Playing the Game (The Renegades) (Volume 3) (14 page)

“
Melanie has these rules on how we,
or mostly me, is expected to behave, and her top rule is no dating
anyone in the organization: no ice girls, no attendants, no media.
No one.”

“
Yeah, those sound like ‘Tyler
Rules’. So you slept with an ice girl? I wouldn’t worry about it
too much. I would bet she won’t talk for fear of losing her
job.”

An ice girl? Could he really lie to Kris and say that
he—“Yeah, it was an ice girl. I just don’t want to get in anymore
hot water than I’m already in, you know? I tried to be good at the
bar last night because the last thing I need is more bad publicity.
Ben is riding my ass about all of that.”
Why the fuck did I say
it was an ice girl
?

“
Well, no worries. I’m pretty sure
between Paige and Melanie they’ll make sure you stay out of
trouble.”

You have no idea
. At the mention of her name,
his heart thumped in his chest. Not a normal feeling. He rubbed the
back of his neck. “You know what? Maybe I should go find Melanie
and just feel her out, see if there are any weird vibes telling me
that she might know.”

“
Yeah, I guess. Good luck with
that.” Kris patted him on the shoulder as he left the
room.

Tyler walked the halls until he got to Melanie’s
office. He wasn’t looking for her; it was the office beside hers
that he wanted—Paige’s.

But just as he got near her door, it opened. “Sam?
What are you doing here?”

Sam stepped into the hallway and closed the door
behind him. “Me? I needed to talk to Paige.” He popped a cookie
into his mouth and raised his eyebrow at Tyler. “What are
you
doing here?”

“
I just needed to—I was going—I was
looking for Mel… or Paige.” He didn’t like how Sam was looking at
him. “What?”

“
Nothing.” He patted Tyler’s
shoulder as he walked, by snickering and wiping crumbs from his
face. “Oh, by the way, she isn’t in there.”

“
Who?” Tyler whipped around to face
him.

“
Paige. She just left. But there’re
cookies on her desk if you’re interested.”

“
That’s all right, it wasn’t
important anyway.”
It was just about my life
.

CHAPTER 14

Paige hurried to her office as soon as the guys got
on the ice. There was no reason for her to be out there today, and
she had no desire to be anywhere near Tyler. With any luck, he’d
been too drunk to remember who he went to bed with last night.

Melanie’s heels clicked behind her in the
hallway.

“
Paige, can you look over these
media requests?” Melanie stepped into the office and handed her a
manila folder of papers. “I can’t imagine they’ll be any different
than normal, but just in case. Don’t forget to give them each a
time limit. Look over their questions—no duplicates, and nothing
about personal lives. Check the email and voicemail too. I have a
few things to take care of, but as soon as you’re done you can
leave.”

“
Sure thing, Melanie.” Paige put
the folders on her desk. “How is your mom?”

Melanie frowned. “My mom?” Suddenly her eyes widened.
“Oh, my mom! She’s, um, great. A lot better.”

Paige frowned at Melanie’s offhand comment. “Will she
have a long recovery? From the stroke?”

Melanie waved off the questions. “Oh, that. I must’ve
got my wires crossed. It wasn’t a stroke after all. She’s just
fine.”

“
Well that’s good news. You must be
relieved.” She smiled at Mel, but something didn’t seem
right.

“
You have no idea.” Melanie took a
deep breath. “So… as well as the media requests, I need you to do
some damage control.”

“
Damage control?” Oh no. Did
Melanie know what happened last night?

“
Yeah, apparently Tyler was his
normal self last night, drinking and causing a scene at the bar.
Some guy is claiming on twitter that he fought Ty over his girl. I
just need you to put some tweets out there discounting any rumors.
Call it drunken bar antics, or something that Tyler was not
directly involved in.”

“
Um, okay.”

“
Paige.” Melanie cocked her head to
the side. “You don’t have any issues working with Ty, do
you?”

“
Issues? No. Why do you say that?”
Oh. Holy. Hell
. Paige was sweating right through her
pantyhose.

