Breaking South (Turner Artist Rocker #3) - Alyson Santos Page 0,1
since I was old enough to be paraded in front of cameras. No, this is worse. It’s sinister. A shadow that made my few seconds in front of the mirror just now unbearable.
“You okay?” Hadley asks.
I blink over at her, realizing I missed the last few things she’d said. “Oh, yeah. Fine.”
Her eyes change as she studies me, and I look away. No time to explain the unexplainable. I hate mirrors now, Hadley. Fix that.
“Who’s The Hockey Player anyway?” I ask by way of a distraction. Maybe I’m kind of curious too. Growing up in L.A., I’ve been a Trojans fan most of my life.
“Oh. Um…” She checks her notes. “Oliver Levesque.”
The injured goalie? Hmm. I suppose he’s still a big name with the savior-of-the-franchise phenom status bestowed upon him in his rookie season last year. But that was before The Hit Heard Around the NHL. There’s talk he’ll be out this entire season with a vicious ACL tear.
“Levesque? Isn’t he on injured reserve right now?”
“Right, sorry. Not your thing,” I say with a smile. “I just mean… Well, maybe that makes sense. His schedule is probably pretty clear at the moment.” Playoff hero to team PR whore? He can’t be happy about that.
Hadley’s face scrunches into a mix of admiration and disgust. “It’s adorable how much you know about hockey.”
“It’s criminal how much you don’t.”
“Perfect complements we are. It’s what makes us such a great team.”
I return her smile, but the mood settles again as she gets lost in her work and I get lost in my head. Because once it’s silent… there’s that horrible mirror again. I hear it shouting from across the room, reaching out invisible tentacles to reel me in. It wants me to look, always looking but never finding. Always seeing but never understanding.
She stares at no one.
And suddenly, I can’t breathe. This room is too big and too small and too bright and just too freaking much right now.
“Hey, so, I’m gonna take a walk before showtime. Clear my head. We have a few minutes, right?”
Hadley glances up, concern etched into her face. She nods slowly, her gaze locked on me. “You sure you’re okay?”
I force a smile—my killer, show-stopping one—and close the container of half-eaten salad. “Absolutely. Just, you know, with the pace lately, I need a minute. I’ll be back in time for touch-ups before we go out.”
“You want company?”
“No, I’ll be fine. You have a lot to do. In fact, keep them also.” I motion toward Brett and Walt stationed at the entrance.
“They won’t like you wandering around alone.”
I smirk and push to my feet. “Yes, well, they do like what I pay them, so they can suck it up.”
Once I escape that stifling mirror, the air comes a little easier. The practice building is smaller than the cavernous arenas I’m accustomed to, more laidback and intimate with its carpeted hallways and team memorabilia lining the walls. Best part, with the Trojans out of town on an East Coast road trip, this place is a ghost village except for the occasional maintenance worker or member of my crew. I’m sure the main rink area is packed with press and guests, but back here, I’m free to be no one. Gosh, I just want to be no one for a while.
I run my fingers along the wall as I wander the corridors like a new Disney princess in her first castle. If I started singing, would a handful of creepy talking rodents assemble? Maybe those annoyingly happy birds. See, no one talks about the excrement those rats and birds would leave behind. Still, I’ll take a fake castle over a real one any day. The deserted conference room could be my pretend dining hall. The training rooms, my royal spa. Oh, and the weight room—
“Fuck!”
I stop cold at the cry—very close, very male, and very violent. Peeking through the wall of glass to the team gym, I find two men glaring intently at each other.
“Ollie, you need to stop for today.”
“I can do it!”
“I’m serious, man. You’ve been at it since the crack of dawn and—”
“I can fucking do it, Carlos!”
The older man grunts and steps back as the younger one lifts his right leg to balance on his left. He lowers about an inch, holding the position for a split second before buckling. Carlos lurches forward to catch him before he hits the ground. A long string of French expletives