Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Social conduct for hate-free inter-colleague teamwork
For short: SCHIT
The contracting parties must not stare at each other rudely for longer than necessary.
Gareth was about as keen on weddings as he was on Penny’s suggestion that he make peace with Hazel.
However, people who believed in soul mates and eternal love might have found the ceremony quite appealing.
At least he couldn’t deny that Matt and Maddie were ridiculously in love.
They looked at each other as if they were completely alone on the beach and not with, say, two hundred and fifty guests looking on.
Maddie explained to Matt that love was the most precious thing, and that she was incredibly lucky to have fallen in love with her best friend.
Cian whispered to Gareth that he shouldn’t get any stupid ideas since not all best friends were meant to be together.
Gareth replied that he had stopped listening after the “love is the most precious thing” comment.
He could only digest so much nonsense. Penny admonished him with a lot of “shhs!” and finally “Oh man, I didn’t mean to cry,” before taking a tissue from her boyfriend Jack, who appeared to have a cut on his chin whose origin Gareth preferred not to dwell on.
He’d only just accepted the ice hockey player as good enough for Penny. But it had been a close call.
“Why does everyone cry at weddings?” Cian asked, confused, as the first guests rose to head to the champagne reception on Sunshine Pier. The long wooden walkway led out into the middle of the ocean and was normally open to the public, but today it was by invitation only.
“Because the thought of sleeping with one person the rest of your life is depressing,” someone a row behind them said. Gareth didn’t have to turn around to know that it was Leon Alvarez.
“No!” Penny objected. “Because they’re so happy.”
“Shouldn’t you laugh when you’re happy?” Gareth muttered.
“How unhappy are you, Gare, if that’s your opinion?” she asked challengingly.
“I laugh,” he said tensely.
“Nah,” Leon objected. “At least, I’ve never seen it.”
Slowly, Gareth turned to the ice hockey player, his eyes narrowed.
“But I like your serious face so much better, Mr. Clark!” Leon replied hastily, sinking back in his seat. “Very handsome and…masculine. Just great!”
Gareth snorted and rose, following the guests to the pier.
He made out at least fifty round bistro tables with white linen tablecloths on the wooden walkway, and on the beach in front of the pier, a gigantic dance floor marked out with lit torches.
A DJ booth stood at the edge, playing soft pop music that drifted on the sea breeze.
“Did Payne rent the whole damn beach?” Jack asked, shaking his head.
It looked like it. But Gareth found it difficult to concentrate on the fact that Penny was quickly calculating in her head how much the whole thing must have cost. His gaze was on a bare back that he would have recognized even in the dark.
If he’d been president, he would have gladly used this occasion to legally ban Hazel from wearing dresses, especially high-necked, light-blue, backless ones, a dress that would have made priests faint.
Hazel’s long black hair fell in curls over her shoulders, and Gareth would have shamelessly stared at the silky skin beneath it, giving in to the familiar tug in his chest for a few seconds…
if an arm hadn’t blocked his view. Fox’s arm, draped familiarly around Hazel’s waist. She was leaning against his side, laughing, as if the hockey player had said something witty.
She was his date for the day. He knew that.
But Fox was also her damned client, and one really shouldn’t be so intimate within one’s work environment.
Hazel grinned at Fox, pulled her phone out of her purse, stared at the screen, and then turned it off.
Gareth rolled his tense neck. He used to think that he and Hazel butted heads because they were too similar: both ambitious, smart, dogged, and competitive. But that wasn’t it. She’d always been better at letting go, at forgetting work and all the pressure. He’d always envied her for that.
“Gare, move, now!” Cian said tensely. “Hailey is coming, and she and Ada have been trying to convince me for weeks that we need another turtle.”
Gareth blinked and tore his gaze away from Hazel. “Just say no.”
Cian snorted. “I said no!”
“Then it’s settled.”
“You obviously don’t know Hailey as well as I do!”
Gareth sighed, but quickened his pace so that they caught up with Penny and Jack.
“Great. Which table do we want?” Cian asked. “Let’s go to a full one.”
“We’ll go to that one,” Penny said loudly, heading for the round bistro table where Fox and Hazel were just taking their seats.
Gareth shot his sister a dirty look, which she returned with an innocent smile.
Great, she was serious.
“Oh, shit.” Cian glanced from Hazel to Gareth and back. “That might not be a good idea, Penny…”
“It’s a fantastic idea!” she contradicted immediately.
Jack turned and frowned. “I tried to talk her out of it yesterday, I really did.”
Gareth nodded curtly. He believed him. But when Penny had made up her mind…
“Is there any room here?” she asked pleasantly, smiling at Hazel and Fox.
Time stood still for a few seconds as Hazel’s gaze flicked to him, and she raised both eyebrows, silently questioning if Penny was having a seizure.
Then Fox asked sweetly, “Do you have a death wish, Penny?”
“Is that how you talk to the woman who signs your paychecks? The other tables are full.” She gestured to the dozens of empty tables around them.
Fox sighed, and Jack gave him a pleading look. Penny simply stood next to Hazel, and Cian gave her his most charming smile. “Hey, Hazel, long time no see.”
“Cian.” She gave him a friendly nod. “You haven’t changed a bit. How’s Ada?”
“Good. She’d rather talk to goats than me.”
Hazel laughed…and Gareth hated his best friend’s ability to coax merriment from Hazel so easily.
By God, the last time Hazel had beamed like that for him was when they were poring over law books in a stuffy library…
and he’d told her he loved her. Yeah, probably then.
Back then, he’d been unable to concentrate on anything but her, let alone the text in front of him, and the words had just burst forth from him.
He looked away.
