“Damn juvs.” One of the other patrons threw a beer nut through the holo-projection.

“Hi, I’m Sarah Johnson.” The blonde had turned to Worth and was offering her hand. Her grip was warm and firm.

“Jude Harris. Nice to meet another Toronto fan.” He smiled, fighting the urge to linger over her hand.

“Oh? Well then you’ve got excellent taste in teams. What do you do?” she asked.

“I’m a corporate troubleshooter. Basically, I travel a lot,” he said.

“That sounds like an interesting job. Trouble ever shoot back?” she teased.

“Not if I do it right.” His grin tightened. “So, what do you do, Sarah?”

“I’m a legal secretary.” She grimaced. “Not very exciting, but it pays the bills. You said you travel? It’s got to be great to, you know, get to go places.” She looked up at him and took another sip of her stout.

“Just one hotel after another. Whups, game’s back.” His eyes focused on one soft hand wrapped around her pint glass. “Nice nails for a secretary.”

“What?” She looked down at her immaculately manicured hand as if trying to figure out what he meant. “Oh yeah, the typing thing. Nobody has to type much anymore. They mostly want you to talk clearly. And you’ve gotta organize stuff and be good with details. That kind of thing.”

“But still, there has to be some?” He took her hand in one of his own, meeting her eyes and holding them as he gently kissed her fingers.

“Well, a little.” She smiled. “There’s kind of a knack to hitting the keys just right so that your nails go in the spaces between the keys.” She suddenly pulled her hand clear and pointed into the tank. “Did you see that? Shinsecki just sticked Schmidt right in the face! God, look at his nose, ohmigosh, the refs are going to have trouble breaking that one up.” She clapped her hands over her mouth and her eyes were wide at the spatters of blood on the ice between the two combatants.