.

She didn't even lift her face from her book. “Drag your mouse down the screen. Your docking station is set to hide itself.”

“My docking what?” I asked, trying to negotiate the trackpad on my laptop. Nada.

She lifted her head and looked directly at me. The electric light blue of her eyes again surprised me. “Your docking station is where your apps are. And when you minimize your document, it gets pulled down to your docking station.”

“I want my program to open again.”

Her expression was a mixture of disbelief and incredulity. “I just told you how to get it back.”

“Can you show me?” I flipped my laptop towards her.

Her look told me she thought I was a sad fucking idiot too stupid to own a laptop, but then with an exaggerated sigh, she pulled the machine closer to her. She moved the mouse.

“I will set your computer so that your docking station is static.”

“Sure.” I still didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

She shoved it back and pointed at the screen with a tiny hand. Her short nails were coated with chipped black polish. “See these dots up in this corner? The yellow dot minimizes it. When you do that, it will go here. You click on it to pull it back up.”

She demonstrated.

“Wow, you know what you’re doing.”

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