Page 10 of Drawn to You

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?”

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