“So she’s in the thick of puberty?” Hazel continued, ignoring him as expertly as she usually ignored his emails.
Cian grinned. “Yep.”
“Speaking of people in the thick of puberty,” Jack muttered, stepping aside to make room for Leon.
“Have you asked him yet?” he said as he greeted the hockey players among them.
Gareth frowned. “Asked who what?”
“We all know who has to ask, Alvarez,” Fox replied stonily.
Leon grimaced. “Okay, this is awkward!”
Gareth got the feeling this was about him.
“Leon…” Fox gave him a stern look.
“Fine!” Annoyed, the young player turned and fixed his gaze on Gareth. “Boss, where are our damn Snickers?”
Gareth frowned. “Why are you asking me? Did you draw the shortest match?”
A gentle blush spread across Leon's cheeks. “Nope. It was a straw. So what about it? Seriously, that email was the ultimate joke, about Milky Way being objectively better than Snickers. What the hell, Clark?”
Hazel laughed loudly, and for a fleeting second, her gaze landed on Gareth. “You don’t still believe Milky Way is a main course, do you?”
If you ate enough of it, it was, yes. But he found it best not to reply. It was difficult to control what came out of his mouth around Hazel, and today, too much depended on it.
When he didn’t respond, Hazel blinked, irritated, before adding suspiciously, “Leon’s right. You’re wrong: Snickers is better than Milky Way. Like crossword puzzles are better than Sudoku.”
His shoulders tensed, and he bit his tongue.
She was provoking him. She knew he usually defended Milky Way to the death, and that Sudokus stimulated significantly more brain regions than a stupid crossword puzzle.
But today he wouldn’t strike back. Because today his sister was standing next to him, scrutinizing the slightest twitch of his hands — and every word that came out of his mouth.
“I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion,” he replied calmly, even though something else was on the tip of his tongue.
Even though he wanted to reply that he wasn’t going to listen to nutrition advice from the woman who had eaten approximately two tons of pizza, gummy bears, and peanut butter cups throughout college.
Except when she was alone — then she refused to eat anything at all because eating alone was the saddest thing in the world, and she couldn’t stand it.
But he would remain rational. Friendly. Nice.
So he said none of that and instead fumbled for his cell phone to distract himself.
Of course, he couldn’t find it, because his phone was in Penny’s pocket.
Damn. Instead, he took one of the champagne glasses filled with orange juice from the waiter who had just stopped at their table.
Drinking alcohol and having to be nice to Hazel didn’t seem like a smart combination.
Hazel looked extremely confused by his words, but she also grabbed a glass, as did the rest of the group, who had been glancing tensely between the two of them. Gareth’s stomach sank. He was used to people dancing on eggshells around him, but that didn’t mean he liked it. Quite the opposite.
“Okay, everyone!” a loud, amplified voice rang out across the beach.
Lucy, the Hawks’ PR consultant and the bride’s sister and maid of honor, was standing on the promenade.
“Matt and Maddie are about to have their first dance as a married couple.
But so that no one sees what a terrible dancer Matt is, they've asked that as many couples as possible join them. And, so that as many as possible make fools of themselves…” Lucy sighed heavily.
“…Maddie suggested that the whole thing be combined with a game of freeze dance.”
Oh God.
“I know, I know. But she’s the bride, so I couldn’t say no,” Lucy said, sounding distressed.
“Stop selling it so badly!” Maddie shouted, standing on the dance floor with her newlywed husband. “It’s going to be fun! The winning couple gets a trophy and everything. So come on down and dance.”
“Oh, yes!” Hazel said immediately, grinning. “I want a trophy! Are you coming, Austin?”
Fox snorted. “Of course not.”
“Why not? It’ll be fun.”
“No game with you is fun,” he replied, unfazed, and Gareth hid a smirk behind his orange juice. That hadn’t changed in the last decade. Hazel was a sore loser, but an even more terrible winner.
“That’s not true!” Hazel said indignantly. “Come on, for me?”
“No.”
“That’s not a problem,” Penny interrupted. “Gareth can freeze dance with you!”
Gareth choked on his orange juice and bent over, coughing. His sister was going too far.
“What? No,” Hazel said, giving Penny a stunned look.
Yes, that was the correct reaction.
“Why not?” She batted her eyelashes innocently. “Gareth is so driven in everything he does — he’s the perfect partner. Or is there some reason you two can’t be on a dance floor together for five minutes?”
With her mouth gaping, Hazel stared at her — and her expression would have been funny if Gareth hadn’t been distracted by how incredibly angry he was at his sister.
“That’s a trick question, isn’t it?” Leon whispered loudly in Fox’s direction.
“I think it’s a fantastic idea,” the center replied seriously. “Then you can use the time to finalize my contract.”
Gareth gave a dry laugh. “I’ve been explicitly forbidden from working here, so unfortunately, that’s not going to happen,” he said, glaring icily at Penny.
“Oh, I’m fine with that,” she replied lightly. “Let’s go!” She gestured toward the dance floor down on the beach, where the first couples were gathering.
Gareth turned slowly and Hazel’s eyes met his.
It was a challenge. They both knew it.
And Hazel had never been able to resist a challenge. “Okay. All right. Sure. Let’s play freeze dance, Gareth.” She jutted out her chin and smiled sweetly.
Please... Gareth wasn’t successful because he'd made stupid decisions.
“No,” he replied calmly. “I don’t play games.”
“You will,” Penny whispered in his ear, barely audibly. “This is your chance to prove to me you can handle it. Five minutes on the dance floor, Gareth…and if you both get out of there alive, I might reconsider banning you from negotiating with the agents any further.”
Fuck.