Page 16 of If You Need Me

He slides into the chair to my left and covers my hand with his, squeezing. “I’m so sorry.” Then he addresses the table. “I know protocol. This is absolutely my fault, and I’ll take full responsibility for it. Wills was adamant that we wait until the offseason before we pursued this.” He turns and gives me a soft smile. “And it’s been so hard to be this close to her and not act on these feelings. But I wanted to respect Wilhelmina and the league, and of course, protocol and the no-fraternization policy. Which I fucked up royally by posting last night.” He gives the table an imploring look. “We haven’t even kissed. There has been no fraternizing. Just a lot of thinking about it. Like, so fucking much.” He pokes his cheek with his tongue and nods, like all of this should make sense to everyone else.

His ability to lie convincingly is unnerving.

He squeezes my hand again. “I’m so sorry. I know we had a plan, honey, and I shot it all to shit.” He returns his attention to the team and stretches his arm across the back of my chair, fingers skimming my shoulder. “Whatever the consequences are,make them mine. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right. It’s just…I’ve known Wilhelmina for years, and then when we both ended up here, I had all these opportunities to get to know her all over again… How could I resist her, you know?” He smiles his famous smile.

Fielding looks like he’s trying not to echo that smile.

Coach Vander Zee rubs his bottom lip. “Hemi definitely knows how to handle hockey players.”

“Right? She’s a badass. Wilhelmina is incredible.” He motions to the people around the table. “You all know this. I know this. And last night when we talked things through and made the decision to try, I was just so stoked.” He aims his megawatt smile at me. “All this time I’ve been waiting for you, and my patience paid off. It only took a decade.” He has the audacity to wink, as if what happened in grade twelve was our inside joke, before he gives his attention back to Coach Vander Zee and Fielding. “But I posted without thinking, obviously, and that’s my bad.”

His bad?Like he forgot to pick up milk and bread. Like it’s no big deal.

Fielding and Vander Zee nod like they completely understand. And once again King Fucking Dallas prevails, winning them over with all his goddamn charisma and charm.

Fielding shifts his gaze to me. “Do you agree with Bright?”

“I don’t know about being incredible, but last night we did talk things through, and Dallas did express so much…joy. I wasn’t there when he posted, so I’m taking him at his word for that part.”

“If you were less capable and Dallas wasn’t already prone to acts of thoughtlessness, you two would be in a hell of a lot more trouble. We need to get Shilpa in here with paperwork. And from here on, you’ll need Hammer—” Fielding frowns. “Or do we call her Peggy? Or Aurora?”

Shirley calls Shilpa in.

“She’s fine with Hammer when we’re at work,” I offer. “ButAurora if you’re introducing her to people outside the team. Roman is still a little stuck on Peggy.” Our friends have a lot of nicknames, and we just roll with it. Her dad is the only one who calls her Peggy anyway.

“Got it. Thanks. Hammer should be the lead on any promo opportunities moving forward for Dallas,” Jamie says.

“Wilhelmina is the best at keeping me level during promos,” Dallas interjects.

“Hemi can be there, but we need another company representative,” Vander Zee explains.

Shilpa arrives with the paperwork. She looks at me and then Dallas, but her expression remains neutral. The woman could be a professional card shark.

She takes the seat beside me. “I have the forms ready, as we discussed.”

They’re extensive. Shilpa reads the document, explaining the parameters, while Dallas and I follow along. Sweat drips down my back, and panic makes my throat tight.This is really happening.I’m committed to being Dallas’s fake girlfriend for the foreseeable future. I have to steady my hand as I sign my name. We now have a legal, binding document that states that Dallas and I are in a relationship.

I think I might vomit.

In contrast, his eyes are alight with an unreasonable amount of excitement and satisfaction as he scribbles his signature on the last page. “It’s official,” he tells me. “You’re mine.”

CHAPTER 8

DALLAS

Isurreptitiously rearrange my anxiety boner before I stand and pull Willy’s chair away from the table. She’s not expecting it, so it screeches obnoxiously across the floor. No one looks particularly stoked about this new development. Except for me. Internally, I’m delirious with joy.

I apologize again to Fielding and Vander Zee and gently press my fingertips against Willy’s back as I follow her to her office. She closes the door and whirls to face me.

Her gorgeous face is a mask of rage. “Was this a ploy?”

“What?” I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I mirror Willy and prop them on my hips, then think better of it and stuff them in my pockets.

“Did you post that so I wouldn’t have a choice about being your date for the reunion?” She paces her office, heels clipping angrily on the floor. She’s wearing navy dress pants, a burgundy blouse, and a matching blue blazer, buttoned at the waist, showing off her curvy hourglass figure. She pokes me in the chest with her pointy fingernail. “You better not humiliate me again. I swear on all that is holy, Dallas, if you screw me over again like you always have, I will make it my life’s mission to destroy you, one humiliating promo op at a time.”

Beneath the very real rage that causes her cheeks to flush, hurt and betrayal lurk in her eyes. It makes me feel like the giant bag of shit I am. My anxiety boner deflates, thank God. “It wasn’t a ploy. I was drunk and not thinking clearly.”

“Do you have any idea how fucked we would have been if I hadn’t gone along with this? You would have been suspended then traded, Dallas, and I would have been the laughingstock of the hockey world. There’s a good chance I will be anyway, thanks to you.”

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