Chapter 15 Jade
“Whose house are we going to?”
Aanya has managed to successfully peel me away from my laptop and piles of paperwork in favor of going out.
She came busting through my door an hour ago, ignored me where I was working on the couch, and beelined straight to my closet, emerging five minutes later with the black beaded mini dress and strappy heels I’m now wearing as we get off the tube at Liverpool Street.
Aanya takes the steps out of the station at a pace I can’t keep up with in my heels, and I’m pretty sure she’s doing it to evade my question.
Above ground, glass skyscrapers rise around us like lumbering giants.
Towering business centers like The Gherkin are intermixed amongst the Victorian-style buildings that London is famous for.
“Is it a music friend?” We cut a path down a side street, getting into an area of the neighborhood where the vibe becomes more industrial grunge, and the scenery changes to trendy restaurants and clubs.
“I guess you could say they work in entertainment…” Her voice trails off as we come up on a row of three story Georgian homes just off the high street.
Music pulses a few doors down, growing louder as we close in.
Aanya leads the way up to the main door into the building, stops at the first flat on the left, and lets us inside.
We’re walking down the narrow entryway, unable to see anyone, but the sound of chatter intermingled with the thumping bass of the hip hop song that’s playing over the speaker is unmistakable.
Apprehension settles low in my gut as I pick out one voice over all the rest, its familiar resonance itching something in my brain, begging to be scratched with no chance for relief.
No. It can’t be. Not after I’ve successfully avoided him for the last week after the near kiss we had.
Going into the open room off the hallway, I realize I wasn’t imagining anything but instead I’ve been duped by a very guilty looking friend.
“Aanya Bhandari, what did you do?” I hiss.
“Don’t kill me.” She holds out her hands in a supplicate gesture.
“Oh, I’m definitely considering it. The Thames isn’t far from here; you’re small, it would probably be pretty easy to dump your body.”
“I love it when you’re secretly funny, even if it’s in threat to my life.”
“Explain to me why I’m at a party with my entire rugby team right now?”
She knows I’ve been trying to avoid something like this happening—that I am trying to keep everything above board.
One could argue a crochet class would be a breach of my own rules, but that’s different, I rationalize.
I wasn’t inside one of the player’s homes, wearing a very inappropriate dress with skimpy straps, a low back, and a slit playing high on my thigh.
“Because I wanted you to come, and you wouldn’t have if I told you where it was,” she pouts.
I cross my arms, looking toward the door.
“I know you want to be here, and you should be allowed to live your life. You’re young and sexy, and you deserve to have an entire rugby team worshiping at your feet,” she pauses. “Well, all except one.”
“I’m leaving before anyone sees me.” I turn to walk back down the hall.
“Bossman!” Ekon calls out, stopping me and drawing the attention of every person in the room.
I can feel a particular set of cobalt blue eyes searing into the side of my face as I turn toward the crowd of hulking players mixed with people I don’t know.
The flat is a modest size, modern but warm, with mid-century style furniture; big enough that people aren’t on top of each other but small enough that it still feels homey.
“Hi,” I grimace, giving a meek wave.
“Ach! Don’t worry, bossman. You can come in. We won’t bite,” Ekon says as he swings an arm over my shoulder, ushering me further into the flat.
“Not unless you ask us to,” Davies shouts from the kitchen.
A moment later, Myles comes barreling around the corner and wraps Aanya in a hug, dipping her low and planting a kiss square on her red lips to the sound of the whole team cheering.
When she comes back up for air, she looks dazed and happy, and I can’t find it in me to piss on her evening by leaving.
“I need a drink,” I mutter under my breath.
Am I in hell?
Connor Davies is on his third magic trick of the evening, each one worse than the last. The misplaced confidence of men is a truly staggering phenomenon to behold.
During the second mind numbing trick, Lottie arrived, dressed in floral printed denim pants with a fitted green crop top, hair unbound and wild around her face.
When she spotted me, her blue eyes brightened, and she beelined in my direction.
I noticed several eyes following her every step, but she’s either unaware or unaffected, because she kissed my cheeks before plopping down on the couch, where we’re now slowly being tortured by parlor tricks.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” she says before taking a sip of her drink.
“I was conned.” I point to where Aanya stands, snuggled into Myles’ side.
