Page 5 of Date with a Devil
“Well, thanks for handling the media and taking the heat off me tonight,” Mikey said.
“Don’t mention it.” Dane got up and made his way to the showers. “You know I got your back.”
He turned the shower on and gave a small sigh as the hot water rushed down his hair. Clouds of steam engulfed him, slowly extracting the frustrations of another stinging defeat from his tense and muscle-bound body.
No matter how badly things went on the ice, no matter who fucked up, he couldn’t be mad at his teammates. It wasn’t their fault. They were all being asked to play roles they weren’t ready for. No team ever had success when they were asking over half their roster to overachieve. It was a recipe for disaster.
Still. That last reporter’s question echoed in his head.
He couldn’t deny it—just entertaining the idea was like a silky breeze in the midst of a blistering heatwave. God, what a relief it’d be to wake up and find out he was traded—the opportunity to play somewhere else, somewhere without the fucked-up history, the broken locker room, the bloodthirsty media, the ever-present stench of defeat …
Yeah, sure, that reporter was right—itwouldbe nice to have a fresh start somewhere else. On a team where he didn’t have such a burden to carry, where he could just focus on playing hockey …
But like he said, he wasn’t a quitter. He couldn’t leave those boys behind.
That’s the difference between you and me,Dane thought, thinking of his mentor.
Part of him missed Hath. The other part hated him for leaving, for not telling a soul where the fuck he was running off to. Didn’t they at least deserve to knowsomething? Didn’t Hath understand that he wasn’t the only guy suffering? That everyone else was still hurting just as bad as he was? That they neededhelp?
What gave Hath the right to disappear into thin air, and leave the rest of the team trying to figure out how to move on?
Some leader he turned out to be.
Chapter 3
Austen
Austen was one of the first employees to arrive at the Dallas Devils Entertainment Media office Monday morning, but she barely had time to take off her jacket or turn her computer on when her cubicle telephone began to ring.
“Austen.” It was the voice of her boss, Thayer Bray, Director of Communications. “Meet me in my office?”
“Sure. I’ll be there in a sec.”
Austen set down her things, grabbed a notepad emblazoned with the Dallas Devils company logo, and set off for her boss’s office.
She always felt a bursting sense of pride when she walked past the crowded communal table of work computers, where she’d begun her career as a social media intern just last year. She didn’t maketonsof money now, as a full-time social media content specialist—only twenty-seven grand per year—but hey, it was enough to pay her bills and slowly,slowly,start chiseling away at that student loan debt.
But more importantly, this job was a start in her dream career, journalism. Apromisingstart, because most interns never got hired as full-time employee at all, let alone in such a short period of time.
Her big break came shortly after one of the Devils players bragged—literallybragged!—to the media that he “didn’t eat pussy.” Scrambling to do damage control, Thayer asked his team for ideas on how to make the players look less chauvinistic to the public. And it was the intern Austen who had the answer: a series of lighthearted one-on-one interviews, calledDate with a Devil.
The idea behind the show was simple: the host would go out on a ‘date’ with the Devil players. Together, they’d explore the fun activities and good eats around Dallas, all while a camera crew followed them to shoot the interview. It was an opportunity for the players to let down their guard and show the more playful side of their personalities, and their connection to the city. The show had comic relief, too, when the host would snarkily shoot down the player’s bumbling advances towards her. Sure, those parts of the interview were oftentimes scripted, but that didn’t make them any less funny.
Austen had come up with the idea and pitched it herself, although she never intended to be the host. Actually, she’d told Thayer that another intern named Heather would be perfect for the role. Heather was an attractive blonde who knew how to dress and always had a cadre of men pursuing her—if nothing else, the viewer wouldn’t have a hard time believing that Heather would be able to get a date with a professional athlete.
Not that Austen thought of herself as ugly, or even unattractive. She was just, well, pretty muchnormal. Brown hair. Average-looking face. And unlike Heather, she wasnota fashionista—her favorite outfit was often a hoodie, her favorite pair of blue jeans, a comfortable pair of shoes, and a beanie. If she didn’t have to look nice for her job, she might not own any fashionable clothes at all.
Not that she was proud of that fact—she knew she wasn’t doing herself any favors in the love department by always dressing like “one of the guys.” And all too often, those were theexactwords that the boys she was interested in would use to explain why they weren’t interested in her. She wasn’t a dating prospect in their eyes; she was just one of the boys.
The point was, she wasn’t exactly the type of girl that a millionaire athlete would ever be caught going on dates with. But when Austen pitched the show to Thayer, he told her he would only greenlight the show if she was willing to host it herself. He insisted that she had the perfect look and personality for it,notHeather. She hadn’t known what he’d meant at the time, and the truth was, she still didn’t know. But based on the show’s success, she figured he was right.
Changing her name helped. When she played the role of host, shewasn’t Austen anymore, she becameAusty.Austy was more flirtatious, bubblier, hotter. Austy was a girl that guys wanted. And, truth be told, Austy was a nickname she went by in high school, when she suddenly found herself as part of the in-crowd and tried to distance herself from her straight-A-student past.
It felt strange to be Austy again, but in a way, she liked it. She might have even liked it when the athletes tried to pick her up … even if shemostlyloathed it.
***
Austen made the short walk to Thayer’s office, a glass-walled enclosure nestled smack-dab in the middle of the office floor. There was never a need to knock; his door was always open and he insisted on an open-door policy. Thayer was a good boss like that. He wanted his employees to view him more as a co-worker, or even a close friend, than a boss—which, yes, could be alittlestrange at times. But it was still vastly better than working for a power-tripping micro-manager.
