HAYDEN: I pick neither.
BRODY: Are you always this stubborn?
HAYDEN: Yep. Have a good night, Brody.
Jutting her chin, she clicked the phone to its lock screen and reached for the remote again. Maybe if she watched this van Gogh documentary for long enough, she would eventually forget about Brody Croft and how badly she wanted to see him again.
THIRTEEN
The raucous cheers of the crowd and the echoes of skates scraping against the ice filled the air as Brody and his teammates celebrated their hard-fought victory. Despite the sweat dripping down his face and the sore ribs from the forecheck he’d taken in the second period, Brody was high on adrenaline and the contagious joy sweeping through the rink.
Fuck yeah. They’d swept the first round of the playoffs. Four games, four wins. The Vipers hadn’t even stood a chance.
The home fans looked dejected, shoulders sagging and faces stricken as bodies began leaving their seats and heading for the exits. Brody knew the feeling. Michigan, his home team, hadn’t made it past a first playoffs round in more than a decade.
“What? No interviews about your love life tonight?” Erik Levy mocked. The defenseman’s eyes twinkled as he chortled to himself.
“Nope, not tonight,” Brody answered with a wry grin. Although his attempt at a big gesture hadn’t completely failed. It had gotten him Hayden’s phone number, after all.
On the other hand, he hadn’t heard from Hayden since their text exchange on Friday night. Now it was Sunday, and not a peep. So...maybe begging her on live TV for a candlelit dinner or a sunset skate date was an epic fail.
“That was such a baller move,” Derek Jones assured him as they filed into the locker room. Jones smacked Brody’s shoulder. “Chicks love the big romantic gestures.”
Not this one. Hayden was a tough fucking nut to crack.
Peeling his sweaty jersey off, Brody quickly undressed and headed for the showers. When he returned to his locker, he discovered all his teammates had already left for the bus that would take them to the private airfield where the team plane awaited. He dressed quickly, then checked his phone. No texts from Hayden, but there was one from his agent asking him to call her.
Instantly, Brody was on guard. Maria never bothered him on game nights unless it was important.
“Hey,” he said after she answered his call. “You texted?”
“Great game tonight,” Maria told him in that brisk, no-nonsense voice of hers. “You looked sharp.”
“Thanks. The bus is waiting on me, so I can’t talk long. What’s up?”
She paused, as if choosing her next words carefully. “I just got off the phone with the Warriors’ head of legal. She’d like to put a pause on the contract renegotiations until the end of the season. She’s claiming the higher-ups are slowing things down, but...”
“But what?” he asked warily.
“It smells funny, and I don’t like it.”
As always, Maria never minced words.
“Funny how?”
“I think the franchise is waiting to see if it can weather this storm of scandals before offering a multimillion-dollar contract to a player who may or may not be involved in said scandals.”
Every ounce of blood in his body ran cold. All the elation from tonight’s win drained away, replaced with a mixture of anger and dread twisting in his gut.
“What the fuck?” he growled. “They think I fixed games? Or that I fucked the owner’s wife?”
“No, no. You’re not being accused of anything. But I think they’re leery of committing to such a huge contract while all this shit is brewing.” Maria’s calm tone resonated through the phone. “I just wanted to keep you in the loop about why everything has slowed to a snail’s pace. And to ask you something—on a scale of one to ten, how badly do you want to stay with the Warriors?”
Brody swallowed. Well, shit. That wasn’t a notion he entertained often. Sure, he’d known that when his contract was up, there was a chance another team might want him, but he hadn’t actually planned on leaving the team he’d been playing for since he was twenty-one years old.
“Why?” he said slowly. “Do you think I should consider making a move?”
“Honestly? Yes. The entire Warriors organization is in disarray right now, thanks to these allegations. And the fact that negotiations have stalled concerns me. I’d like to put some feelers out, see which other teams in the league might be interested in snapping you up. Discreetly, of course. How do you feel about that?”
He hesitated. “Fine,” he finally replied. “But it needs to be beyond discreet. I don’t want Presley thinking I’m trying to jump ship behind his back.”
He was already screwing the man’s daughter. Didn’t need to screw him over any further.
“Understood,” Maria said. “All right. Get on that bus. I’ll be in touch. Oh, and in the meantime, lay low, avoid the media as much as possible and let me handle the press inquiries.” She paused meaningfully. “In other words, don’t blab about your love life to sports reporters while you’re half-naked.”
His lips twitched. “Understood,” he mimicked.
HAYDEN: Come over.
Brody stared at the message on the screen for a good, long moment, assuring himself he wasn’t hallucinating it. It was Monday night and he’d just stepped out of the shower, where he’d stood under the hot spray for a good half hour to get the kinks out of his muscles. He was still sore as fuck from yesterday’s game, his ribs aching every time he bent over.
Now all the pain seemed to fade as he kept staring at those two words.
Come over.
Clearly, she’d finally changed her mind and taken him up on his offer to continue the fantasy, but was it still just sex she craved? Or was she looking for something extra this time around?
Shit, he was getting ahead of himself. Hayden was simply inviting him over, not offering to make a commitment.
