Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“Sorry to use both of you as shields,” she says with a conspiratorial whisper. “But that should keep me safe from people wanting to talk business during the game.”
Sophie laughs and glances over her shoulder at the crowd behind us. I don’t look, but I imagine they’re all hungrily ogling Brienne, maybe waiting for her to make eye contact before they pounce.
“What do they all want?” I ask.
“To get a piece of my time, mostly. Make contact. Hand me their card. Hope they can do business one day or request a favor. Hell, most of them just want to give me a favor at some point so I’ll owe them. But that’s how business is done.”
“Are they all here by your invite?”
“God no,” she exclaims, then lowers her voice. “Most of the people here are at the invite of other executives in the organization, and they’re attending to them. But they’ll jump at the chance to have my ear, so I’m hiding out down here with you girls. We’ll brave some food at the first intermission.”
We chitchat about the game and how thrilling it would be to defeat the Vengeance as they won the Cup the last two years in a row. I’d learned from Cannon that the hockey world is already abuzz with how well the Titans are doing this year, considering they’re still in a massive rebuilding phase after the crash.
“What’s Baden been thinking about Drake this past week?” Brienne asks Sophie.
“You mean, you really want to know how frustrated Baden has been with him?” Sophie asks dryly.
I turn from the ice to the conversation because this is an interesting gossip dynamic. Owner of the team and fiancée of a coach discussing a player. And well, I’m the girlfriend of the head coach. I didn’t know such talk was possible, although I don’t know quite enough about the game to participate in any meaningful way. I do know Drake had a horrible road trip last week, but Cannon didn’t seem too worried about it. Said he thought Drake was just having a rough streak.
“He’s definitely not playing to his full potential,” Sophie continues. “Baden said he was going to talk to him.”
“And did he?” Brienne asks. “What did he say?”
I don’t know if Sophie catches it, but Brienne sounds overly concerned about Drake. Not from a business perspective, but more like she has a personal stake in Drake’s well-being.
It doesn’t matter though, because Sophie shrugs. “I have no clue since Baden wouldn’t share those things with me.”
Brienne sighs, and it seems like frustration, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.
We watch the rest of the warm-ups while Brienne asks me questions.
Where are you from?
Where do you work?
What do you do in your free time?
All benign and meant to get to know me better. Nothing too personal, although I don’t think her failure to dive deep is because she thinks it’s impolite. It’s that we run out of time when the game starts.
For the first period, we’re all fully engaged in the action and there’s no room to talk about our personal lives. The arena feels combustible, like the cheers could turn into real explosions. When the Titans jump out to an early lead of 2–0, most of the fans remain standing and the three of us are practically hanging over the box rail.
With only a minute left in the first period, the Vengeance intercept a pass while the Titans are on a power play. Two players shoot down the ice with our defenseman, Camden Poe, in hot pursuit. Drake squats low as the attackers bear down on him. He’s a beast of a guy and fills the net completely, so he’s not easy to score on.
The Vengeance players pass the puck back and forth with Drake following their movements, keeping his body square to the goal. Camden makes a solid attempt to stop them by diving forward and pushing his stick toward the puck to knock it out of their possession. He misses by inches as a slap shot flies, the puck zinging like a bullet toward the net. Drake pulls off a miraculous glove save, and the arena erupts.
“Yes!” Brienne yells, shooting out of her seat and throwing both arms up. Sophie and I are right behind her, and then all of us are high-fiving.
“Whatever Baden said to Drake must’ve been good.” Sophie laughs as we sit back down.
“Yeah,” Brienne murmurs more to herself than to us as she looks up at the jumbo screen where the players are setting up for another face-off. “Seems like he’s out of his funk.”
I frown—although I can tell Brienne is thrilled with the save, there’s an odd underlying sadness to her tone. But that can’t be. I’m misinterpreting something, and when the action commences, Brienne is back in the game.