Offside (5 page)

Dulcie sighed. “I have so much to do
before I leave on mat leave.”

The foundation had a number of
existing projects that were well-organized and which Honey felt
would be easy for her to step into in Dulcie’s place. Well,
relatively easy, once she got to know them all. When it came to
finding generous corporate donors to sponsor some of the events,
ideas were popping into Honey’s head as she looked over the list of
past years’ sponsors.

“When is your baby due?” she asked
Dulcie.

“In about a month. But I’ll be going
on leave in two weeks.”

Ack. Honey’d been hoping that before
Dulcie left she’d be able to learn enough to step into her shoes
and show everyone she could really help out. That wasn’t very
long.

“And when do you plan to come back?”
Honey asked.

“I’ll be taking my twelve weeks of
maternity leave.”

Honey nodded. Even though they
apparently had no intention of her actually filling Dulcie’s
position, she was making that her goal. They might not have any
faith in her abilities but she was going to show them. The
temptation to quit still lingered, but she had a stubborn streak
that was being riled up and dammit, she was not going to let them
push her into a corner. So she had two weeks to learn as much as
she could before Dulcie left and then three months to prove to them
she could do the job. No pressure at all.

Matt walked in to the office just as
she was walking back to her cubicle with a coffee from the small
kitchen/break room. He smelled like shower gel, his hair damp, face
still a little flushed. Her heart skipped a beat at his presence,
filling the room with his size and big smile.

“Hi,” she said. “I’ll just let Dulcie
know you’re here. Um…would you like some coffee?”

“No thanks. Don’t drink
coffee.”

“Anything else…juice? Water?” She
wasn’t sure if they had juice, but they had a water
cooler.

“I’m good. Just drank a few gallons
after practice.”

“Okay. Have a seat. We’ll be right
with you.”

She hustled down the corridor toward
Dulcie’s cubicle, her spiky heels muted on the carpet. She could
hear Dulcie’s low voice as she approached.

“She’s driving me crazy with all her
questions,” Honey heard. “Oh. My. God. Why did Trent saddle me with
her when I’m trying to take care of stuff before I go?”

Honey paused, her insides seizing.
Heat washed down over her and her fingers tightened on the paper
cup of coffee she held. She blinked unseeingly as another voice
responded, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. Maybe
we can keep her busy sorting paper clips.”

Celina, the other Programming
Coordinator.

Honey closed her eyes briefly then
drew in a big breath. “Hey, Dulcie,” she called out, moving her
feet forward again. She stretched her lips into a smile and moved
into the opening of Dulcie’s cubicle. Celina half-sat on one side
of the L-shaped desk and Honey caught the flash of something that
might have been guilt on both their faces as they realized she’d
been so close while they’d been talking about her. She lifted her
chin, keeping the smile in place, but the tension in the air
clearly told her they could tell her smile was fake and they
suspected she’d heard them. “Matt Heller is here for our
meeting.”

“Oh, great,” Dulcie said quickly,
swiveling in her chair to reach for some files on her desk. “We can
go into the boardroom.”

“Okay. See you there.”

Honey returned to her own desk for her
paper and pen then headed back to the reception area where Matt sat
on one of the small chairs, dwarfing it. Nerves jittering now from
seeing him and from the conversation she’d just overheard, she
struggled to keep her composure.

“Come on in to the boardroom,” she
said. “Dulcie will be right with us.”

He followed her down the hall and she
was acutely aware of him behind her as she walked on her high heels
in her snug pencil skirt. She led the way into the boardroom and
gestured for him to have a seat. He threw his big body down into a
leather chair.

“How are things going?” he asked.
“Second day on the job, right?”

“Right. Things are going great.” She
flashed the biggest smile she could. “I have a lot to learn, but
I’m super excited to be here.”

His gaze moved over her face and she
had the feeling she might have been a little too enthusiastic in
her response. She certainly wasn’t about to tell him the truth.
God. She caught Dulcie entering the room from the corner of her eye
and said, “Dulcie’s helping me out and being so patient with all my
questions.”

“That’s good,” Matt said.

Dulcie took a seat and Honey looked at
her and caught the flicker in her eyes. Honey smiled at her again.
Bitch.

“So,” Honey said brightly. “Let’s get
to work.”

They spent the next hour focusing on
which charitable group Matt wanted to work with and what he was
willing to commit to.

Honey wasn’t going to let Dulcie shut
her out of this and kept politely interjecting, offering to look
after specific tasks, and with Matt there Dulcie really couldn’t
cut her out without it looking odd. By the end of the meeting Honey
had an actual to-do list and Matt’s phone number and email address
so she could touch base with him at the end of the week.

She felt marginally better when she
returned to her desk, even though she had to sit there and take a
few deep breaths. But she’d done it. She could do this. Except,
damn, doing this meant working with Matt. Holy bajesus.

She brought her computer back to life
and realized it was noon. Lunchtime.

Dulcie and Celina passed by her desk
talking about where they were going for lunch. They didn’t even
look at her. The rest of the office was quiet, so everyone else
must have gone out for lunch too. As they had yesterday.

From now on she would bring a bag
lunch, which she could leave in the small fridge in the break room.
She could eat at her desk while she was working. Assuming she had
some actual work to do.

But today she had no lunch, so she
picked up her purse and left the office. There were some
restaurants in the area—there had to be somewhere she could quickly
pick something up and bring it back to her desk.

As she left the Coliseum, she saw Matt
Heller standing near an exit, looking down at his smart phone in
his hand. She paused then started to walk past him, but he looked
up and spotted her.

