Pucking Sweet: An MMF Workplace Hockey Romance (Jacksonville Rays Book 3)
Pucking Sweet: Chapter 57

It’s 5 a.m., and the cauldron of trouble Rachel and Caleb stirred at the game last night is officially starting to boil over. I mean, what did she expect? Her father has been one of the most famous faces in global music for four decades. She grew up under a blinding international spotlight—features in magazines, paparazzi at her school, drones flying over beaches on family vacations.

And celebrity fans are crazy, nothing like hockey fans. They’ll home in on your favorite flavor of cereal if they think it will make them feel closer to you. She can’t go making moon eyes at a young, hot NHL player and not expect people to notice that too.

By the second period, even the freaking media team knew something was going on. I’m officially going to kill Jimmy and Tad. Did they have to pan the camera over to us so many times? Each time the Jumbotron zoomed in on Rachel, the crowd would cheer, she’d wave, and then Jake would hit someone harder.

My phone pings on my side table with message after message. Then it starts buzzing.

“Turn it off,” Colton grunts. His hand is splayed over my naked breast. He pulls me in closer as I lean away, reaching for the phone.

“I have to get this,” I whisper. “Just go back to sleep.”

Lukas’s side of my bed is empty. I decided last night that I’d give him exactly one night to continue freaking out about the thought of our happily ever after. Tonight, I’ll reel him back in. For now, I’m doing my job.

I reach for the phone, answering it before it can go to voicemail. “This is Poppy St. James.”

Two hours later, I’m buzzing with a caffeine headache as I weave my way through the Rays gym equipment. I know the books all say a little caffeine won’t hurt baby, but I’m not willing to risk it.

I see Rachel over in the corner chatting and laughing with Ryan on a massage table. “Rachel,” I call out. “Rach! Girl, I need to talk to you.”

Rachel turns toward me with a smile. “What’s up?”

I hurry the rest of the way over to her. My scoop neck Rays T-shirt slips off one shoulder as I nearly trip over a dumbbell.

Rachel keeps massaging Ryan’s shoulder, oblivious to the shitstorm she’s in. “What do you need?”

I look to Ryan, still trying to catch my breath. “Get lost for a minute, honey.”

“But we’re in the middle of—”

“Yeah, that’s great,” I say, tugging him off the table. “Tell your story walking. We’ll let you know when we’re done talking.”

He wanders off, muttering under his breath. I’ll apologize to him later.

Rachel looks to me. “Poppy, what—”

“Not here,” I say, shooing her backward into her little office. As soon as the door shuts, I spin around, dropping my heavy bag to the floor. “My phone has been ringing off the hook all morning.”

Rachel glances up to the clock on the wall, “Pop, it’s barely 7:30—”

“You don’t think I know that? The calls started coming in at 5 a.m. It was all I could do to make myself presentable and get in here and replace you.” I pull my phone from the pocket of my coral pink yoga pants. Flicking with my finger, I show her my missed call history.

She looks mortified. “Just tell me.”

“They’re all about you,” I say. “Asking about last night.”

She lets out a deep breath. “Show me.”

I step over and show her the phone. The headlines just get more ridiculous:

Rachel Price in Secret Tryst with NHL Player(s)

Rachel Price’s Love Triangle Explained

Fire on the Ice: Inside the Secret Love Affair of Rachel Price

Rachel Price: Too Horny for Hockey?

She’s currently the trending topic on most of the celebrity gossip sites, as well as the Ferrymen fan sites, and some of the hockey gossip sites. The footage is on all the social media channels. Videos from several different angles show the moment Jake came skating up to the glass, pounding his fists and telling her to take Ilmari’s jersey off.

“And these are just the short video clips that went viral,” I explain. “People have questions, Rachel. They think they know what they’re seeing. I’m trying to stay ahead of it for you, but I need to know if what I know is the thing I think I know.”

She hands me back my phone with a confused frown. “The thing you—what?”

I toss my phone down on the counter. Hands on my hips, I glare at her. “Rachel Price, did you spurn Jake Compton and take Caleb Sanford as your lover?”

“What—no,” she cries, “No spurning—”

I raise a brow. “Did you spurn Jake Compton and take Mars Kinnunen as your lover?”

She sighs, shaking her head. “I haven’t spurned Jake, Poppy.”

I do her the courtesy of faking my own surprise. “So, you are with Jake Compton. Why, you sneaky little minx. I didn’t suspect a darn thing. How long?”

She sighs again. “Poppy…”

“Well, what was this then?” I cry, frustrated that she won’t just let me in. “You’re just teasing him? Wearing Kinnunen’s jersey to get a rise out of him? And what was Caleb doing involved? I thought they were friends.”

“They are friends, Pop. It’s—god, it’s complicated.”

“Oh, my good gravy, is it a love triangle? Is Caleb the spurned lover? Are they trying to make you choose? Have you decided—”

Rachel grabs me by the shoulders. “Girl, pull yourself together. No one, and I mean no one is getting spurned here. I wouldn’t even know how to spurn something.” She drops her hands away from me. “Last night was an inside joke between friends, okay? We all work together, and it was a joke. That’s the official story, alright? No romance, no spurning, no broken hearts.”

I search her face and the realization hits: she’s scared. I was trying to rile her up with my crazy line of questioning, but I know what I saw last night. And I know the look in her eyes now. She’s hiding. I think she has reason to hide. This isn’t just about keeping her and Jake a secret. She’s with all of them. Rachel is dating multiple players too. What we’re doing may be socially unacceptable, but for her, as their treating physician, it even crosses the line into unethical.

Oh, this is a disaster. This is going to blow up in spectacular fashion. How long can I sit on this lid?

“An inside joke between friends?” I repeat.

“Between colleagues,” she corrects. “We’re all working on the same team, and the three of us had a fun night out in the stands, right? We ate our weight in junk food, and we got to watch our friends play.”

Friends, lovers, fathers of my child. Who can keep track?

“Caleb and I played a little prank on the players where we wore their jerseys,” she goes on. “Good clean fun, alright?”

Yeah, the kind of fun that gets you fingered on a yacht and pregnant.

I nod, feeling like the world’s biggest freaking hypocrite. “Yeah, good clean fun.”

Taking a deep breath, I turn my attention to my phone. Rachel needs to buy more time, and I’m going to buy it for her. It’s what I would want in her position. It’s what I do want. Colton, Lukas, and I aren’t ready for the eyes of the world on us either. I don’t want them shoved under a microscope and dissected, all the messy details of their lives picked apart as people judge us, judge our child.

Oh god, the baby…

My little chaos monster doesn’t deserve any of this. I can feel the walls of my shell closing in, ready to protect us from the eyes of the world. This is exactly why you don’t get involved with the players! Because in no time at all, you go from managing the story to being the freaking headline! What will our headlines say?

I close my eyes, taking a deep breath.

No.

I’m not going to make this about me. This is about Rachel and her guys and doing the best job I can to protect them. I can freak out about my own secret threesome on my own time. For now, I am Poppy St. James, and I have a crisis to manage.