Killian (On the Line #1) - Brenda Rothert Page 0,6
today.
I set my empty beer bottle on the table. Stacy glanced over and arched her brows, silently asking if I wanted another. I shook my head and she scrunched up her face in confusion.
“Grayson’s a lazy fuck,” I said.
“Yeah, but we just lost almost a third of our team.”
“We’ll bounce back. They needed to clean house. Now if Liam can just stop being an asshole . . .”
Liam flipped me off from the other side of the table the three of us were sharing.
“Your words, not mine,” I said.
“What’d they say to you?” he asked, draining the last of his beer.
I shrugged, picturing Sidney sitting on the edge of her desk, her legs on display in the business suit she’d had on.
“The blonde PR woman left the meeting early. It was mostly me and Sidney.”
“She told you to call her Sidney?”
I gave him a look of confusion. “That’s her name, douchebag.”
“Yeah, I know that. Anyway, what’d she say?”
“She wants me to stop getting arrested and sleeping around.”
“Yeah,” Liam said with a laugh. “Sounds like we’re both bad for the team’s image. Apparently I’m not nice enough.”
“The fuck?” Bennett looked between Liam and me. “We’re hockey players. Sounds like they want us to be choirboys.”
“I’m on board with playing better hockey, but I’m not letting anyone tell me how to act,” Liam said. “Fuck that.”
Stacy approached our table and slid a fresh beer toward me.
“I’m good,” I said.
“We don’t close for another couple hours. You need to stay hydrated. I’ll be giving you a closer look at my tattoo later.”
Her tits were on display in a low-cut top and her eyes were lined in black. She gave me a seductive smile, assuring me she was a sure thing tonight.
“Another time,” I said, picking up the beer and handing it back to her.
She gave me a puzzled look. “Another time?” she repeated, sounding as if she didn’t quite get my meaning.
“Yeah, I have to be up early tomorrow.”
With a dirty look, she swiped the bottle from my hand and left.
Bennett smirked at me but said nothing.
“I don’t want fans thinking I’m a dick,” I said. “I’ve never thought about myself that way.”
“You are a dick,” Liam said.
“I’m serious. When kids come to our games, I don’t want them thinking it’s cool to get arrested. I haven’t been thinking of myself as a role model and . . . I don’t know, I’m just thinking about it now.”
Liam snorted a laugh. “Ginger’s got you pussy whipped already?”
“Fuck you.” I stood up from my seat. “I’m going home. You guys coming?”
They both stood up, and Liam laughed again.
“Did Red give you a curfew? Do you have to be home by midnight so she can read you a story and tuck you in?”
“You’re fuckin’ hilarious. I’m just tired.”
I climbed in the back seat of Bennett’s car and he drove us the short distance to the strip of apartments that served as player housing. There was only one single-bedroom apartment in the complex and, as team captain, I got it.
I mumbled a goodbye to Bennett and Liam and they went into the apartment they shared. When I opened the door to mine, the smell of unwashed laundry and hockey gloves greeted me.
My laptop was on the couch, so I sat down and logged on. When Google popped up, I typed in Sidney Stahl before I had a chance to talk myself out of it.
Every article I found about her was more impressive than the last. She was a Harvard alum with an MBA who’d developed a sports app in college and then sold it for an undisclosed sum. She’d used that money to form a real estate investment company and a tech startup. And now, at age twenty-seven, she was a multi-millionaire. Her father was Steven Stahl, a successful business owner who’d sold his interest in an NHL team a few months ago. So, she was likely more knowledgeable about the game than I’d given her credit for.
I clicked on images and a stab of jealousy hit when the photos loaded and I saw several shots of Sid on the arm of a guy with salt and pepper hair. His name was Lance Holt. He had a lean body and a confident smile, his arm locked tightly around her waist in every picture. She wore a long, elegant gown in every photo, her hair loose and curly in some, and pinned up neatly in others.
I was surprised at my reaction to seeing her in those photographs—especially