FULL NOVELXO Pucking Sweet: Chapter 1
“Hey, Poppy, I think you’re gonna want to see this . . .”
I look up sharply over my laptop screen, eyeing the cell- phone my social media manager extends my way. Claribel Ortiz was my first official hire in my new position as public relations director for the Jacksonville Rays. She may have all the charm of an angry black crow, with her goth girl eyeliner and dyed inky black hair, but she’s a genius. Besides, she works behind the camera, not in front of it.
Personally, I like her fierce attitude. These days, marketing on social media is like battling a hydra. Each time you slay the algorithm and start seeing success, the darn thing grows three new heads, and you have to start all over.
Enter Claribel.
This girl is quickly becoming the Rays’ own personal Hercules. She’s sharp and inventive with content creation. Nothing feels boring or overdone. She teases trends rather than beating them dead. In a matter of weeks, her team took all our fledgling NHL accounts and turned them into content machines. Our views are climbing, and our followers are growing—just in time for the first game of the season.
In the past few months, I’ve learned Claribel only has two expressions: lifeless and loathing. To see a third on her face is a little unsettling. In this moment, she looks almost . . . amused?
“What is it?” I say, warily reaching for her phone. “Oh heavens, please don’t tell me this is still about those gosh darn balloons.”
“It’s not about the balloons.”
“Thank goodness for small mercies.”
Last week, we used two large balloon arches outside the new practice facility to decorate for our inaugural training camp. Within hours, every climate change group in the city descended to declare the Jacksonville Rays an environmental scourge. Claribel’s team has been working overtime across our social media accounts to showcase all the environmentally friendly features of the facility.
But this is definitely not about balloons.
“Oh, no.” I flick the screen with my thumb. My frown deepens with each picture I scroll past. Most of them are grainy, but there’s no mistaking what I’m seeing—dancing women in bikinis; glassy- eyed, lounging men; and lots of free-flowing alcohol. I huff, flicking my ponytail off my shoulder. “Seriously? These look like stills from a Pitbull music video.”
Claribel raises a dark brow. “Latin crunk doesn’t seem like your vibe, boss.”
I eye her over the phone. “Don’t let the pearls and polish fool you, Miss Claribel. I’m a woman of the world.”
You have to be tough to work in public relations. You have to be even tougher to work in a male-dominated field like the National Hockey League. I may look like a kitten, but with the St. James name and the reputation of a major international PR firm behind me, I’m a tiger.
Claribel is one of the only people who isn’t intimidated by my family connections or my cutthroat business style. Just one more reason why I like working with her. She crosses her arms, her long black nails tapping her forearm as she surveys me. “Let me guess . . . you were a sorority girl?”
I smile, glancing back at her phone.
“Yeah, I bet you ran circles around those frat boys,” she teases.
My smile falls when I realize the same man is in almost every photo. I’d know his stupidly handsome face anywhere—that sculpted jaw, those serious eyes, the confident smirk. It’s Lukas Novikov, star defenseman for the Jacksonville Rays. He has tousled, light brown hair and a soft spray of freckles across his pale cheeks and nose, a nose that has been broken at least once judging by the little lump in the bridge. His colorfully tattooed arm drapes casually over the shoulders of girl after girl. In every picture he looks bored and cocky, downright unobtainable.
But I know the truth: the man is too obtainable.
Lukas Novikov is a walking PR nightmare—the constant parties, the endlessly rotating roster of girls, his surly post-game interview tactics. If he weren’t one of the top-ranked players in the League, he’d probably be unemployed by now. But I’ve seen him in action. He hits like a freight train and fights like a bear. It’d be easier to dismiss him as a mindless bruiser if he wasn’t one of the top defensemen scorers. Not only can he assist with goals, he makes them too. He’s worth the seven million dollars a year the Rays pay him . . . on the ice.
Off the ice, he’s nothing but a thorn in my side. The season hasn’t even started, and I already wish we could trade him away. But that’s above my pay grade. I don’t get to pick the cards I’m dealt. I just have to find a way to win with them.
Novikov is my wild card. When the Bruins announced his trade to the Rays, their PR manager sent me a file on him an inch thick. She’d slipped a pink sticky note inside the manila folder that said, “He’s your problem now.” I’m sure she laughed her way to the nearest bar and bought everyone the first round of drinks to celebrate.
As if I don’t have enough problems! I’m trying to build the reputation of an international men’s hockey team from scratch. Do these players really think it’s so easy? In the current political and social climate, sports teams are under a microscope every hour of the day. If the city is willing to pick up their torches and pitchforks over a balloon arch, what will they do to our whiskey-guzzling manwhore of a star defenseman who spends every moment he’s not on the ice with his hands on a different puck bunny’s cleavage?
I glance up at Claribel. “When did these post?”
“Last night. More this morning,” she adds. “Novikov rented a roof- top bar over at the beach and threw this little private party.”
“When will these guys learn?” I hand the phone back to her with a tired shake of my head.
“Learn what, boss?”
“Nothing is ever private anymore.”
“It can be, if you know how to be careful,” she hedges. “Novikov clearly doesn’t . . . or he just doesn’t care.”
I close my laptop and push away from my desk, slipping my feet back into my patent leather Saint Laurent slingbacks. “Okay, Clary-B. Give it to me straight. What’s the fallout?”
“Pretty much what we expected. They’re calling the Rays a bunch of party boys and players. The fan groups are split between wishing they were invited and wishing the team was setting a better example for the city.”
I stand, slipping into my heels like armor. “Did Novikov post any of those photos to his own social media?”
“No, he hasn’t posted anything since he announced his trade.” That’s a relief at least.
“You know, Angela Whitney over at the Bruins warned me about him,” I say, stuffing my laptop into my purse. “The moment they announced, she was in my emails asking for a call. I’d hoped he’d at least wait until the season started before he pulled this crap here.”
“Maybe it’s a one-off. Just letting off some end-of-summer steam
before the season starts.”
“Yeah, and maybe he’s a party-loving pretty boy with more charisma than sense, determined to make my job here impossible.” I sling my heavy bag over my shoulder, clutching my buzzing phone in my manicured hand. Whoever they are and whatever they need, they’re going to have to wait.
Claribel watches me round the desk. “What are you gonna do, boss?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m not gonna do. I’m not giving Novikov the long leash he had up in Boston.” I snatch my facility access pass off the hook by the door. “He thinks he can behave here the way he did up there? I intend to educate.”
“You gonna tug on his leash a little, Pop?”
I slip the lanyard around my neck. “If I have to.”
She leans against the wall by the door. “You gonna call him a ‘bad boy?’ Make him crawl?”
“I’m not above treating these grown men like naughty children,” I say, freeing my ponytail from under the lanyard. “Athletes crave structure. Sometimes they just need a firm hand.”
“Kinky. Can I watch?”
I step past her and shrug. “Sure.”
Her expression brightens just a little. “Can I record it?”
“No.”
She shuts my door and follows me down the hall. “What about just audio?”
My heels click as I head for the elevator. “No, Claribel.”
“What about a picture?” she says at my shoulder. “Trust me, boss, there’s nothing hotter than seeing a man who deserves it get reprimanded by a female superior.”
I laugh, jabbing my thumb on the elevator’s shiny silver down button. The elevator doors open and we both step inside. I hate elevators, but it can’t be helped. I am simply not climbing four flights of stairs every time I need something from one of the players.
As the doors close, I smile. “Fine. One picture. We look at it, then we delete it.”
Her eyes are already back on her phone, but I see her smirk. “Consider it done, boss.”