Page 9

Mitch and I chuckle. The women… do not.

“Okaaaay, how about we use this opportunity to go grab a coffee, Sienna?” Lauren asks.

“I’d gladly get out of here for… what, Jax, like half an hour until you’re gone?” She gives me a petulant smirk, to which I respond like a married grown-up, rolling my eyes.

“I’ll miss you, cutie pie. Don’t talk too much about me. Yearning is only attractive on BookTok,” I say as the ladies make to leave.

“As if you’ve ever read a book, Jax-ass,” Sienna gripes, and I silently admit, I enjoyed that one.

“Bring me back a pastry,” Mitch calls after them.

“There’ll be no saturated fat for you,” Lauren tells Mitch, before dropping a gentle kiss to his forehead. The kind that makes my insides ache, because jokes aside, Mitch’s incident at breakfast yesterday was scary as hell for all of us, but it must’ve been terrifying for the woman who loves him.

“Pull up a seat,” Mitch says, and I do.

He might be the VP of Comms for the Dragons but he’s as much a coach to half of us team guys as a tactical coach is on the ice. The lessons he’s taught us, particularly me, about conducting ourselves for the media and in public have been more than my own dad ever taught me.

My own dad was briefly a pro football star until an injury ended his dream. Now he’s a multi-millionaire sports agent, mostly still specializing in football. He was always more concerned with making me and TJ stars on the ice – while being quietly pissed off that we didn’t follow in his football footsteps – than he was giving us life advice or putting an arm around our shoulders.

So, I don’t want to be sentimental and shit but I like Mitch. He’s been here since I first joined the Dragons. I was seventh in a first-round draft pick five years ago and I’ve been here since. I’ve got myself an eight-year contract with the franchise. The team is home and all the staff are part of our family.

“How’re you feeling?” I ask him, my voice breaking annoyingly as all the humor in the room walked out to get coffee.

“I’ve felt better, kid.”

“Yeah, those two-day hangovers are a bitch.”

He laughs, then immediately starts coughing and holds his chest. I’m up out of my seat, hands on his shoulders and encouraging him back into his pillows. “Come on, old man, if I kill you, Lauren will cut off my balls. In which case, I might as well be dead, too.”

He grins at that one. Calmer and more controlled. I can handle controlled. Crisis is not my forte. The only conflicts I enjoy are in the barn with the opposition.

“Have they said what your recovery plan is?” I ask.

“It’s early days but they’ve suggested I be off work for at least six weeks. Apparently, stress isn’t good for mending a genetically dodgy heart.”

“Go figure.”

I did come here primarily to check in on a friend, but my secondary purpose came to me while I was lying in the bed of my Pharaoh suite last night, wifeless.

“About that…” I say, “I was thinking, what about hiring Sienna to cover while you’re out?”

Mitch’s focus narrows on me. “Go on.”

“Well, I still don’t exactly know how all you guys managed to let someone as sensible as her marry me, especially dressed as a minion.” He chuckles.

I’ve seen the evidence on TJ’s phone – my brother didn’t think to stop the ceremony but did kindly film it for the memories – Sienna and I looked happy as hell, drunk as hell, and like two minions fumbling to put jelly rings on each other’s fingers. Not quite the big white dress I’m sure Sienna had in mind to marry Carl.

“Though my memory isn’t crystal clear, I do remember some of my pre-wedding logic. See, Sienna is employed by her business, not an owner, like I always assumed. She and that dickfest set things up that way for her visa, until they got married. Now, she obviously can’t go back and work for the jackass, but she’s not marrying the dick either, I’m certain of that. Which means…”

“She’ll lose her visa status,” Mitch says, and I nod in response.

“She wouldn’t have to if she stuck with my plan for us to get hitched and, you know, stay hitched. But since she’s adamant we’re cancelling this thing, then she will, yeah. She could be deported.”

“But if the Dragons were to employ her, she keeps her visa sponsorship alive.”

Mitch is looking at me in a way he doesn’t usually. I think he might be taking me seriously. Scrutinizing the fact I’ve actually strung two thoughts together in a comprehensible way.

For the record, I’m not stupid. I fuck around a lot and I’m a prankster but I did okay at college. Dad forced me and TJ to go to college because he knew that a professional sports career could be ended overnight. Something we argued about relentlessly, but ultimately, I went. Actually, being the captain of the college hockey team gets you laid a lot. So it wasn’t all bad.