Page 9 of Big Stick Energy
“I gotallthe respect for her. She works for the worst man in hockey and still manages to smile. But apparently there’s another side to Darcy, and she only wants to show it toyou. If it were me, I’d hit that. Two consenting adults just trying to survive a weekend of family drama and rubbery chicken.”
“Sure,” I scoff. “Now there’s a simple conversation.”
He laughs. “Didn’t say it would be easy. Just said it would be worth it.” He pulls open the door to the Palmetto Room, and we walk in.
“Remember—this is in the vault,” I say sternly. “And maybe it won’t come up at all. She might not even see that her message went to the wrong person, right?” I scan the room, looking for Darcy’s smile or a flash of her ginger hair. She’s easy to notice. I notice her all the time, come to think of it. DeLuca wasn’t wrong—she does have a sort of hot librarian vibe, and I dig it.
Sure enough, I spot her almost immediately, even in a busy room where two dozen people are milling around and talking loudly. But there’s Darcy. She’s holding a notebook and standing over the GM, who looks to be mid-rant about something. The guy is a hothead on his best day.
The moment I spot her, though, Darcy’s chin lifts, and her gaze locks on mine. And then she turns the color of the Calgary Flames logo.
“Uh-oh, I think she knows,” DeLuca says. “Hope your tux is ready for action.”
“Stop,” I hiss.
Poor Darcy takes a step back from her boss’s table, and then another one. The grouch barks something at her, but Darcy doesn’t even seem to hear him.
She turns and flees instead.
Chapter 4
Babe, You’re Catastrophizing
Darcy
Oh God. How could I have been so stupid?
This singular thought cycles through my mind as I lie face down on my hotel bed.
I can’t believe he actually saw the message, thenguessedwho sent it. How could I be so unlucky?
And so, so stupid.
The only silver lining—and it’s a thin one—is that the DM itself is silly. It’s sexual, but it’s over-the-top to the point of ridiculousness. Thank God for that. Because the truth is actually worse—that I want Eric in other ways, too. Not just in a vague, celebrity-crush kind of way. But in the way you want someone to see the real you.
I want to be the person he saves a seat for. The one he texts when something stupid happens. The one he trusts with the stuff that matters. I want that more than I’ll ever admit aloud.
My phone buzzes suddenly, and I flinch. If it’s my boss callingto ask why I disappeared mid-conversation, I might have to feign food poisoning.
But it’s not him. It’s Zoe. Of course it is. “Hello?”
“Why is your voice muffled?” she demands. “And where are you? I saved you a seat.”
“I’m in our room,” I say, cradling a pillow over my head as I speak. “I’m never coming out. And I can never look him in the eye again.”
Zoe makes a noise of concern. “He’ll probably never evenseethe message. He has a social media person.”
“Oh, he saw it.”
“How do you know?”
“Helookedat me,” I insist.
“People do that. Maybe you’re reading too much into a glance across the room. Maybe he saw you and thought—I need to remember to turn in my per diem forms.”
“No way,” I insist. “Heblushed, Zoe. He’s a blusher, like me. I know what I saw.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Okay. Well. That’s unfortunate. Why would he read his own DMs?”
