A Year of Love Read online

  Wilson makes a grossed out face, and I think better of it. “Tell you what. Let me help you with the next one.”

  “Why?” I yelp. He’s so hunky and distracting. My video-making skills won’t be improved by his company.

  “I feel bad,” he says, shrugging those incredible shoulders. “I kinda told you to do unpopular opinions.”

  “Pffft,” I say, and he grins. “It’s not your fault that I’m awkward, and that I hate this job. I hate TikTok—except for this one video I saw with a herd of puppies. But that’s it. And I’m just not cut out for a job where I have to talk to strangers.” I shiver a little just saying that aloud. “I could do your taxes or manage your retirement fund. But social media baffles me.”

  “See? You do need my help,” he insists. “Let’s start with something simple. Nobody cares what hockey players think, anyway. The fans want two things from us: they want us to win, and look good doing it. The end.”

  “That’s all this fan wants,” I agree. “So how do we make a video about that?”

  “Eh, we’ll start simple,” he insists. “We’ll do a cake check.”

  “Cake…?” I don’t have the first idea what he means.

  “Do you know what hockey butts are?” he asks.

  “Erm…” Are we really talking about his butt right now?

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but most every player has a big patootie.”

  I let out a snort of laughter. “Yeah, yeah. Skating develops the glutes. I don’t live under a rock.”

  “See, girl? I knew you were special.” His smile is white hot. “So follow along—we’ll grab the players one by one, they’ll lie down…”

  I lean forward to listen. And I realize Wilson really is a genius.

  2

  “Let’s see it, Captain!” Wilson shouts, clapping his hands. “Your turn, baby! Prove you got what it takes. Lay it down on the ground so we can measure yo’ mound!”

  O’Doul, the team captain, gives him a look so terrifying that it practically stops my heart. But then the big man does it anyway. He lies down on the hotel gym’s black rubber matting, stomach to the floor. “All right, bring it,” he barks.

  With a gleeful chuckle, Wilson kicks a barbell that’s been set up with a pair of forty pound plates. It rolls—like two wheels on an axle—over O’Doul’s prone body, past his feet, which he’s tucked against the mat, past his calves, and his thighs…until it meets the shapely bump of his muscular hockey butt. And stops.

  “YEAH!” Wilson hoots, rolling the barbell off his teammate. “Good job, boss.”

  O’Doul leaps to his feet and pumps his fist. “All right, who’s next?”

  Neil Drake rubs his hands together and lies down on the mat, tucking his feet down. He waits.

  Now, Drake is a gorgeous man with a body that dreams are made of. But he’s a little more lithe than some of his teammates. And the barbell rolls past his butt and stalls near his shoulder blades.

  “AWWWWWW,” the team yells.

  Wilson doubles over, laughing. “That’s the breaks. Better luck next time.”

  My gaze finds Wilson, and he gives me a huge smile. I smile right back, too. Because I’m finally having fun at training camp.

  I’m admiring hockey players’ asses like it’s my job.

  Because it is.

  What is this life?

  * * *

  The moment we’re done filming our “cake check”, I spend several hours hunched over the video editing software. But this time I know I have a winner. I splice together the clips of the barbell either sticking on or rolling past various hockey butts. I add the players’ names, and a silly graphic saying “Cake Check!” at the top of the shot.

  There’s even a clip of Wilson’s cackle when the barbell can’t even make it part-way up his sculpted hiney. I add a graphic that reads “Cake for days!” to that one.

  I’m so pleased with myself that I skip all the way to the hotel bar, where I know Georgia will be camped out refereeing a bunch of player interviews with journalists.

  “Wow,” she says when I show her the video. “Did my husband pass this test?”

  “Yes!” I tell her.

  “Well, good. Because it’s a great video. We’ll definitely pick up a bunch of followers with this. And the hubby won’t be grumpy about it, either. Well done!”

  “It was Wilson’s idea,” I say quickly. “He should get the credit.”

  She smiles and shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll post it to the account right now, okay?”

  “Awesome.”

