Playing the Game (The Renegades) (Volume 3) (22 page)

“
Paige, you know you loved those
roses and the emails. Admit it!” Rylee poked at her. “It’s fun to
be wooed.”

“
I’m not admitting anything.” But
she did. She loved that he was wooing her. It was sweet, and she’d
never been pursued before by a guy.

“
I’m outta here.” Paige strode out
of the kitchen.

“
Where are you going?” Rylee
called.

“
I have work to do, and it’s not
going to get done with you down here grilling me about Tyler.” She
ran up to her bedroom and shut the door.

She was too strong to admit she liked this to Rylee,
but she liked how Tyler made her feel, and she liked everything he
was doing. She curled up on her bed, folding her legs under her,
and opened her laptop. The requests never stopped, but at the very
top of the email list was another one from Tyler.

It simply read. “I’m sorry.”

The Tyler she’d met when she got here was a cocky son
of a bitch. He didn’t pursue women; they pursued him. And then he
conquered them and moved on to the next one. So why was he so
interested in her? He’d had his fun with her, so why wasn’t he
moving on? Well, he sort of did, with that girl in the bathroom.
But he obviously cared that Paige had seen them. Why did he
care?

Questions flooded her brain. He wasn’t making
anything easy because he wasn’t doing anything she assumed he
would. Wasn’t she just another one of his conquests?

Trying to get him out of her mind proved difficult.
He was so handsome and his smile seemed genuine. Plus, he kept
coming after her, even though she’d already shot him down several
times.

Social media had been quiet lately, too. He must be
behaving himself. Bored, she did a little research. There was a lot
of talk about why Tyler was such an ass, but she didn’t know if it
was all true. Putting his name in the search engine she found a lot
of the usual fluff and simple rumors. She wanted to figure
something out—then there it was. The reports and the time frame
explained everything. Before Tyler and Gia broke up, everything
written about Tyler showed him as a really nice, sweet guy. There
were rarely any photographs of him with women, and nothing at all
about him drunk or causing trouble.

Then rumors took a drastic turn from Tyler and Gia,
to Gia and Patrick, right about the same time Ty started having
trouble on the ice. She remembered when Patrick had first come to
the team. He was a self-proclaimed playboy, but to see him now, he
was as settled down as Kris. But obviously Pat getting with Gia led
to Tyler’s outrage, and he made no secret about it. That was the
exact time when posts and photographs started appearing about
Tyler’s bad attitude and behavior with the drinking, the fights,
and the women.

She wasn’t seeing that side of him anymore though.
There’d been practically no incidents reported on social media
since… well, since their night together. Could she dare to dream
that his change had anything to do with her? No, that was crazy
thinking. The flowers were a nice gesture, but she still wasn’t
sold on accepting a date. There was still that little matter of her
job.

Now if he could just keep his pants on in the locker
room, things could get back to normal, whatever that was.

“
Paige!” Rylee called from the
living room. “Paige! I think you need to come see this.”

“
What are you yelling about? I’m
busy working.” She hurried down the steps so Rylee would stop
yelling and was flabbergasted by what she saw in her living room.
“Where did these come from?”

The living room was filled with red roses. Scattered
amongst the vases were stuffed animals—white teddy bears, white
dogs, and a white tiger.

“
Holy shit,” she
mumbled.

Every table top and flat surface in the living room
was covered in roses.

She wandered around the room. “Where did these all
come from?”

“
As if you didn’t know! There’s a
box too.”

“
A box?”

Rylee handed her a white box. Paige’s head was
spinning. How did he know where she lived?

“
Well, aren’t you going to open
it?” Rylee asked, as Paige stood there, staring.

She took a seat on the couch and slowly opened the
box. The Renegades logo stared back at her. In a daze she pulled
out a pink and white Tyler Kidd jersey.

“
Ooh, that’s nice. Think he can
send me one?” Rylee asked.

