Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Josie
When I step inside the upscale steak house, I’m surprised to find Dane waiting for me.
“Look, you don’t need to sit at the bar,” he says. “Just don’t hang on me and make us look like a couple.”
His efforts to be nice fall short, to say the least. I could nod to keep the peace, but that’s just not me.
“I don’t want to touch you,” I say in my most professional tone. “Not even a little bit. Believe me when I tell you my actions will never make people think I’m with you or trying to get with you.”
“What, like I’m so awful?” He lowers his brows, offended.
Yes. Yes, he is. But I’m saved from answering that impossible question when someone comes up from behind Dane and puts an arm around his shoulders.
“Hey, now we can start the party!” he says, grinning widely.
Dane’s friend sees me and offers a hand.
“Hi, I’m Aaron Parker.”
“Parker, this is Nosy,” Dane says. “Arnold hired her to babysit me for the rest of the season.”
I shoot Dane a glare and then shake Aaron’s hand. “I’m Josie, nice to meet you.”
Aaron shakes my hand, still smiling. He has warm eyes and seems friendly.
“Likewise, Josie. And good luck keeping this one in line. Once he gets a few drinks in him, he turns into a werewolf.” He claps Dane on the back. “Should we go join the party?”
My heart races nervously as I follow the men to a back room of the steak house. I’ve never felt so out of place. When I work for top-tier clients, I’m part of a team and we’re talking public relations.
Here, I don’t know anyone except Dane who would rather hang out with anyone but me. I fight my urge to slip off to the bar and read my book because I can’t keep an eye on him from there.
There are around twenty-five people in the room, some standing and talking with drinks in hand and others seated at the long table set for around forty people.
I make eye contact with a woman talking to two other women, and she smiles, so I walk over.
“Hi, I’m Josie Garver.”
“Hey Josie, I’m Jenn Rogers, Aiden’s wife. This is my sister Carrie and this is Elena Parker, Aaron Parker’s wife.”
“Nice to meet you guys.”
They’re all beautiful. Jenn and Carrie both have long blond hair, blue eyes and are tall and lean. Elena is biracial, her eyes a beautiful coffee brown and her hair a mass of thick, tightly coiled black curls that look like they belong in a hair product commercial.
“Did you come with Dane?” Jenn asks.
I have to be quick on my feet to answer the question diplomatically.
“I did, but in a strictly professional capacity. I just started working for the team.”
Jenn’s expression brightens. “Oh! Welcome to the family. Are you a trainer?”
“No, I work in public relations. I’m more of an assistant to Dane.”
Elena bursts out laughing. “Say no more, sis. That one needs all the help he can get.”
I scoff softly and smile, grateful to have met women who know Dane. “Is he always so...abrasive?”
“Dane?” Jenn furrows her brow, confused. “He’s a total sweetheart.”
“He can be very charming,” Elena says. “But only on his terms. He never takes women to his home. My friend Tara went out with him a couple of times. It was dinner followed by sex at her place both times. When she asked if he’d go out with some of her friends or if they could make dinner at his place, he ghosted her.”
“Sounds like an asshole,” Carrie said.
I want to vent to these women like friends, but I can’t. This is a situation where I can gather information from them, but professionally, I can’t share anything with them they don’t already know.
Elena grabs a drink from the tray of a passing server and passes it to me. “Girl, you probably need this.”
I take a sip of what I think is peach champagne, though I’ll only be able to drink a little bit of it. When I sneak a glance at Dane, he’s got a bottled beer in hand and is having an animated conversation with Aaron and another man.
Already breaking his coach’s no-alcohol rule. Awesome. I don’t want to be forced to drive us home in his hundred-thousand-dollar car because he gets wasted.
Within a few minutes, a lovely woman in a well-cut black dress stands at the head of the table and asks everyone to sit down. A man in a gray suit with a blue dress shirt and no tie walks over to her, slides his arm around her waist and kisses her.
I look around, thinking this would be a good time for me to slip off to the bar. They surely didn’t plan on having a seat for me, and I don’t want to blow a big chunk of the money Jane gave me on dinner here.
Dane approaches me and my heart skips a beat as I get my first look at him not scowling or sneering. He’s half smiling and I realize he’s very good-looking.
I lean closer to him, getting a nice smell of his cologne. “I’ll be at the bar.”
