His sapphire gaze flew from the stripper to me. “Oh shit, was I being creepy?” I pinched some air between my fingers. “Shit. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a creeper. I just wanted to talk to you about some work. I know you’re not doing hockey now because you lost.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” I took a loud sip of my drink.
“Ouch, yeah, that must have sucked seeing the other team get all those touchdowns.”
I wasn’t sure how to reply to that. “Why do you need me to teach you hockey?” A pastie fell to our table. Finn’s eyes rounded. “I mean, it’s clear you know nothing about the game, despite being Canadian.”
His eyes widened. “How do you know that? I’m using my American accent to blend in.”
I lifted an eyebrow. Didn’t the world know he came from the frozen north, or Vancouver anyway? “Yeah, it slipped a bit,” I lied, and he winced, and then rolled his shoulders as if he was getting back into character. “Anyway, why do you need me to teach you hockey?
“Man, those are the bounciest things I have ever seen,” he murmured as the other pastie flew to the table next to us.
“Finn?” I called as I tapped his arm.
“Oh yeah, sorry. I get distracted easily.” He turned in his chair to face me, those bright eyes now trained on me.
I found I liked having his attention on me. He was so damned pretty. I moved a little to shield him from other people, the same as I’d shield a teammate on the ice—he seemed way too innocent to be out in public like this, on his own. Unless he had a bodyguard. But I couldn’t see one, and no one stopped me from getting closer. Was he a big enough actor to need a bodyguard? I wasn’t sure at what level an actor became so big they needed protection. Maybe he had people out there who wanted to hurt him.
I winced as a sudden need to protect surged inside me.
“I’ve been chosen to star in a River Grierson movie,” he said.
“Wow.” That was a name everyone on the planet knew. “Congrats.”
“Thanks. The only tiny issue is that it’s a story about a hockey player and I don’t skate. Or know how to play hockey.”
“Oh. That is a problem. And you want me to do what, exactly?”
The crowd clapped as the stripper exited stage left.
Finn rolled his head to the stage, then sighed. “Dang it, I wanted to see how her show finished. What did I miss?”
“She gets naked,” I filled in. “So, you need me to do what?”
“Coach me. Teach me how to skate and be a hockey player. I know, I know, you were going to say that I’m Canadian, so how can I be so hockey-illiterate?”
“I wasn’t—”
“So go on and say it.”
“No, actually, I wasn’t going to say that again.”
“Good.” His gaze moved from the stage back to me. “My agent said it enough. So, will you coach me to skate and be a realistic hockey star? It’s totally okay that you’re a losing hockey player. I’ll still pay you the same as if you weren’t a loser.”
“Do you say those kinds of things on purpose, or do they just fall out of your mouth?” I had to ask. I mean, sure, I have tough skin but ouch man.
“They just fall out. My agent is always putting out fires. He says he should be called Smokey Bear instead of Atlas.”
“That I believe,” I said, then chuckled, yet again. “Okay, so how much are we talking about here? Since my season is over, loser and all that, I was planning on going home to Arizona to sulk and make my siblings’ lives miserable. How will you make it worth my while even though I’m the third choice on your list?”
“Ten thousand dollars a day.” Now it was time for my eyes to flare. “No? Not enough?”
“No, it’s more than enough I just…” And here I faltered a bit because while I had nothing to do now until training camp opened—I’d not be posing with the Cup as I’d planned—did I want to spend day after day with Finn Kerrigan? “Tell you what,” I said as three dancers in red tights and wild purple wigs slithered onto the stage like snakes. Finn was glued to the sight. I tapped his arm. He glanced my way, smiling so widely it stole my breath. Jesus, he was sexy. “I’ll do it for ten per day if you agree to donate what you’d pay me to my charity, CC’s Club. We supply inner-city LA kids with hockey equipment free of charge. It would mean a lot to the kids.”
“Oh okay, sure, we can totally give your pay to that charity. Are you going to get into making movies now that you lost the hockey cup award?”
“Maybe,” I answered. “Maybe I just think spending a few weeks with you is much more appealing than chasing my sister around with a gecko.”
“Cool. I love those commercials with the gecko! Did you know that geckos aren’t really British?”
That one busted me up. Yeah, okay, this was going to be fun. Something that I sorely needed right now. And maybe, if I played my cards right, Finn Kerrigan would end up in my bed before the hockey lessons were over. God knows I needed an ego boost.
Chapter 3
Finn
“You did what?”
Atlas had moved straight from listening to me explain that I had someone to teach me hockey, to yelling, which was never a good sign. He’d yelled at me just the same when I had insisted in taking the part of an elf called Hobart in Where the Ladybugs Live, but when the kids’ movie made a shit ton of money in box office receipts he agreed that maybe it had been a good idea after all.
Of course, it was. I loved the illustrated book, and I wanted to play the part of Hobart-the-magical-Elf ever since my mom had read me it as a bedtime story. My four-year-old self adored it, and in my more fanciful moments as a kid, and I had many, I imagined one day a ladybug would find me and tell me I had magic. Also, that I was destined to save the ladybug children before their house burned down.
It never happened—I wasn’t magic Hobart—but I still played a fabulous Hobart-the-Elf if I say so myself. Critics called it refreshing.
Well, one of them did.
The one in my home town newspaper.
Circulation—five hundred and seven.
It was filmed during the break between the first and second Rapid franchise movies. It paid me, it paid Atlas, and once my agent stopped yelling, it was all good. It was a film my niece and nephew could watch. Even if Henry said he was too old at eight to watch baby films, Lilly was all over it like a rash. My sister told me Lilly wore her ladybug costume everywhere, even to bed, and that must have been insane given the wings and the pokey antennae, not to mention the obligatory face paint.
I’m not sure my sister has forgiven me yet.
“Seriously, Finn, what did you just say?”
“I hired Cameron Chavkin to coach me in hockey.”
“Cameron Chavkin.”
“Yep, Cameron Chavkin. Tall, sexy as a fiddle, with stormy gray eyes. Plays hockey.”
“The Cameron Chavkin?” Atlas wheezed, then went so quiet that I held the phone so I could check we still had a connection. His name was still there, so I decided to press ahead.
“Is there more than one Cameron Chavkin? Oh, stupid question because I guess there probably is given statistically that—”