Free Winning Streak by Katie Kenyhercz Page B

There’s no formal rule, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t fire me. She’s put up with too much of my shit for too long. If things went bad with Saralynn … I guess I couldn’t blame Jace.” That didn’t make it hurt any less. And if it came to leaving the team, what would their personal relationship be like? Over the past two years, they’d gotten closer than they’d ever been. A few forgotten poker chips in his pocket and they were back at square one, only now he had twice as much to lose. Uncle Madden had a nice ring to it. He didn’t want to give that up.
    “Hey. It’ll be okay with you and Jacey. Even watching from the sidelines, it’s easy to see how much you mean to each other. It’ll take a lot more than a potentially bombed romantic relationship to ruin it.”
    “Thanks for the ‘potentially.’”
    “S’what I’m here for. So how long have you and Baby Reese been testing the waters?”
    “Gah. Please don’t call her that. I really don’t want to picture his ugly mug every time I kiss her. And we’ve been seeing each other since just after the wedding.” Only a week and a half, but he felt like he’d known her forever.
    “Have you, uh—”
    “No. Even
my
definition of slow is slower than that.” Granted, that was a relatively new development, but times changed. People, too.
    “All right, all right. When do you see her next?”
    “Tomorrow night. She wants to meet me for drinks at the Artisan Lounge.”
    “Never been there. And I think I’ve hit all the well-known spots in Vegas, so it should be low-key.”
    “I haven’t either, but that’s what Saralynn said. It’s not like we can go to Surrender, the Sinners’ version of Cheers.”
    “Not unless you want to surrender your life to Shane Reese. Now that I know, you could always bring her here. I could go out for the night.”
    “Thanks. I’ll see how she feels about it.” It made sense, but she’d been nervous alone with him in the owner’s box. Hell, he’d been nervous. And he’d meant what he said. He didn’t want to pressure her or rush things. “What about you? How are things with Tricia?”
    “Great, I think. She’s been coming to every home game, and we go out when we both have the night off. I really like her.”
    “Good for you, man. You deserve it.” And he did. It couldn’t be easy being the poster boy for an entire sport while he was so young, but Cole pulled it off and magically remained his humble, genuine self. “Want to hit up the Xbox for a while? I need to shoot things before I go to bed.”
    “I hear that.”

Chapter Twelve
    Wednesday, March 5th
    “We really don’t know if we can let him go for that much.” How many times had someone said those words in the last hour? The Tampa Bay Lightning GM didn’t want to give up one of his star defensemen. That was the real issue. No matter that Tampa couldn’t afford to keep him. Madden took a slow breath and longed for the days of conference phone calls instead of video chats. No one could hear you roll your eyes or play dead. Time to up the ante.
    “We understand that, sir. What if we threw in a prospect or two?” He’d offer a draft pick, but the Sinners had won the Cup back to back the last two years, so they got last pick in the draft, which wouldn’t mean much.
Shit
. He glanced at Carter, who nodded in approval. Madden hadn’t meant to make the offer out of turn, but it was the only card they had left to play, and thankfully his brother-in-law knew that. It sucked having to ask permission to do his job.
    “Well … I think we could make that work.”
    Thank you, Jesus
.
    “I’m glad to hear that. Let’s talk details.” Carter finished the deal, going through the Sinners’ list of prospects and picking midrange players, which was fair. Madden sat back and stared at the screen without seeing it anymore. He’d rolled into the arena at four in the morning because doing business with the East Coast meant working with their time zone,