Page 41 of The Game Plan

“Hi, Logan, how are you?”

“Me? I should be asking you, shouldn’t I?”

“How do you mean?” I ask, sitting into a plush sofa seat and taking hold of my drink.

“Mrs Harris?”

Blood reroutes from my brain, directly to my cheeks, and notice the way Logan checks out the old gold band on my wedding finger, which was a graduation gift from my parents seven years ago.

“Right. That.” I take a drink, buying myself time because, perhaps naively, I haven’t thought about how to address questions about Jax and me to the wider world.

“I can’t believe anyone managed to tame Jax but I’m not surprised it would be someone formidable, like you.”

“You know him well?” I ignore the formidable comment because if he knew how much of a shambles my life is right now, he’d think the opposite.

“Yeah, we were teammates in college.”

“I didn’t know that, though I probably ought to have. Don’t tell me, he was most likely to finish a keg of beer and still have the energy of an excitable puppy the next day?”

He laughs, displaying his trademark poster smile.

“That’s fairly accurate. He’d still be first on the rink and to class when the rest of us were still in bed.”

“Now that I struggle to believe.”

“No, really. His dad used to ride him so hard.” He looks out into the distance. “We had that in common. Made us who we are, I guess.”

I think of Jax’s dad. I know him as a cutthroat sports agent. I suppose I could imagine him being strict with Jax. “Maybe that’s why he rebels now. My husband can’t make a bed, won’t cook and can’t even fathom putting away his own mess.”

Logan nods as he drinks. “He’s a good guy, though. He takes his daddy issues out on the rink, like the rest of us, and only brings the fun off it. You obviously know that.”

I don’t really. I don’t know my other half much at all.

“He must have swept you off your feet. Last time we met, you were with Carl.”

“Yes.” My skin flushes, again, and I take a long slow glug of iced coffee. “That’s actually part of the reason I wanted to meet you. I’m temporarily helping out the Dragons with comms, while their VP recovers from some health issues, but…”

I relay matter-of-factly my departure from Lancer PR, my business, and tell him I’m gearing up to set up a new business, whatever that looks like.

I leave out that Carl cheated on me. I don’t want to bad-mouth him for reasons of business or my own embarrassment – I wasn’t enough to keep him.

“And so you ended up with this guy,” Logan says, inclining his head across the street, where Jax is walking by with his brother and Zach.

He’s wearing shades but he’s boring holes in Logan and me, I’m certain of it. He says something to the others, then holds up a hand to halt a passing car and makes a beeline for Logan and me.

“You chatting up my wife, L-dog?” he says to Logan, though his focus is on me as he man-hugs his old college teammate.

“I don’t know how you managed to get a woman like Si, man. How you doing?”

“I’ll be better once the Dragons set the tone for the season tonight.”

“Ha. Ain’t that right?” Logan says.

Jax swings a heavy seat from the empty table adjacent to ours and sits next to me. I give him the look, subtly, I hope, like what are you doing? I’m working.

But Logan asks, “What are you having, man? My town, my shout.” Jax sits unprofessionally close to me and drapes a lazy arm across the back of my seat. If looks could kill, I’d be a serial Jax murderer.

“These look good, thanks,” Jax says, gesturing to our drinks.