There was a note in the box. “Paige, please come
cheer me on at the next game, then have dinner with me.”

“
I take back anything bad I ever
said about him. He’s got some serious wooing skills. I mean look at
all these roses,
and
all the stuffed animals! I’m anxious to
see what he does next.”

There can’t possibly be much left for him to do.

“
So are you going to go to the
game?”

“
Rylee, I’m always at the games,
I’m just busy working. So, no. You can go. You can even wear this
jersey.” She pushed the jersey towards Rylee.

“
Nope. Pink clashes with my hair.
Why don’t you keep it, in case you change your mind?”

Paige folded the jersey neatly and put it back in the
box. Looking around the room, her heart warmed.
This is too
much. He must’ve bought every rose in the store
.

“
Paige, dear,” Gram called from the
kitchen. “You might want to come see this.”

When Paige entered the kitchen, Gram was standing at
the open porch door. Outside, a delivery man was unloading more
flowers from the truck, and another man was carrying some up the
walkway.

“
More?” Paige stood open mouthed in
amazement.

They carried in arrangements of white carnations.
Once they were finished she had as many vases of white flowers as
she did red roses. The room overflowed with color.

“
Secret admirer, dear?” Gram asked,
smiling.

“
Yeah, something like that.” Paige
shook her head, which was spinning as she looked around.

“
Ma’am, there’s one more thing,”
the delivery man said, as he set the last vase in the house. He
went back to his truck and returned with two very large stuffed
animals. They were so large he fumbled with them, almost dropping
one, and the other delivery person had to help carry it. One was a
frog and one was a giraffe. The giraffe had a heart hanging from
its mouth that read, “You belong with me”. The frog had one around
his neck that read, “Just give me a chance”.

“
Paige, there’s something with this
vase of flowers,” Rylee called, as the delivery van drove
away.

She was right. A small package wrapped in shiny red
paper was attached to the vase. Ripping open the paper, she saw it
was a blank cd, with handwriting in sharpie marker. “Mix Tape.”

“
Oh my God! He made you a mix tape,
er, CD.” Rylee gushed. “Let’s listen to it!”

Before Paige could answer, Rylee snatched it out of
her hands and put it in the stereo. Out of the speakers blared
every current love song, but what caught her attention was that the
very first song and the very last song were the same: the current
number one love song on the charts. The words played to her heart,
almost as if it were written just for her. It talked about how
falling in love is never easy, and love being where you least
expect it.
Never truer words spoke
.

CHAPTER 25

“You still haven’t heard from her?” Kris raised his
eyebrows, as Marco lined up new beers in front of them. “And you’re
sure you did everything we suggested?”

“
I did. I bought everything I could
find in that fucking flower shop.” Tyler sighed. He was out of
ideas, and she still wasn’t responding. Was he doing all of this
for nothing?
Was she seriously never going to crack? Or was she
honestly not interested?

“
I don’t know about that giraffe
though. Who buys a stuffed giraffe?” Pat asked.

Tyler pushed his hair out of his face. “I’d already
bought every bear and puppy dog in the store. They only had so much
to choose from.”

“
Not even the CD got a response,
huh? It was kind of cheesy, but girls normally love that stuff. And
you put those particular songs on it?”

“
I did.” He never would’ve thought
of making a mix-tape if Patrick hadn’t brought it up. Tyler sighed
again. This was exhausting.

“
This one is going to make you
work, Ty,” Kris said.

“
There’s obviously more you can do.
We just have to think about it.” Patrick took a drink and looked
around. “What does every girl want?”

“
Her Prince fucking Charming,”
Tyler quickly answered. “I mean look at you two!”

“
Yeah.” Patrick shrugged. “But what
I mean is you really have to sweep her off her feet.”

“
Isn’t that what I’ve been
doing?”

“
Well, Kat likes it when I talk in
French.” Kris beamed.

