Everything Elli wasn’t.

Jakob lined up, giving her his action shot. After she got it, he skated towards her and Harper instead of his teammates.

What the hell was he doing?

“Nice hair, beautiful,” he flirted in his thick Russian accent. Harper just smiled widely, as Elli flushed deep red. Elli didn’t know why she was embarrassed, but she was. She didn’t want attention on Harper right now, not with the importance of this job.

“Nice stick,” Harper said, looking down at where he was holding his stick. Jakob gave her a devilish smile and skated towards the bench.

“You are impossible, Harper Allen,” Elli said, flustered.

After getting it together, Alex Welch came next. Alex was easy to shoot. He had good lines, and bright blue eyes, so the pictures were bound to be fabulous. Next was the captain, Shea Adler.

Elli blushed as she got to the close-up of Shea. She had always thought the defenseman was gorgeous. With his almost black hair that fell in the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen, and a crooked nose that had been broken two years ago during a game with the Red Wings, she had to admit that she had a little bit of a crush on him. When he smiled, her heart melted. Yeah, his teeth were probably false, but damn, he had a pretty mouth.

“Why’s he blinking so much?” Harper asked. Elli was too busy looking at his mouth to notice.

“Harp, shut up,” she whispered, but then she noticed that the captain was blinking a little too much.

“Is he hitting on you?”

“Oh, my God!”

Elli’s whole face flushed deep red as she looked down at the picture viewer of her camera. In all the pictures, the captain’s eyes were shut. Elli looked up, and Shea was rubbing his eyes.

“Mr. Adler,” she said as she started walking towards him. He looked over at her.

“I’m sorry, but I need you to stop blinking. Your eyes are closed in every picture I have taken.”

“I’m sorry.”

Oh God, his voice was butter, thick with a Boston accent. Elli swore she came at the sound of it.

“I got new contacts and they are bugging the hell out of me.”

“Someone get Adler another pair!” somebody yelled as he pinched the little lenses out of his eyes, throwing them down on the ice.

“We can do this without them, right?”

Elli just nodded. Gosh, he was gorgeous! He tried to make eye contact with her, and it was obvious that it was hard for him to see.

“I won’t be able to see your beautiful face for a little bit, but I’ll have a new pair soon. Then I can stare some more.”

Elli stood there blinking.

Was he flirting with her?

Did he just call her beautiful?

She turned without a word and went back to work. When it came time for Shea Adler to skate off, he ran into the goal, then the wall, before making it to the bench. Everyone was in a fit of laughter except for Elli. She was still in shock.

Shea Adler had called her beautiful.

After the shoot downstairs, which consisted of the guys in sexy suits holding their hockey sticks, Harper and Elli started cleaning up and tearing down the equipment. Elli didn’t hire big crews; she didn’t like them. All she needed was Harper and two other assistants, and she was good. The day had been great. All the shots were fantastic. Once she edited them, they would be golden. The guys were amazing and sweet, not really as cocky as the sports reporters make them sound. They were good guys.

Elli was packing up her camera when she saw Jakob Titov coming towards her. He gave her a grin before going over to where Harper was standing. She watched as he flirted with Harper, who was playing hard to get; something she had perfected. Jakob pulled his phone out as she did the same. They were exchanging numbers. He asked her something and Harper just giggled and then leaned forward, giving him a kiss on his cheek.

Jakob put his hand on his heart before stepping backwards, a dazed look on his face, causing Harper to laugh. He shot her a wave as he left with his bag over his shoulder. Harper smiled and looked over at Elli. “He’ll call when he gets in the car,” she said as she walked towards Elli with the rods from the light stands.

“How do you know? He said that?”

“Nope, but I know his type. Needy.”

The sad thing was that Harper was probably right.

Elli looked down at her camera, taking care to put it away. As she zipped the zipper to her purple and black bag, (Yes, team colors) she cursed herself for being shy and stupid with guys. When Shea said she was beautiful, she should have said something clever. That’s what Harper would do. But nope, she just stood there blinking and looking downright stupid.

Elli knew the problem. It was the fact that she had no confidence at all. She didn’t think she was good enough for male attention. She wouldn’t say she was plus-sized, but she was thick. She wasn’t a size two anymore. Nope. Good ole ten now. The sad thing was that she hadn’t even had any kids yet. She had a thyroid problem, but that was seven years ago and she still wasn’t able to get the weight off. It didn’t matter if she had great fashion sense, guys just didn’t hit on her the way they had when she was a size two. It was depressing, because Elli was lonely.

Elli would never admit it to anyone, but she wanted that “happily-ever-after”.

She always put on the front that she liked being alone and didn’t need a man, but it was such a lie. Elli wished she could be like her older sister, Victoria, who loved being single, loved sleeping with different men, but Elli just couldn’t do it. It was so private and with the way she felt about her body, no one was getting her undressed until she knew she loved him and he loved her.