2. Ash
After dodging reporters and lingering fans through the parking lot, I found Nana waiting in the car for me. Maybe it was shitty of me to say I had a lady waiting, when really, I meant my grandmother. I could’ve chosen anything else, but sometimes the asshole in me ran deep.
Nana asked about the winner, so I explained.
This raffle…date…thing was a new attempt by the marketing team to drum up fresh engagement.
Of course, they’d used my “heartthrob status”, their words, not mine, to sell me off.
At least it was a drawing this year, and not the highest bidder.
Someone paying a lot of money would expect the full Basher experience, no matter what I wanted… or didn’t want. Ask me how I know.
That wasn’t the case here. It was clear this woman was more interested in the food, and I preferred it that way.
I told Nana how much the woman didn’t want to go out with me.
How she didn’t care who I was. A smile lifted Nana’s cheeks, the expression more to herself than me.
It seemed wise to skip the part about how my pride might’ve stung, just a little, at the woman’s blatant dismissal, hence my ribbing her.
I wanted to get under her skin the way she got under mine.
* * *
A rare night off during hockey season should’ve been fun; I should’ve been going out with the team or cooking with Nana, or hell, literally anything other than what I was doing.
Instead, I had to go out with this woman who wanted nothing to do with me.
Maybe the food would be good, but I didn’t have high hopes for that, either. Not even perfectly buttery Chicken Cordon Bleu would lift my mood.
I fiddled with my hair, not bothering with product.
It was long enough to always be unruly, and tonight, I didn’t care enough to tame it.
Normally, I’d wear a hat out and about. Somehow, the “disguise” usually worked, and people rarely noticed Asher the Basher among them, but the point of this stupid PR stunt was “positive optics”, so hiding wasn’t an option.
If they were going to force me into this farce, at least I would be comfortable.
I refused to wear the suit they suggested; instead, I chose my favorite formerly-black-but-so-faded-it-was-gray-now henley with frayed, stretched sleeves.
The worn fabric dragged against my skin, slowly hiding the tattoos twining their way down my forearms. As much as I loved them, I rarely let people see their crisp lines. They were far too personal for that.
I finished with worn jeans and my oldest boots, and a ring inherited from my grandpa. It gave me something to do with my hands when things got too weird.
On the way to the kitchen, I paused outside my favorite room in the house— the library. Nana and I both had large book collections, and we even had similar taste. Sometimes. I knew the woman liked to read, and I wondered if bringing a peace offering from my own shelves would get her off my back.
Probably not.
Nana threw her hands up in disgust when I found her in the kitchen. “If this is what you wear on a date,” Nana said, glaring through a cloud of steam from the stove, “I’ve lost all hope of ever having grandchildren.”
“I’m only doing this because I have to,” I pouted, pointedly ignoring her statement. “It’s marketing.”
Nana leveled me with a light brown gaze and a no-nonsense flick of an eyebrow. “You’re not even a little excited?” Instead of answering, I snagged one of the fresh rolls from the tray and shoved it into my mouth.
Nana did her best to shoo me away. “Hmm. What’s her name?”
“I have no idea,” I mumbled around the bread.
“Asher Stephens Wilder. You’re going out with this woman, and you didn’t even ask her name?”
“First of all, I am not going out with her. I have to…go out…with her. It’s different. Besides, she stormed out before I got her name.”
The mischievous glint in Nana’s chocolate eyes intensified. “Even better.”
“I already told you, Nana. She hates me.”
“I’ll remind you of this moment at your wedding.
It should be sooner rather than later if you want me to attend.
I’m getting so old and decrepit , you know.
” An affected, breathy old lady voice made her sound about a second away from needing a fainting couch.
It fizzled out when a wicked half-grin tugged on her mouth, and I laughed, realizing where I’d learned the same disarming expression.
I knew better than to argue with her, though she was probably in better health than I was. At seventy-three, Polly Lorne attended yoga and Pilates classes religiously, drank green smoothies daily, and used a skincare regimen twenty-year-old influencers would kill for.
If the first person to reach the age of one-hundred-fifty had already been born, I was certain it was Polly Lorne.
