Page 53 of Pipe Dreams
“Did you see that?” Georgia asked in an awed tone.
“I don’t know what I saw.”
A moment later the doors to the bus closed and the breaks squeaked. The bus began to roll forward. As Nate slowly approached their seat, both Georgia and Lauren stared at him.
“Problem?” he said, giving them a frown.
“Not in this row,” Lauren said, watching for a crack in his stern facade. “You?”
He gave her a Nate frown and moved past, heading toward the back.
“Maybe I imagined it,” Georgia whispered.
“Maybe,” Lauren agreed.
She went back to work and tried not to listen for Mike’s laugh among the others.
•••
Forty-eight hours later, her phone pressed to her ear, Lauren listened to an endless stream of voice mails for Nate. Multitasking, she hustled into a hotel conference room where the team’s lunch was set out. While one of Nate’s tech officers droned on about their upcoming trip to China, she handed Jimbo a new itinerary for the next twenty-four hours.
He scanned the page and gave her a salute, so Lauren walked over to hand the same information to Georgia and her partner in the publicity office—Tommy.
Lauren put her phone away and greeted Georgia with anapology. “I know I gave you different information this morning, but the host team keeps switching our ice time, so the schedule changed again.”
“No problem. But... do you think it’s intentional? Are they messing with us on purpose?”
Lauren had wondered that same thing. “That would be pretty low. I won’t do that when they come to Brooklyn in two days.”
“Do it!” Leo Trevi teased, coming over to stand behind his fiancée. “And let’s short-sheet all their beds, and put itching powder in their underwear.”
“Someone spent too many years at summer camp,” Lauren guessed.
“You know it! We were worse, though.” He pulled out a chair next to Georgia. “I found a dead frog in my shoe one time, so I put it...”
Lauren held up a hand. “I get it. But it’s lunchtime.”
He grinned.
She gave him a friendly wave and wandered off to check out the buffet. She wasn’t hungry at all, but there was a decent-looking Caesar salad, so she grabbed a to-go container and forked some salad leaves into it.
“Hi there,” a smoky voice said from just beside her. Mike had snuck up and ambushed her. “Are you ready for round two yet?”
Oh, boy. Lauren stifled a laugh, even as her senses began to hum in unison. “Sure,” she said lightly. “As long as you’re talking abouthockey.”
“Ah, well. It was worth a shot.”
Lauren just shook her head, smiling down at the croutons on the salad bar.
“Join me for lunch?” he asked.
“I wish I could,” she said quickly. “But I have a ton to do before the game, and Nate is expecting me upstairs.”
“Maybe another time,” he said, giving her a quick smile.
And, damn, she’d seen that smile in bed just two daysago. Suddenly the room was warmer than it had been a few minutes ago.
“How are you doing, anyway?” he pressed. “Haven’t seen you at all in Tampa. I’d think you were avoiding me, except Coach has had us in strategy sessions for hours and hours.”