Next to them, Tieran is telling a story I can’t hear from where I’m sitting, but it’s making everyone around him laugh, and I wish for a fleeting moment I could be over there instead of keeping my distance on the other side of the room.
Not just to be near him, but to be a part of a group—to have a place where you know you belong.
But I can’t, and the delusions my brain keeps cooking up need to stop.
There’s a connection between us, that much is obvious.
I wouldn’t have hooked up with him in a pub bathroom otherwise, but it was purely a physical thing.
It was a natural conclusion that my body reacts every time I see him, because I know what it’s like to have him—and it’s good.
So good. It has absolutely nothing to do with how funny and caring he is.
Stop it, Jade.
“For my next trick,” Connor starts.
“Man alive, he loves to hear the sound of his own voice, doesn’t he?” Lottie murmurs beside me, making me snort.
“Maybe for his next trick he can make himself disappear,” I whisper.
Lottie chokes on her drink, and the motion catches Temu David Blaine’s eye.
“Lovely of you to volunteer, babe. Come stand by me.” He grabs her hand, tugging her off the couch, and she gives me a brief look of panic before mouthing help me in my direction.
“I wanna see how this shakes out.” I shrug.
“Traitor,” she hisses, making me laugh into my drink.
Ekon and Finn, two of our biggest players, sandwich me on the couch after Lottie joins Connor in the center of the room.
“This can’t be good,” Finn says over my head to his friend.
“Certainly not for Cap’s sister. Are you having a good time, Bossman?” he asks me.
“It's been…revolutionary.” I try to scoot away, to get some distance, but I’m only met with a secondary wall in Finn.
Yes, I’m definitely enjoying my night of slow torture. On one end, I’m being forced to entertain party tricks by the team's misogynist, and on the other end, I can’t stop covertly tracking where Tieran is in the room. Both things are irritating me. I need to get out of here.
“The new uniforms are class,” Ekon says from my left. “Did you design them?”
I gulp down a sip of my now room temperature hard seltzer.
“No, I uh—” the music's gotten louder since arriving, forcing me to lean slightly into him to answer the question.
“I had the social media coordinator post a submission form for fans to send in their ideas. I brought the winner in, gave them a tour of the stadium before we collaborated on the final design. They got paid for their input and season tickets.” Both the men look at me with shock written across their handsome faces.
“You did all that in just a few weeks?” I nod.
“That’s mental.” Wonder laces Finn’s tone.
Embarrassment floods through me, but I’m saved from having to respond, from having to accept their praise, when the magic show of horrors pulls our focus.
Lottie stands next to Connor in the middle of the room, a look of severe apprehension on her lovely face as more people gather around them.
A moment later, Connor snakes his arm around her waist, and she squirms, attempting to ease out of his hold.
His hand only tightens as he draws her further into his side, an arrogant smile stretching across his face.
“Let go.” Lottie pushes against him, but he just grins fiendishly down at her as he crowds her space.
“On with it, Davies.” I scold.
His jaw ticks in response, but the smug smile never leaves. Finally releasing his hold on Lottie, Connor backs up just a little and starts looking at her profile. “What’s that?”
She touches her pale pink hair. “What?”
“That.” He reaches out, grabbing something behind her ear, and when he pulls his hand away, there’s something silver and shiny between his fingers. At first, I think it’s a coin, but as he starts to wave it in the air I realize it’s the foil packet of a condom.
“What do you say we make some magic of our own?” He steps toward her, and she recoils, stepping back until she bumps into Cavan Darcey.
He stands still as a statue, hands in his pockets, towering over Connor with a deep scowl lining his face.
The contrast of Lottie in front of him, looking dainty and ethereal, casts his features in an even more dramatic sense of foreboding.
Lottie looks up at him, but he doesn’t spare her a glance as he shoots daggers at Connor. “Piss off.”
“Relax, mate. It’s just a little banter.”
Cavan remains stoic and silent, staring him down until he relents and walks away, muttering expletives. Lottie turns to say something, but Cavan’s already walking away without a word.
Undeterred, Lottie shrugs and makes her way back over to me. “That was weird. Come with me to get another drink?”
I squeeze myself out from between the two large players, standing unsteadily in my heels. “Do you guys want another?” I ask Ekon and Finn.
Finn tips his cup to me. “No can do. Cap’s got a one drink rule this close to a match.”