Nana thought I should be excited, but that emotion didn’t come to the surface. Nervous wasn’t a word in my vocabulary, and yet… here I was, sitting at my kitchen island, ripping another piece of bread to shreds and hanging out with my grandmother instead.
“Your car has arrived.” Nana’s words brought me back to the present.
Gravel crunched outside. Time to face the music.
A sigh slipped past my lips. If my date thought watching me play a fast-paced, violent game was boring, hours together in the car and at dinner weren’t shaping up to go well.
It was going to be a long fucking night.
I made a mental note to keep an eye on the silverware. She might not be above committing an act of violence.
Opening the door, I nearly turned around and hid behind Nana’s skirts at the monstrosity awaiting me.
A black armor-plated SUV would’ve been better.
Or a town car with presidential flags. Anything other than the hulking white Hummer limo with blinding LED headlights and running lights that could not be legal.
The driver put on an unctuous smile as he opened the door.
If the outside of the limo made me uncomfortable, it was nothing compared to the inside.
Someone bought out a whole florist’s worth of pink and red roses, filling the interior with the flowers, both whole flowers and plucked petals littering every surface, various shades of pink streamers and hearts, and several buckets of chilled champagne.
It was like the Valentine party fairy got drunk and threw up in there…in October. It made me sneeze and if I hated it, I knew my ‘date-but-not’ would too, and again, I’m an asshole, so it gave me a hint of wicked satisfaction to imagine how mad she’d get. Again.
“Hey, you’re The Basher, right?” The driver spoke as I was about to climb into the monstrous vehicle.
“You got it.” I pulled on the easy grin hockey fans expected. I clenched my jaw so tight it popped.
“Awesome goal in the last game, man! And, dude, the fight with—” The driver kept talking, but I blanked out, leaving an equally blank smile on my face.
My reputation came from skating hard and fast, being the pretty face of the Knights, and all the mistakes made early in my career. I told myself it was better this way: few responsibilities and low expectations. All I needed to do was win games and get in a few fights here and there.
Sometimes, I wondered if I wanted more.
Even if I did, my mistakes stood in the way.
Before I got too caught up in the past, I let those thoughts go. I played in the NHL for fuck’s sake. I was living a dream. My dream.
So what if some fans looked at me as a piece of meat rather than a professional athlete?
So what if I got horrifying DMs, or worn underwear in my P.O.
Box (I never realized people still sent actual fan mail, and the revelation was…
wholly unwanted). The general consensus seemed to be that I deserved whatever I got. Asked for it even.
When the driver finished his recap of the last game, he shot a glance inside the limo. “You want me to clear this stuff out?” He jerked a thumb at all the pink stuff.
“Absolutely not. My date will love it.” My money was on her hating it. Perfect.
The guy’s eyebrows shot up. “A date? With that model? What was her name? She was so hot.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Kasha. No, it’s… someone else.”
My friend Kasha was gorgeous. Six feet tall with deep brown skin and even darker eyes.
We were two attractive people who looked even better together, and the media loved us.
Both being chronically single meant we were each other’s default dates.
And if we ended up in bed after, so what?
We were adults. Kasha was the only person I spent more than one night with in… years.
“You get all the best pussy, man.” The driver laughed.
Repulsion nearly made me give a less than savory response, but I caught it, going for humor instead. Fucking media training . “I date women, not cats,” I said mildly as I slid into the awful rose-scented limo, slamming the door to end the conversation.
Some weird amalgam of anxiety and anticipation grew as we neared the address she gave the limo company, and I occupied myself on the short drive by plucking the largest roses from their arrangements to gather in a makeshift bouquet.
I dropped it as one of the back tires bounced over a curb, and a grimace tensed my jaw as a heart-shaped balloon bopped me in the face.
When I swatted it away, it floated lazily to the opposite side, trailing a curling pink ribbon.
As the car slowed to a stop, I peered out the window.
The privacy tint on the car concealed me from view, so I took a beat to observe her while she was unaware of my attention.
Her clothes weren’t the type you’d expect to see on a date; I assumed she’d come straight from work in her black fitted top and black pants rather than changing into a cocktail dress, which was what I would’ve expected.
Although, given what little I knew of her, it fit her personality.
Besides, I hadn’t bothered to dress up either.