Ty frowned. “It’s been a while since I used my
French. I don’t think it would sound all romantic like yours does.”
He shrugged. “But good idea.” Tyler rarely spoke French. Even when
he went home to train, his family spoke mostly English. Would that
be the key? Speaking French to her? Somehow it didn’t seem like the
answer.

“
I still say as many stuffed
animals as you can find. Girls dig that kind of stuff.” Patrick
tossed a few beer nuts into his mouth.

“
So… do you think you can tell Pat
who this dream girl is?” Kris asked.

Tyler shook his head. The more people who knew the
harder this would be. Paige was adamant about following Mel’s rules
and dating him was against them.

“
C’mon, Pat can be
trusted.”

“
Don’t worry about it,” Patrick
said. “I’m just glad he and I are at least talking. I don’t want to
push it.”

Tyler thought about it. Did it matter who knew? Why
was he acting like such a girl over this? He was never shy about
his conquests before… but she wasn’t just a conquest. She was a
challenge, and well worth the effort. Hell, she had him thinking in
circles.

“
It’s Paige.” Tyler nonchalantly
blurted out. Marco was standing by them and looked over and gave
him a goofy grin. “Problem, Marco?”

“
Nope. No problem at all.” He
continued to grin.

“
Paige? Our Paige?” Patrick
chuckled. “Damn. You do have your work cut out for you. Does Mel
know yet?”

“
No, but I think that’s my final
step. I need to man up and tell her. If there are consequences to
suffer, I need to be the one doing it, not Paige.”

“
Wait. Why would Paige get in
trouble? It’s not like you guys already hooked up… or did you?”
Patrick raised his eyebrows as he sat up straighter. “You did! Man,
the fact that you kept that to yourself… looks like the old Tyler
is back.”

“
Thank God,” Kris said. “The other
Ty was an asshole.”

“
Thanks for your support. Damn.”
Tyler shook his head with a laugh.

“
You can’t deny it,” Kris
said.

Pat slapped him on the back. “Take it from someone
who knows,” he said. “Own up to it. It’s just easier that way. But,
when you find that one special girl, being an asshole no longer
matters. She is all that matters.”

Ironically, Pat, of all people, was absolutely
right.

****

Tyler sat in front of his locker. He had half of his
pads on and was busy taping his stick when Ben walked in. With a
nod to Tyler he motioned for him to go to Coach Walker’s
office.

Wondering what this was about, Tyler followed without
a word.

Once inside, Ben shut the door behind them. “How’re
you doing, Tyler?”

“
Um, good, I think.” His brow
wrinkled. He hadn’t done anything lately that he knew of to land
him in trouble. So what was this about?

Ben laughed. “Don’t be so nervous. You’re fine.”

“
Sorry, Ben. But I feel like if
everything was fine, I wouldn’t be sitting in the office with my
coach and the team owner.”

“
I didn’t mean to make you think
you were in trouble again. This is quite the opposite. I’ve been
talking with Coach Walker, and we’re impressed with what we’ve been
seeing on the ice. You’re working seamlessly with Patrick now, and
whatever crawled up your ass before seems to be gone. I just wanted
to let you know that we’ve noticed, and you’re making it easy for
us to get behind you out there, even when you don’t like a call.
Keep up the good work.” Ben patted him on the shoulder before
opening the door. “Whatever is causing this change, keep it up.”
Then he left.

“
He’s right, Ty. It’s nice to see
the old captain out there again. Now go finish getting ready for
the game.” Without another word, Coach dismissed Tyler.

Little did they know the change was all due to
Paige.

CHAPTER 26

Paige slowly strolled down the halls to the arena.
She should’ve been at her desk working, but after all Tyler had
done to get her attention, the least she could do was go down and
watch a little of the game. Checking monitors she passed on the way
down, the Renegades were currently losing 2–1.

Her heels clicked along the cement as she walked up
the tunnel that the Zamboni drove out of. She joined a group of
employees by the glass. “They’re losing,” someone from the ice crew
said.