  “But now you have to think up something else. Social media is like a beast that always needs to be fed, so you can’t rest on your laurels.”

  “Oh God. I have to do this again?”

  Georgia cackles. “Yeah, but now you have more experience. What made this video so fun?”

  Well, butts. But I don’t say that out loud. “Competition,” I say instead.

  “Right! People love competition. So go to the scrimmage tomorrow and see what shenanigans you can get on video.”

  “All right,” I say, strangely energized. “Good idea.” And I stride off, only to discover that half the team is crowded around a few pool tables at the back of the lobby.

  “Hey, intern!” Wilson says, waving me over. “There’s a hundred bucks riding on this game. Where’s your camera?”

  I draw it out faster than a Wild West cowboy in a duel. But it’s surprisingly hard to film a game of pool. “I think I need to be up high,” I mutter. “This would be so much more interesting from above.”

  “Hop up,” Wilson says.

  “Sorry?”

  “Climb onto my shoulders.” He kneels down in front of me, his back turned. “Quick, before Castro lines up his shot.”

  Sometimes a girl doesn’t need to be told twice. I sling a leg over Wilson’s shoulder, but it’s so high off the ground that he has to fold himself into a ball so I can clamber on.

  I manage, though, and a half second later I’m rising into the air at a speed so frightening that I wrap a forearm right around his big head.

  He laughs, and the mountain shakes beneath me. But I grab my phone with my free hand and aim it down at the table, just in time for Castro to pop the cue ball up over the eight ball. Then it rolls forward, tapping another ball into a corner pocket.

  The bar erupts with cheers. And on his next shot, he sinks another ball with a glancing shot into a side pocket. It’s pretty tricky stuff. But he misses an impossible combination after that.

  “Show’s over!” Tankiewicz says. “Watch how the grownups do this.” He makes a show of chalking up his stick.

  “How’s your angle?” Wilson asks from beneath me.

  “It’s great!” I chirp from my roost near the ceiling. “Sorry I ate those cookies after dinner.”

  He laughs, and squeezes my shins gently. “I won’t drop ya.”

  “I know you won’t,” I say. “Thanks for the lift. You’re a fun time, Wilson. I told Georgia that the cake check video was all your doing.”

  He twists his head around to look up at me. “Thanks, girly. That was nice of you. But I don’t need to get credit. I’m just in it for the fun.”

  A day ago I wouldn’t have thought this stuff could ever be fun. But I guess he showed me.

  “All right, Tank!” Castro jeers. “Show us young kids how this is done.”

  “Oh, we’re going with age jokes now?” the veteran says, leaning over the table. “Watch and learn, sonny boy.”

  The shot he’s set up is so complicated that until the balls begin to move, I’m not exactly sure what he’s aiming at. But then he knocks a stripe into another stripe, which heads left for the corner pocket. But not before it taps another ball into the side pocket.

  Hockey players surround the table, hooting their approval.

  “Damn!” Wilson says beneath me. “Both your games are goin’ places lately!”

  “Tell ‘em why, honey,” Heidi Jo says, poking her hus
band in the hip. “How is your game improving?” She bats her eyelashes.

  Castro actually looks a little sheepish as he chalks up his cue. “Heidi Jo has been giving me lessons.” Everyone in the bar roars. And then Castro looks up at me. “That’s off the record, intern.”

  “Your secret is safe with me, sir,” I squeak.

  They all laugh louder.

  “All right, babe, you can clear this in three shots,” Heidi Jo says to her husband. “Take the number two and the number four on this turn. “Corner and side.”

  He manages that shot and misses the next. So Tank sets up another doozy.

  It’s a really fun game, and it’s over too soon. Castro wins, but only with Heidi Jo’s coaching. Wilson sets me down carefully on the floor. “Did you get some good footage?”

  “Yes, thanks to you. It’s going to make a pretty good video.” But not a great video, if I’m honest. Everyone plays pool, right? Many of the fans are probably better than the hockey players are. Unless… “Hey, Wilson? What would happen if you tried to play pool at the rink? If there were pucks numbered like pool balls?”

