I narrowed my eyes. “I play a clean game. I’m gay. So for one thing, there’s no chance of a woman scorned, and two, no hockey player has issues with me. None of what you said makes any sense at all.”
He tapped the pad and looked thoughtful. “You’re wrong.”
“Huh? Just like that, I’m wrong? Does being a dime-store psychologist come with your job description?”
“You don’t have a reputation as being one of the hockey bad guys. If anything you’re the player people want to be. Brilliant on the ice, with skills that earn you the big money, and a team that molds around you. To an outsider, you’re living the dream, and you’ve had it easy. You’ve never been traded, you’re a Dragon through and through, you have a Stanley Cup to your name, and that kind of thing can build resentment in a player who perhaps hasn’t had the same advantages. You have the kind of sex appeal that gets you noticed, women love you and want to turn you, men want to be you. In fact, you have everything that others might want.”
I was stuck for a moment on his use of sex in the sentence? Who even used a word like that in regular business conversations? Also, what the hell with the implication I had it easy?
“Hang on, I work hard for what I have, I didn’t get the team and my skills handed to me on a platter—”
“I never said that—”
“You just did—”
“I said that people’s perceptions might be that you are a lucky but untalented man who needs to be shown a lesson or two.”
“Then they don’t know me,” I snapped, and immediately wished I could’ve taken it back because I’d taken the debate a step further.
“We can’t discount the man, or woman, who sees you as a challenge.” He was so frustratingly patient as he explained. “It could be a fan who thinks that a gay man doesn’t belong in the high testosterone environment of professional hockey. It could be someone from school, a neighbor, even a fellow hockey player. Hell, it could be the barista from the coffee shop you use.”
“Jesus.”
“But there is one thing at least that has made you a target, and we have to find that thing. This action could be personal to you, or in a broader sense it could be directed at the team. Either way, this is what Deamax will find out.” He paused for a moment. “I have your game schedule, so let’s talk about the personal stuff.”
Until I’d walked into this room, I’d thought it would be easy to forget any of this was happening. Put the whole thing down to a string of coincidences, but the way that Jason talked, it was this web of nightmare scenarios, and I was stuck in the middle like a fly waiting for the spider. I was confident that I could fight back if I were attacked again, I was ready for it, poised on edge most of the time, waiting for someone to try to push me from behind. So yeah, I was irritable and defensive with it, but the way he expanded on this network of possible reasons why someone wanted to hurt me made my head hurt, and my fears ramped up.
“I don’t have any personal stuff.”
“You have All-Star weekend?”
“That’s part of the hockey,” I murmured.
“It’s still something out of the ordinary, as is this bachelor auction you’re attending.”
“I guess it is.”
“I’ve already risk assessed the entire All-Star weekend, and it won’t be easy, but we have to handle the event side of it because the team wants that to go ahead as much as possible. On the other hand, the risk I attribute to the additional auction where complete strangers bid on you makes your attendance there a no.”
He talked like it was a done deal.
“What do you mean, no? It’s my event, I’m on the organizing committee, it’s raising money for charity—”
“The hotel is in Boystown, and it’s old, and not easy to cover.” He interrupted me with impatience in his tone. “You would be exposed and alone on the stage, not to mention the random guests staying in the hotel who are not even there for the event.”
“I’m not backing out of the auction.” God, how many times would I have to say this today? “And that’s my final word. This event is important and there’s no compromise on this.” I could be just as stubborn and hold my position as if I was fighting for a puck in the corner.
He glanced up at me and I wondered if he was waiting for me to retract all of that. Well, he’d be waiting a long time.
I crossed my arms over my chest and pasted on my best badass expression. I probably looked like an idiot, given I was known as the fast skater, the Instagram-using-player, the pretty boy, but not the hard man of hockey.
Finally, when the stare-off had been heading toward uncomfortable, he nodded. “I’ll take your comments under advisement and a further look at the risk assessment. However, at this time it’s still a no—”
“You don’t have to be there with me—”
“That’s not how this works—”
“The event is my hardline,” I snapped. “All the rest, you moving into my apartment, shadowing me, doing whatever you need to do, that’s okay, but this event means everything to me, and that fucker out there messing with my life will not ruin the good all of us can do for the charity.” By this time, I’d worked up a temper, and my hands were in fists in my lap, weeks of being angry at all of this winding up inside me with nowhere to go.
“Have you considered you could just donate—?”
“It’s not about money. It’s being visible, and standing up for every kid who is questioning who they are and wants to play hockey. It’s about showing investors and managers and companies that use my face to sell their products that you can be gay and play professional hockey. It’s for the kids and the game, and it’s important.” I ran out of steam.
He nodded. “Okay, Garrett,” he said, with reluctance. “Okay.”
Chapter Four
I was still in stubborn-ass mode when we broke to leave for my apartment. I picked up my gear, and he followed me like a puppy until we got to the doors, which he opened for me and checked beyond before letting me go through. This was overkill and there was no way I was letting this ride.
“I can open my own damn doors,” I muttered and beat him to the next one which led into the locker room. With some kind of fancy maneuver he was still there opening the door.
“But can you deal with the gunman on the other side?” Jason asked, and I swear his lips twitched in a smile. Asshole.
“If I had my hockey stick, yeah,” I said, and that small smile widened a little. Was I getting through to the man? Was he finally understanding that I was capable of looking after myself? I relaxed and took a step forward, and in a move so fast I never saw it, Jason had me up against a wall, pressing something under my chin. I couldn’t move; he’d pinned me, and he leaned in close to my ear. A flash of what had happened behind the bar had me stiffening and panicked.
“I have a gun,” he murmured, and pushed up under my chin a little more. “Where’s your hockey stick now?”
“Get the fuck off me!” I yelled, terrified at the thought of his weapon discharging by accident and taking my head off. He backed away, pocketing the pen that he’d been pressing to my throat. The adrenalin that slammed into me at this point made me bend at the waist. “You’re a fucking asshole.”