Page 32 of The Game Plan

He glances my way and gives me a soft smile. “Temporary Mitch?” he asks.

I reciprocate the smile. “Awful name, I know. I’m not sure what my parents were thinking,” I tell him. His chuckle is gentle, unobtrusive, settling. “Sienna,” I say, holding out one hand as I grab a warm plate from a stack in the other.

“Michael. It’s good to meet you. I’ve heard your name mentioned a lot this morning already.”

“Temporary Mitch?”

“Mrs Harris,” he says, getting back to business.

I choke on the air around me. Mrs Harris? Mr and Mrs Harris? Good Lord. If there was a hole I could crawl into, I would. This sham marriage doesn’t get any less cringeworthy the more times it’s mentioned.

“People are surprised, huh?” I ask, trying to remain neutral as I think, no one more than me.

He finishes plating up green beans next to a stack of chicken and turns to face me. We’re the only people in line now. Suddenly the lights are hot on my skin. That, or embarrassment.

“You know, I’m not,” he says. “I get to work with the guys one on one and I spent a lot of time last year keeping Jax in good shape to play through a quad tear. Anyway, there’s more to him than the show pony. You obviously see that, too.”

“Obviously,” I say.

“I’m pleased for you both.” He nods to the seating behind us. “Nice to meet you, Sienna.”

“And you, Michael.”

I start to plate up salad – unexpectedly nice-looking salad that I’ll have a problem eating every day – biting my gum as I do. Another side to Jax. I actually have seen it before. The first time I met him. He was angry and upset that a one-night stand with a woman had in fact been a hook-up with a married woman with two young kids.

He was more concerned with that relationship not being exposed for the sake of her children than the fact she’d told him she was single, lied to get the hockey star into bed. I have my suspicions that it was actually her who leaked the night to the media. Still, Jax paid settlements to three media outlets to keep it schtum.

Maybe that’s the side to him that made me spend the day (and night) with him in Las Vegas.

Now, though, I hear him shouting and bantering, leading the charge of him and three teammates as they come into the diner. God he’s brash.

Suddenly my heart is racing. This is his real life. Our real lives. And they’re on a collision course with our very fake lives. I close my eyes, taking in a breath, then finish plating my lunch.

When I’m all set, I expect the players to be in line behind me but they’ve gone to sit down with the other Dragons.

Turning to the room with my tray of food, I do a quick scan of the space. There are a few members of my team sitting together on a table with the ice manager and some staff from Accounts. There are familiar faces at the squad tables because I’ve worked with some of the Dragons for a while, but all of a sudden, I feel like an imposter. These tables, circles of people, are closed.

Who wants to sit with the new girl? Who wants to have their group infiltrated, especially by someone temporary?

I changed school once. I was thirteen – a shitty age to change anything other than wild hormones on a daily basis. My dad was, still is, a landscape gardener. He’d had a client for years – Dorothy Leeson – a wealthy woman, who made the best pies. She’d never had kids and her husband – the source of her wealth – had already passed. When she died, Dorothy left a windfall of money to us, on the basis it was used solely for my education.

It was an incredibly generous gift and, of course, I was moved from my local school to a more prestigious one. It was my first experience of this, not knowing my place or how I fit in. At school, I found solace in work ethic, library books, academic and sporting achievements. I never felt like I belonged with the kids who’d been born into money, who wore the best shoes and had flawlessly glossy hair. But never more so than my first day in the school canteen.

The memory of standing before the entire school hall, feeling like an outsider, smacks me now like a mallet in a fairground.

I haven’t thought about that day again before now.

I glance around, intentionally not seeking out Jax and his teammates – the cool kids, I guess. I can’t rely on the man-child to get me out of this hole.

Locating an empty table, and for want of a better option, I take myself to it, wondering how I woke this morning as a confident, professional woman, and now feel like an ostracized girl.

Setting my purse on the chair next to me, I take out my phone, not because I want to per se but because I need to fidget with something. I need the distraction and excuse to look down rather than into scrutinizing eyes.

There are three message notifications on the screen:

Mom

Have a great Monday, sweetie. You’re going to crush it x