“
Because lately Ty has really been
an ass, and we’re left to clean up his messes. But you know that.
He wasn’t always like this. Just over the last year, I guess. I’m
hoping it’s just a phase, with him getting over that girl. He needs
to find a nice young lady and settle down. But I’m rambling… I
wanted to make sure you were okay covering for him until he shakes
this. Unless you worked something out at your meeting the other
day?” Melanie gazed at her as though assessing her
response.

Nodding politely, Paige answered, “Yeah, I can do
that. No problem. Oh, and the meeting… I think I got through to
him, maybe at least a little.” The meeting that she was starting to
think was a set up. “I suggested setting up an interview with one
of the bigger sports magazines, so he can put out his story on his
terms.”

Melanie seemed to consider this. “That’s not a bad
idea. See what you can do with those requests.” She paused, eyes
still on Paige. “Some girls have a crush on Ty, and they really
can’t separate work and play. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t
one of them.” Melanie smiled sweetly.

“
No ma’am.” Maybe she should admit
she was there? Before she could decide, her mouth opened. “I
actually saw some of what happened last night. I stopped for a
drink.”

“
Oh yeah?” Melanie paused, but
looked through the files in her hand instead of at Paige. “Well,
that should give you a good perspective to clean some of this up.
You don’t need to make him look squeaky clean, just clean enough.
Good luck!” Melanie left, closing the office door behind
her.

Paige had really stepped in it this time. She looked
around the large, quiet room. She didn’t need all of this space to
do her job, but it was a nice bonus. The mighty wooden desk made
her feel insignificant, as she rolled her chair into place. She
would deal with Tyler’s problem later. First she had to tackle
this.

Opening the folder, she carefully reviewed each
request form. Everyone seemed to be asking the same questions. A
few wanted to interview Kris Lafleur and goalie Kaden O’Conner, but
the majority of them wanted Ty.

Approving each request, she noted which questions
they could ask and which they couldn’t. Quickly she went through
the pile, but a glance at the closed circuit television hanging on
her wall showed her that the guys were almost done with morning
skate. She couldn’t give Tyler any opportunity to remember last
night. It was best he never knew it happened, and avoiding him
seemed like the most sensible thing to do right now.

Checking the voice mails, she took messages and put
them in her folder while packing up her laptop. She could check the
emails at home, and could quiet social media there too. Anything to
get out of here faster.

Hurrying out of her office, she walked into a solid
body and dropped her laptop. Shaking herself off, she looked up to
see it was Sam Morris. “Sorry, Sam.”

“
No. My fault, Paige.” His smile
was sweet and genuine. He was one of the friendlier guys on the
team, always eager to lend a hand. Picking up her laptop, he handed
it to her. “You okay?”

“
Yeah, fine. Why?”

His face scrunched up and his blue eyes dazzled. “You
just look frazzled, that’s all.”

“
Lots of work to do, you know how
it is.” She laughed nervously.

If Sam was up here already, Tyler might not be far
behind. She dodged past him and was ready to make her way down the
hall.

“
Paige, wait. I wanted to talk to
you.”

“
I’m so sorry, Sam. I really don’t
have the time today.” She continued to walk down the
hall.

Sam walked with her. “But, I needed to—”

Paige stopped. She cleared her throat and tried to
sound firm as she spoke. “Sam, I really need to go. I’ll catch up
with you tomorrow. Melanie might still be in her office
though.”

“
But—”

“
There’s a container of cookies on
my desk. Please help yourself. See you tomorrow!”

****

Clicking on the next email, she tried hard to focus
on the words. Gram sang and hummed as she washed dishes and clanged
pots together by the stove. She should’ve set up shop in her
bedroom; it would’ve been quieter.

She couldn’t possibly be named in those rumors, could
she? Avoiding social media for the time being, she worked through
the emails first. She was supposed to be working on the interview
for Tyler, but at the moment that was the farthest thing from her
mind.

Gram held onto the countertop while mixing up her
famous pasta sauce from scratch. The aroma of garlic and tomato
tickled Paige’s nose, and her stomach growled. Her attention
wavered. No longer concentrating on the email, she watched Gram
move around the kitchen. The older woman pushed through every ache
and pain; nothing kept her away from the stove.