“Just sit down,” he says, pulling out a chair for me.
Not wanting to make a scene, I sit, and he sits in the seat next to mine. Servers fill water glasses as the woman at the head of the table smiles at the group gathered.
“For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Lauren Holt,” she said. “We so appreciate everyone taking the time to be here with us tonight to celebrate my husband’s birthday. It’s an extra special one this year because it’s the last time we’ll be a family of two on his birthday.”
She’s glowing as she reaches down to the table and lifts up a little white onesie with black writing that says, “Baby Holt due 9.3.23.”
The table erupts into cheers and applause, Archer and Lauren both looking overjoyed. I feel like I don’t belong in this intimate moment between them and their Mammoths team family. It’s clear the men on this team and their partners care a great deal for each other.
A lean man with short, dark hair stands up and motions over a server.
“We’ll need a few bottles of your best champagne,” he says.
The server nods and says, “Right away, sir. We have a very nice Krug.”
“Dane, who’s your friend?” a man asks from the other side of the table.
Dane doesn’t even look at me as he answers. “This is Josie; she’s my bodyguard. She prefers to be called Nosy.”
I shake my head.
The man who ordered the champagne leans forward in his seat and looks down the table at us.
“Arnold hired her to keep Dane on the rails.”
There are scoffs and laughs around the table, a few people muttering, “Good luck.” I look at Dane and his annoyed expression is back.
“Do you not think you’re a pain in the ass?” I ask him before I even have time to think about it.
Laughter breaks out around us and one guy says, “I like her.”
Dane gives me a wry look. “I think I can be too much fun for some people.”
The champagne-ordering man howls. “Was it fun spreading your cheeks to get searched when they booked you into jail in Chicago?”
Dane shoots him a glare. “If you’d answered the phone, that wouldn’t have happened.”
“I bailed you out before the bus left,” he says with a shrug.
“Didn’t they pull a machete and a full-size turkey out of your anal cavity?” someone quips.
“And a velvet painting of Elvis,” another teammate says.
“Damn, dude. That thing must be stretched .”
“Enough, assholes,” Dane says with a scowl. “Tonight is about Archer and Lauren.”
The laughter dies down as several servers come into the room with bottles of champagne on ice. More servers follow with bread and salads for everyone, and I pull off a bite of a slice of bread immediately, because I’m feeling lightheaded from not eating since breakfast.
I pass on the offer of champagne because I can’t stand the thought of only drinking a few sips of something so expensive. For the toast to Archer and Lauren’s good news, I use my glass of water.
Dane, on the other hand, downs a full glass of champagne, refills it and orders another beer.
I lean over to speak softly in his ear. “You’re not driving home.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“I’m serious,” I whisper.
“Fine.”
We spend the next couple of hours eating a delicious meal of steak, au gratin potatoes, several kinds of vegetables and chocolate lava cake. Elena switches chairs with the person on the other side of me halfway through so I have someone to talk to. She makes me laugh and actually enjoy myself, even with Dane on my other side.
The man who ordered the champagne for everyone is the Mammoths’ team captain, Dalton Lorenzo, and he picks up the tab at the end of the night, not even blinking as he fills out the receipt. This is his first year as team captain after the team’s longtime captain retired.
“Do you think Aaron can help me get him to the car?” I ask Elena softly because Dane has had a lot to drink and if he falls over in the parking lot, I won’t be able to get him up.
“Of course.”
“I’m fine, Nosy,” Dane says, aggravated. “Just drive us home so we can see how much of my house your cat has destroyed.”
Dalton laughs from nearby. “You have to live with that bastard?”
I shrug. “For the time being.”
“Go with God,” he says, still grinning.
Dane is right--he’s fine to walk to the car, and he does. Once we’re on the road, he turns to me.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“It was fun. Everyone on your team seems really nice. Other than you, I mean.”
He laughs and balls his coat up against the car window, resting his head. “You just don’t know me, Nosy. I can be the nicest guy there is.”
I seriously doubt that. But I’m too tired to argue anymore. Tomorrow afternoon, we’re leaving for a road trip with the team.
That’ll be the real test. Dane’s worst behavior seems to happen on road trips. I’m going to need a good night of sleep to prepare myself.
And also a whole lot of luck.