Page 13 of Date with a Devil
Back at work, Austen marched into Thayer’s office to break the news.
Shehopedthat Thayer would curse and swear, pick up his phone and immediately call DeHardt’s agent to cancel the whole thing.
She wassurethat Thayer would profusely apologize for being dead wrongwhen he said DeHardt would never agree to an interview.
At the very least, shefully expectedthat Thayer would express remorse for putting her in this position in the first place, when she’d made it plenty clear that she didn’t want any part of it.
What did he do instead?
Thayer jumped out of his seat and pumped his arms in the air again and again, as if he’d just scored a personal victory.
“That’sgreat!” he yelled, unable to contain his joy.
“It is?” Austen asked incredulously.
“Yes, of course! This is even better than him saying no! Trust me, this is a blessing in disguise!”
She wanted to trust the man who was largely responsible for all her success. She wanted to believe that they could make DeHardt look like a decent human being. But for the first time ever, she found herself doubting her boss’s wisdom.
Chapter 6
Dane
Following a 7–1 drubbing suffered at the hands of the New York Scouts, the team morale had hit its lowest point yet.The mostly eighteen- and nineteen-year-old players had only known winning up to this point in their careers, and they took all this losing hard—and personally. Especially the rookies.
As the experienced vets in the room, Dane and Reavo knew that meant one thing: the youngsters needed to get laid. That always helped to take an athlete’s mind off his bad play—too bad the rookies were utterly clueless when it came to actually getting laid.
Still, Dane and Reavo were confident that, with their help, they could help the boys out. Theydragged their younger Dallas Devils teammates—Mikey, Brayden, Jaden and Matchbox—out of their hotel rooms and into a taxi, and headed for a nightclub.
While Midtown Manhattan traffic crawled by their taxi window, Matchbox spoke. “So, during my interview with Austy, she finally explained to me why you guys call me Matchbox.”
“Took you long enough, Mr. DJ,” Reavo said. Reavo was often the guy who came up with the team nicknames—whatever names he called the boys tended to stick.
“Yeah, well, how am I supposed to know about music from the dinosaur era?” Matchbox countered.
“Har har. Enjoy your youth, kid, ‘cause it comes and goes real fast,” Reavo said with a snap of his fingers.
“Hey, when are you gonna give us our nicknames, Reavo?” Brayden, or maybe Jaden, asked.
“When we can finally tell you guys apart,” Dane answered.
The only time the Devils could tell the twins apart was when they wore their jerseys, number ninety-six and ninety-seven. The twins’ close bond and identical instincts made for a breath-taking chemistry on the ice—and they did it all without needing to communicate, because they already knew exactly what their brother was going to do.
And for the rest of the Devils, it wasgoodwhen the twins didn’t communicate. Because when thetwins spoke, no one else could keep up. They had a habit of talking in rapid-fire succession and finishing each other’s sentences:
“You still can’t tell us apart?”
“It’s easy.”
“Yeah—”
“—I’m the smart one, Brayden’s the dumb one.”
“Jaden got better grades in school, butI’mthe one who gets laid all the time. Jaden’s a virgin—”
“—I’m not a virgin, and when’s the last timeyougot laid?”
“Last night—”