“
Gram, that sauce smells
wonderful.”

“
Thanks, dear. Pasta and meatballs
for dinner. I can make you a sandwich if you’re hungry
now.”

“
No thanks, I really need to get
this work done.”

“
I’m sorry, am I distracting you?
The sauce will simmer now for a few hours. I can go in the other
room and leave you to work.”

“
No, Gram, it’s not you. I’ve just
got other things on my mind.”

“
Hmm, I’ve seen that look before.
Is it a boy?”

“
Isn’t it always?” Rylee closed the
door behind her. “What are we talking about? All I heard was ‘is it
a boy’.”

“
Paige is distracted by a boy.”
Gram snickered.

“
No I’m not! I was hungry and she’s
making sauce.”

“
Hungry. Yeah you are.”

“
Forget it. I have work to do.”
Paige gathered up the papers and laptop. As she left the room she
could hear them laughing.

“
What’s his name?” Gram
called.

It’s not a boy. It’s that damn son of a bitch hockey
player who thinks he’s king of the world and God’s gift to
women.

Once in her room, she shut the door behind her. She
had no choice but to tackle social media now, and any Tyler rumors.
She was quickly learning this was a thankless job, and it had never
said baby-sitting in the job description.

‘
Tyler Kidd in bar-fight’. That one
was easy enough to fix. Throw some ‘allegedly’ and ‘rumored to be’
around. It didn’t have to be true; it just had to not be a lie. She
was good at talking around the truth. ‘Tyler Kidd spends night with
triplets’. Now that one was completely false, she knew that. She
answered back with ‘Star struck fan-girls surround Tyler Kidd at
bar’ and ‘drunk patron challenges Kidd, but Tyler keeps his cool'.
This was kind of fun until she got to the ‘Tyler Kidd goes home
with mystery blonde’.

That one was easy enough to ignore because she wasn’t
blonde like the fangirls he was usually seen with. And who really
cares who he went home with? As long as there was no photographic
evidence.
Yikes, that would be bad. Damn people and their cell
phones
… Nope, none that she could see. Yet.

She’d done all she could to clean up the social media
reports, but now she had Tyler on the brain. Every inch of him ran
through her mind. Her body still hummed from his touch.

Maybe, like Melanie said, he wasn’t all bad. He’d
shown her another, more gentle side of him at their meeting, too
bad the world couldn’t see that. Since working with Tyler, she’d
done more than her share of internet searches to read everything
she could about the love he lost to teammate Patrick. Surprisingly,
not a lot had been posted, most likely thanks to Mel, but the
stories she found alluded to drama and clashes between the two
men.

But Paige hadn’t felt that angst last night when Ty
touched her. He was pure passion, gentle and rough all at the same
time. No one had ever made her feel like that before. The memories
made her body burn for him.

No. She couldn’t be thinking about this, or how maybe
last night wasn’t a usual conquest for him. It was just that.
Period.

Forget last night.

CHAPTER 15

“Marco, set me up with some bottles. On second
thought, let’s just go right to the Captain and Coke.” Tyler hung
his head, ran his hands through his hair, and let out a deep
sigh.

Marco poured the drink. “What’s eating you, Ty?”

“
Just the usual shit. That’s all.”
But that wasn’t the truth. How he felt about Paige wasn’t usual,
and that was the problem.

“
You wanna talk about
it?”

“
Nope.” A few drinks would work her
out of his system. Tyler turned his back to the bar, scanning the
room. The place was pretty empty but would pick up soon.

A memory of Paige invaded his thoughts. When she
stood in front of him and tried to be such a hard ass, it was cute
as hell. Everything that girl did was sexy.

But it couldn’t be, no matter how bad he wanted her.
Since when do I want the same girl twice
? There was no way
he was going back down that road. He was Tyler Kidd; his name alone
enabled him to have any girl he wanted. He didn’t need
love
.
This weird feeling of
wanting
Paige needed to stop.