  “Holy crapola!” he shouts. “I gotta try that. Who’s with me?”

  * * *

  That’s how I find myself in the bucket of a cherry picker at eight the next night, twenty five feet into the air over the Long Island rink the team uses for training camp.

  A cherry picker! It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of heights.

  “Why does a hockey rink have a cherry picker?” I ask Wilson, who’s in the basket with me. He’s my self-appointed PR assistant, even if I can’t figure out why he’d bother.

  “To hang jerseys and banners from the ceiling!” he says, as if that should be obvious to me. “Hey Jimbo!” he shouts to the equipment manager, who’s down on the ice. “The two ball is outa whack.”

  “On it!” Jimbo yells back. He adjusts the ball, tucking it back into formation. I had to drive around Long Island today looking for billiard balls, because Wilson said that the pucks wouldn’t have the right mass to pull off combination shots on ice.

  I spent a hundred bucks, too, before Georgia offered to reimburse me. “There’s a budget for this foolishness,” she’d said cheerfully. “Just save your receipts.”

  Did I mention this is a strange job?

  “Who’s going to break?” Wilson calls down to his teammates.

  “Me!” Castro says, skating into view with the cue ball in his hand. He sets it down on the ice.

  I’ve got my phone clamped to the bucket, and now I press record. “Hold still,” I say to Wilson, who’s so heavy that the cherry picker shakes a little whenever he moves.

  “Roger dodger.” He gives me a grin, like he’s never had so much fun.

  And as soon as Castro hits the cue ball with his stick, I’m having fun, too. The break works perfectly, cracking into the number one ball with a satisfying smack, and scattering the balls in every direction.

  Tankiewicz actually has to jump over one that’s heading his way on the ice.

  “Stripes!” Castro yells as the number thirteen crosses through one of the corner “pockets” on our makeshift pool table. The so-called table is about thirty feet long, with wooden four-by-fours for bumpers. Those set us back eight dollars each, and Wilson bought them at Home Depot an hour ago, cutting them with a hand saw he picked up for thirty bucks. Then I painted them dark green for another fourteen bucks.

  The pockets are just gaps in the table’s outline. Since Castro only sank a single ball, now he’s circling the table on skates, trying to find his second shot.

  “Betcha can’t pull off a combination on the number ten,” Tank taunts him.

  Castro does a little spin move and takes the bait, lining up his shot and firing.

  “This is genius,” Wilson says as the balls clack into one another. “I play winner!”

  * * *

  It’s midnight by the time we arrive back at the hotel. The game was such a hit with the players that everyone wanted a turn. I’ll get several videos out of this footage—three cutthroat games that will be super fun for fans to watch, plus a couple of other silly antics I captured from my perch above the action.

  “Thanks for all your help,” I say to Wilson as we walk down the carpeted hallway at the hotel. “That was really fun.”

  “Yah, the funnest,” he agrees, smiling at me.

  I pull out my key card and stop in front of my door. “Can’t wait to see this footage.”

  “Hey, I could pour you a beer and we can celebrate.”

  “Oh, no thanks. I’m not really into beer. And I have a million hours of editing ahead of me.”

  “Kay,” he says with a shrug. “Night, Stacey.”

  “Night!”

  He strides down the hallway on those long legs, and I swipe my card past the sensor.

  “Wow,” another voice says, and I whirl around to find a woman standing there in the hallway, her own key card in hand. “You said you’re not into beer?” She shakes her head. “Girl, that wasn’t about the beer.”

  My mouth hinges open in surprise. “What?”

  “That hockey player totally hit on you.” She shakes her head again, like I’m completely obtuse. “I’d be into anything that man wanted from me. Such a waste.” Then she goes into her room and shuts the door with a loud click.

  He was hitting on me?

  That couldn’t possibly be true.

  Could it?

  Oh my God.

  I stand there like a dummy for a beat too long, and end up having to unlock my door a second time. I push inside, disgusted with myself.

