Playing to Win(3)

           


       

"Woah. Back up the pity bus. I will not let you go down the mom road.  She loved you and she would want what's best for you. But Hols, even if  your mom was still alive, what's best for you would be your choice, not  hers."

Holly flopped onto the couch. "I know. But I still worry about letting  her down. When I accepted this gig, I thought it was going to be a case  of ‘all publicity is good publicity.' Now I'm not so sure."

She ran her hands down her face. "Luke Maguire believes I'm a total  idiot! How can I ever do an in-depth interview with him now? And I don't  even get to travel with the team! That's how dumb the questions I ask  are supposed to be. I'm not worth a seat on a chartered plane that's  already been paid for."

Paige glanced up from a picture featuring a shirtless LA Laker.  "Lighten up, would you? It's been one day. This job is a  stepping-stone-one with over a hundred thousand hits on YouTube so far.  You never know where this opportunity could take you. Besides, what do  you think the rest of your former sports broadcasting classmates are  doing right now? Interviewing team mascots and reporting on who scored  the most baskets in soccer games played by twelve-year-olds? I'll bet  you're closer to a real gig than any of them." Paige shut the magazine  and tossed it onto the coffee table. "You're working with a real hockey  team, interviewing some of the best players in the game. And yeah, it's  not perfect, but it could be a hell of a lot worse. So to quote a good  friend of mine-" Paige arched one perfectly winged eyebrow "-suck it up,  Princess. Go out there and do the job."

Holly sighed. "I hate it when you're right."

"Then you must hate me all the time," her friend lamented with a grin.  It faded after a moment. "Was that enough of a pep talk? Because I'll  bail on my date and we can go out for a drink if you want to talk this  out some more."

"Oh, right! You have a date." Holly shook her head. "I keep forgetting  since you've been so secretive about this mystery man of yours."

"It's new. We're still feeling each other out. Once we start feeling  each other up, then I'll have some details to share." Paige was the only  person in the world Holly knew who could pull off a wink with such  aplomb.

"Of that I have no doubt. Now go and have fun. Besides, I'm already in  the middle of a sports-related crisis. There's no way I can muster the  fortitude and patience it would take to teach you that you don't score  baskets in soccer right now."

Paige laughed at the jab.

Holly squared her shoulders. "Like you said, I made this choice. I'm  going to honor this contract. Maybe I can even convince them to let me  do some real reporting. Wow 'em so they give me a chance to document the  Storm's first time in the play-offs with the gravitas and seriousness  that it deserves."

"That's the spirit! You show those men who's boss." The phone rang just  as Paige stood to leave. "See? That's probably some titan of the hockey  world, impressed with your journalistic integrity and calling to poach  you for his own team."

"Who else could it be?" Holly agreed drolly. "Say hi to your date for me."

"No way. Get your own man, which I hope you do soon. You're in  desperate need of some hunky distraction in your life," Paige advised,  heading for the door. "At the very least, this job will be great for  that."

Holly rolled her eyes in a silent goodbye as she grabbed the handset of  her phone, recognizing Jay's number on call display. Paige didn't like  him very much, but Holly and Jay had hit it off immediately in  broadcasting school.

When the Storm offered to let her pick her own cameraman, she'd eagerly  snatched Jay away from filming weddings and local stories. It was a  relief not to have to fake sports stupidity with at least one person.

"Hey. The footage looks great." Embarrassing as it might be for her  personally, she had to admit that Jay had edited her interviews with  Luke and the rest of the team into a professional-looking comedic  montage that could now be viewed by the world at portlandstorm.com.                       
       
           


       

"I'm glad you think so, because the boss man agrees."

"What?"

"That's why I'm calling. Check your texts."

"Or you could just tell me since we're, you know, on the phone," she pointed out.

"Okay, smart-ass. It seems your big-haired alter ego can do no wrong.  Hits on the Storm's website have increased twenty percent since your  interview was posted last night. Usually after a loss, website traffic  goes down. They've decided to give us an extra assignment."

"Oh, God." Holly cringed. She couldn't help it. A twenty percent  uptick? That did not bode well for Operation: Journalistic Integrity.  She'd be stuck asking about favorite childhood breakfast cereals for the  rest of her career while important stories, like Luke Maguire's scoring  drought that had now entered its twelfth game, went unmentioned.

On the upside, at least the team captain was so annoyed with her about  the play-off beard thing that she could focus her insipid questions on  the rest of the players. "What do they want us to film?"

"Some fluffy pregame interviews with the guys, tomorrow after their  morning skate. The brass plans to air them as teasers between periods to  help drive up website traffic. We're starting with the big three, then  we'll try to fit in as much of the rest of the team as we can manage."

The big three: goaltender Jean-Claude LaCroix, centerman Eric Jacobs,  and, because sometimes life sucked with a vengeance, captain and  left-winger Luke Maguire. Holly couldn't bring herself to speak through  the impending sense of doom.

* * *

THWACK.

Luke's slap shot missed the net completely.

God-thwack-damn-thwack-mother-thwack-fuc-

"Mags!"

Luke looked up from the line of pucks he was systematically assaulting  to see Jean-Claude LaCroix-J.C. to his teammates-standing in the  players' box. He was dressed in a navy T-shirt that mimicked the Storm's  home jersey, this year's standard issue for doing press.

With another muttered curse, Luke skated over to the bench.

"I just finished with the reporter, and Eric's in the hot seat right  now. Someone can cover for you with her if you want to grab a shower,  but to avoid the wrath of the higher-ups, I'd suggest you get a move  on."

Luke pulled off one of his gloves so he could remove his helmet and set  them both on the boards. "Yeah, I'll be there in a minute."

"You okay, man?"

He ran a hand over his sweaty hair. "Sure. What could be wrong?"

J.C. gave him a look. "You're the one who snapped two sticks in  practice and is still out here pounding the boards. You tell me."

Luke appreciated his friend's tact. It wasn't like his problem wasn't obvious.

He couldn't hit the net.

It had been twelve games since he'd scored a goal-the longest dry spell  of his hockey career. But no matter how hard he practiced, how much  extra time he logged out here working on his shot, when he was in the  game, he froze up. And people were noticing. He'd read the grumblings in  the paper, heard the callouts on television. Hell, people were even  tweeting him to say he sucked. If he didn't get his act together soon,  he'd be headed for some obligatory couch time with the sports  psychologist. And that meant talking about Ethan, a fate he tried to  avoid at all costs.

"It's nothing." Luke brushed it off, hoping his buddy would let it go.

J.C. shook his head, rejecting the lie. Luke should have known he  would. They'd been playing hockey together on and off since they were  fourteen years old. At this point, his goaltender could read him just as  well off the ice as on.

"It's not nothing, man. Don't overthink it. Besides, scoring isn't the only way to help the team."

"Easy for you to say. Your save percentage was .916 this season. You're  doing your part, but we won't win if we don't put pucks in the other  guys' net." Luke's shoulders tightened under the weight of  expectation-from management, the fans, his teammates... "I haven't  scored in over a month. What am I supposed to do about that?"                       
       
           


       

"Just relax and play the game."

Luke rolled his eyes at the Zen advice. "This is the reason people hate  goalies, you know? You're all a bunch of pretentious assholes."

J.C. just grinned. "I'll see you up there, okay?"

With a nod, Luke grabbed his helmet and glove and headed to the  dressing room to shower and change, hoping he could clear his head  before he faced Holly Evans. His brain conjured the memory of the curvy  blonde in the siren-red outfit. Yet another complication he didn't need  right now. Because last night, he'd done something stupid.