Loud Mouth - Avery Flynn Page 0,2
if she thought showing up at his rental cabin was the way to get an exclusive interview or to make an apology for what she’d done. She was going to have to figure out how to increase her clout another way.
Standing his ground, he did a quick appraisal. Her dark hair was short and wavy, with one side of her scalp shaved down to such a short length, it would have made a marine recruit envious. She couldn’t be more than five foot six, but even in her one-piece black thermal underwear, she managed to look tough. Maybe it was the tattoos or the nose ring—wait, it was definitely the eyes, big and dark and all but shooting laser beams of fury at him.
“Why would I call the cops on myself?” Ian asked, rubbing his abs that ached from the quick jolt from her stun gun. Fuck, he was wearing a leather jacket and a thick sweater, and it still hurt like hell. If she’d actually managed to get him for longer, his ass would be down on the ground. He probably would have pissed himself just to add to the humiliation of being held at stun-gunpoint in his own rental.
“This is my cabin,” she said.
“Nice try, but I have a signed contract for this place.” Check and mate.
“Big whoop, so do I, but mine is legit.”
He reached for his phone and she leveled that mean little flashlight-on-steroids at him again.
His gut tensed, which made his stomach hurt even more, and he held up a hand. “Whoa, I’m already nursing an injury—don’t shoot me with that thing again.”
Once Shelby gave him a curt nod, he pulled his phone out and brought up the email confirmation of the booking.
“See?” He turned the phone so the screen faced his attacker.
She rolled her eyes but eventually looked at it. He doubted it was an accident that she kept her stun gun at the ready even as she stayed out of arm’s reach. If it wasn’t for the fact that she’d showed up uninvited and armed at his cabin when all he’d wanted was to be alone and drink a bottle of scotch, he might have been attracted. He wasn’t going to think about that now, though.
Nor would he be dwelling on his asshole dad with a wandering dick and his former best friend who’d spent years lying to him. Or contemplating how several of his teammates didn’t see what the big deal was. Or bemoaning the fact that he was off the ice for two weeks because he’d fallen over his own damn feet at a team dinner, gone down like a klutz without any athletic ability, and had messed up his thumb enough to need surgery. Or stewing over the seemingly never-ending media coverage of the shoving match he and Christensen had gotten into and the fact that things were hostile in the locker room, to say the least. Basically, he had a lot of things that he would not be thinking about while getting blasted in the cabin Lucy had rented for him to lay low while the Harbor City sports press found other things to cover.
“This is bullshit,” the woman declared, but she lowered her stun gun. “I have the same confirmation.” She stomped past him to the nightstand and picked up her phone. A quick scroll later, she shoved it in his face. “See?”
A fast scan confirmed it was an exact copy of his confirmation from the rental management company for the cabin. “How’d you get this?”
“A sort-of friend arranged it for me.” She tossed her phone onto the bed but held on to the stun gun even though it was loose in her grip. “Who pranked you with this confirmation?”
“One, it’s not a prank.” The only person he knew who would find this kind of joke hilarious was Christensen, and they might share half their DNA but that was it. They weren’t friends anymore, let alone the kind who would set up something like this. “Two, it was our team PR person, Lucy—”
“Kavanagh,” she finished for him.
No. Lucy wouldn’t. Okay, she might have helped set up his teammate Stuckey and his now-live-in girlfriend, Zara, plus Ice Knight right winger Phillips and Tess had met and hooked up at Lucy’s wedding, but she wouldn’t do something like this—not with him, not now, and definitely not with Shelby Blanton. It had to be a mistake.
“Just look at this.” She grabbed her phone off the bed and brought up the email