  Why am I so slow on the uptake? Was he really hitting on me? I’d assumed he was just a fun guy taking pity on the hapless intern. And maybe he was. How does anybody know the difference?

  I march over to my bed and flop my body onto it. I’m going to be single my whole life, apparently. Flirting is just as confusing to me as social media. I’ll never learn the tricks. I’ll never understand the little codes and hashtags that other people seem to soak with no apparent effort.

  I’m doomed.

  And I still have several hours of editing ahead of me.

  3

  It takes me three hours to edit the first two videos. I label one of them as Match One and the other as Match Two, and when I show them to Georgia in the morning, she claps her hands in delight.

  “These are adorable. And did you see how many new followers we got after the cake check video?”

  “No, how many?”

  She barks out a laugh. “That was a rhetorical question, because I thought for sure you’d be checking every hour. That’s what obsessive publicists do.”

  “I guess we both know now that I’ll never understand this job.”

  Smiling, she shakes her head. “You’re adorable. But you also got a hundred thousand new followers yesterday.”

  I blink. “Did you say a hundred thousand? Because of butts?”

  “Because of competition and charm,” she corrects. “And—fine—also butts. This pool table thing is going to impress people, too. So what do you have planned next?”

  “Uh…” I rub my tired eyes. “Coffee.”

  “Good plan. But you don’t have another idea?”

  “Not yet,” I admit.

  “Well, now that our audience is on the rise, we need to feed them something new today. What if you did a video featuring yourself?” she asks.

  “No!” I yelp. “That’ll never work. I’m not very interesting.”

  “So what?” Georgia says. “Think of all those viewers who follow the team—they’d like to be you, right? Not every girl gets a week at training camp to see it all firsthand. They’d like to meet a hockey player and get a fist bump, you know?”

  “Sure,” I say, because now that I’ve gotten to know a few hockey players, I totally see her point. Except that every time I remember turning down Wilson’s offer to share a beer last night, I feel a cold shiver of embarrassment. What was I thinking?
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  “Exactly. So just…show that. Show how much fun it is to be here. Keep it simple, and have something new this afternoon, okay?”

  “This afternoon?” I yelp.

  “Right. Good, good,” Georgia says, distracted by the chaos of an entire hockey team beginning to descend on the hotel lobby. It’s almost time for their scrimmage. “Have fun with it,” she says before waving me off.

  “Lord,” I mutter under my breath. “Like I’ll ever figure out how to do that.”

  “Do what?” Wilson says from close range.

  I startle at the sound of his voice. Violently.

  “Whoa,” he says, catching my elbow. “Easy there. Something wrong?”

  My face reddens. I don’t even know what to say to him anymore. He’s saved my ass so many times this week, and then I missed my big chance with him.

  Then I tilt my chin up to see his wide face, with those big hazel eyes with the smile crinkles in the corners. And I decide that maybe that girl in the hallway last night was wrong. This rugged, self-assured creature could not have been hitting on me. That’s just impossible.

  I feel better suddenly. I didn’t waste a thing. It was all in my imagination. “Nothing is the matter,” I tell him. “Are you ready to scrimmage?”

  “Born ready. The crowd at these things is fun, too. Bunch of kids and their families, you know? They’re pumped up to watch pro hockey in a small venue. Be ready, though—it’s loud in there. Like, ear plugs would be a good idea.”

  “Noted,” I say, returning his smile. “Maybe I’ll get some fun footage of little kids geeking out over hockey.”

  “There you go,” he says, only it sounds a bit like dere you go with his accent.

  I take a deep breath. “I know I said it already, but you’ve helped me so much this week. I really appreciate it.”

  He winks. That’s all I get—a cryptic wink—before he strides across the lobby to catch the bus to the rink.

  * * *

  Up until now, I’ve toiled for a team that was mostly on vacation. While I worked in the Bruisers’ offices, the players were on vacation.

  Still, I felt like I understood the organization. I’ve worked in several capacities in the business office. I’ve crunched their numbers. I’ve toured the vaunted dressing room, with the Brooklyn seal in the center of the carpet. And now I’ve met the team at training camp.