Chapter
Four

Matt looked up from his phone and saw
Honey walking toward him, her steps slowing. She carried her purse
over her shoulder so was obviously leaving. “Honey,” he said
slowly. They stood and looked at each other for a long moment.
Fuck, she made him hot. “Going out for lunch?”

“Um. Yeah.”

He eyed her. “Alone?”

“Yes.” She gave one of those big fake
smiles she’d been throwing around yesterday and today.

“I’ll come with you.”

Christ. What was he saying?

She blinked. “What? Why?”

He made a face as he shoved his phone
into his back pocket. “Eating alone sucks. And I’m hungry.”
Truth.

She stood there, clutching her purse.
“That’s not necessary. I was just going to grab something quick and
take it back to my desk to eat… I have a lot of work to
do.”

“Oh come on. You can take an hour for
lunch.” He cupped her elbow and nudged her toward the door. “We’ll
just go to that Mexican place across the street.”

“Matt…”

“C’mon, Honey. You’ve got me
curious.”

“What do you mean?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “I mean…here
you are with a social welfare degree working for a non-profit
organization and looking all…” His gaze raked up and down her.
“Professional.”

She lifted her chin and narrowed her
eyes at him. “You don’t have to sound like that’s so impossible for
me.”

“Not impossible, no. Just…surprising.
Which makes me curious. Let’s go have lunch and…catch
up.”

Her lips tightened. “You make it sound
like we’re old friends,” she muttered.

Things hadn’t ended all that well
between them eight years ago, but still. “We are,” he clipped out.
“Come on.”

She planted her heels into the carpet
then said, “Fine.”

Curious. Yeah. Matt was curious about
Honey. He knew the train wreck her life had become after the time
they’d spent together that summer. He’d seen it happening, even
then, and had worried about her. After he’d left, going back to
play NCAA hockey at the University of North Dakota, he’d watched it
all happen from a distance, watched it unfold in the media. He’d
hated that, but the times he’d tried to call her to talk to her and
find out what was going on with her, she’d been pissed off at him
and basically told him to fuck off. In fact, those might have been
her exact words.

So he’d left her alone, watching her
self-destruct, feeling pissed off, guilty (although why, he wasn’t
sure) and worried. He’d forced himself to let go. Told himself it
wasn’t his business. Made himself not care. He’d had enough
problems of his own, trying to get his career where he wanted it to
go. Where he felt it
should
go, following along in the
successful footsteps of his three older brothers.

Now he should be skating a big circle
around Honey Holbrook, but here he was dragging her out for
lunch.

Life shot some weird pucks at you
sometimes.

Tamale, the Mexican restaurant across
the street from the Coliseum, was basically fast food, but upscale
fast food. They waited in a line to place their orders. Matt pulled
out his wallet to pay even as Honey reached for her purse, but he
shook his head and pulled out some bills. He carried the tray with
their food and drinks to a small booth near the sunny front window
and they spent a few minutes unwrapping and arranging their
meals.

“You’ve probably never eaten at a
Tamale restaurant.”

She gave him a sideways, pursed-lip
look as she pushed a straw into the plastic lid of her diet Coke.
“Of course I have.”

“I love this grilled steak burrito,”
he said. “It’s huge.”

“So’s this salad,” she said. “I can
never eat it all.”

“So.” He eyed her across the table.
Still so pretty, with her pale blonde hair, glowing fair skin and
fine bone structure. Her face was a perfect oval with big eyes and
full lips, her high cheekbones more prominent than they used to be.
Her eyes held more shadows, and without all the makeup she used to
wear, she looked delicate…almost fragile. He lifted his burrito.
“Tell me how you come to be doing this job.”

“I thought I told everyone in that
meeting.” She picked up a plastic fork. “I recently graduated and
needed a job.” She looked up at him again. “Did you finish
college?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. His college
degree was great, but he’d been impatient to play in the NHL rather
than NCAA college hockey for three years. “I got a degree in
business.”

“I know you weren’t happy that
year…when you went back to school.”

He nodded. “Yep. But it was the right
thing to do.” He’d been drafted by the Condors that year and wanted
to turn pro and play in the NHL, but everyone had been telling him
he needed more time to develop and grow—his parents, his older
brothers, his college hockey coach and his unofficial agent Alvin
(as per NCAA rules, he couldn’t hire an agent, but his brothers’
agent had given him off-the-record advice about his career). He’d
been frustrated and pissed off, but had put his game face on and
gone back to college.

“You were a great player. Everyone was
talking about you and your future.”

“They were talking about my brothers,”
he corrected her. It had bugged the fuck out of him at the time,
how everyone expected him to be just like them, but that was now
long gone. Like a game you lose ten-nothing, or a nearly
career-ending injury, you had to put that shit behind you and move
forward. “I wasn’t ready. I had some skills, but they needed more
work, and I needed to work at getting stronger. I’m tall like my
brothers but I didn’t have the muscle they had at my age. I’m not
built quite like them. It takes work for me to keep weight
on.”

She smiled. “I remember you telling me
that. So many people would kill to be able to say that.”

He returned the smile. “I know. It is
what it is, though. To play in the NHL I had to be strong enough to
keep up and take the shit bigger guys are gonna dish out. I still
have to work out a lot and drink a lot of protein
shakes.”

He caught the look she gave him, her
gaze moving over his shoulders and upper body. Then she pointed
with her fork to the giant burrito in front of him. “And eat like
that.”

He grinned. “Yeah.” Then he frowned.
Wait. How the hell had they ended up talking about him? “So you
went to college, but not until you were…what? Twenty-three?
Twenty-four?”