Page 21 of Offside and Off-Limits
Wait.Likes?
I snap my attention to Joel, who’s still holding up my phone, pointing it straight at Cade and me. “Cade, would you mind putting me down? Likenow.”
“I’ll do you one better,” he replies as he glides me smoothly back toward the bench, still holding me close in his arms. Holding me in one arm, he pulls open the door, and returns me to my feet—which I note are now trembling.
Argh!
But I’ve got a much bigger problem to deal with right now than trembling legs brought about by my inappropriate attraction to an oversized hockey player called Cade.
“What do you mean, likes, Joel?” I ask as I hold my hand out for my phone.
“On the livestream,” he replies, and I almost blackout in shock.
“You livestreamed this?” I croak, my heart drumming in my ears. I snatch the phone away and hastily switch the recording off.
“That’s what you wanted, right?” Joel replies, his eyes darting between me and Cade.
“Yeah, I’m not sure about that,” Cade mumbles as he watches me.
I swallow, tension claiming my chest. What will Management think of me, dancing with the players on my first day and—worse, so much worse—landing in the arms of their star right winger, me gazing up at him as though to declare to the world that I’ve got a fat crush on Cade Lennox?
I just turned “strictly professional” into “romantically questionable” with one paltry slip on the ice—metaphorically as well as literally.
I close my eyes and suck in air, my chest buzzing. I will officially be the person to hold the unenviable position of the shortest-serving social media manager for an NHL team in the history of time. My dream job snatched away from me with a simple slip on the ice.
CHAPTER 6
CADE
I take a breather,my heart rate drumming as I gaze out the window at the trees punctuating the lush grass of my yard. The realtor who rented me this place told me I’d love the tranquility. At first, I thought the silence might drive me crazy. But now, as I look out at the trees with their leaves turning from shades of green to golds and oranges and reds, I get what she meant.
This place is good for the soul.
Yup, I’ve becomethatguy, the one who needs hispersonal spacetorecharge.
Maybe that’s part of the new, more mature me? Or maybe I’m just enjoying being in this new town I call home.
“Lennox, you spotting me or what?” Jamie says, and I turn to see my team captain lying on the bench in my newly set up gym—the gym with the best view in all of Maple Falls.
I gave an open invitation to all the guys on the team at practice to use my gym, and today both Jamie Hayes and Carson “Bama” Crane have taken me up on the offer.
“How much you pressing today, Captain? Want to push those boundaries?” I ask as I position myself over his head.
Carson grunts as he pushes up from a squat, a crazy number of weights held on a bar across his shoulders. We both turn to watch him.
“Man, that’s impressive, Crane,” I say, but he’s too busy concentrating on not being crushed by the massive weight to reply.
“Nah. Just the usual. I’m still sore from yesterday’s practice. I’m convinced Coach Hauser is a sadist,” Jamie says.
I flash him a smile. “That’s because you’re an old man these days, old man.”
“Hey, less of the old. I’ve only got a year on you. Ready?”
I lift the weighted bar from its hooks and help to lower it down to Jamie’s chest. “Got it?” I ask and he nods. I let go and watch as he pumps the iron with practiced precision, grunting with the exertion.
“You might be old, but you’ve still got it,” I tell him.
When he gets to the end of his set, his face is red, perspiration beading on his forehead. He pulls himself up. “Okay. Your turn.”
