Page 58 of Safe Harbor
Chapter 15
The back room of the steak house with packed with lawyers eating fancy food and drinking expensive wine. Lucy was on her second glass of merlot already, which was fine. Ryan had given her the name of the car service the Pirates always used and the law firm was expensing it.
The place was crowded but not overly so. Her law firm had been invited out to celebrate a class-action lawsuit that a fellow firm won last week. The case was so big they needed some help and enlisted Lucy's firm to do some extra work on the case. She did what she could considering she was also wrapping up the case against Sydney's boss at the time, but it was enough to get her an invite for tonight.
Her invite had a plus-one and there were quite a few lawyers who had brought their spouses or significant others or even a few hanger-on types. Whatever. She wasn't paying for this so it didn't matter to her. It did kind of bug her that Ryan wasn't there, but that was her fault and not his. She could've invited him. Hell, her relationship with Ryan was more serious than her coworker Doug's relationship with the woman he brought whose name Lucy couldn't remember. She wasn't sure if Doug could remember it either.
Why was she so apprehensive about inviting Ryan? Her fellow lawyers would've been extremely impressed that she brought a Detroit Pirate as her date. She was sure plenty of them would've been clawing for his attention. Lucy had even thought about what he could've worn here tonight. Most of these guys were in tailored suits with buttoned-up shirts and silk ties. Ryan could've walked in with some tailored flat-front pants that showed off his hockey ass, a button-down shirt with the first two buttons undone, and his shirt sleeves rolled up to expose his muscular forearms.
He would've looked delicious.
But he wasn't here. Lucy didn't really have an explanation why. She told him about the dinner. She told him she had plans for tonight. He even asked what she wanted him to wear.
"Actually, it's just a business dinner," she said.
He easily accepted her explanation and moved on, asking her about her day at work before stripping off her clothes.
Maybe that was why she didn't invite him. She was starting to feel like their relationship was more sexual than anything else. It was understandable considering the sex was unbelievable. They would talk too. They ate dinner together a few times and he did take her for a walk along the riverfront the other night. It was the perfect Detroit weather for that and so comfortable walking with him.
But there really wasn't any depth there. She liked him, sure. But a relationship with him? Like, a real relationship with him? She was starting to doubt if that was possible, at least right now.
He was a great guy, there was no denying that. He was a sweet guy. A fun guy. It could've been cool to have him here tonight.
It could've also been a disaster. The lawyers would've found him entertaining until the guys metaphorically pulled their dicks out and slapped them down on the table. If there was one thing that she could guarantee about a dinner like this, it would be the lawyers in this room trying to outdo each other with how awesomely smart they were — the men and the women. No one was immune to having to put up or shut up when some lawyer started pulling case law out of their ass or debating the latest Supreme Court rulings or questioning whether the judge in this case or that case made the right decision.
Ryan would never have been able to keep up with that. These lawyers would've kissed his ass and told him how they were big fans and he was such a great player. But ten minutes later, they would've buried him with his lack of knowledge about law or cars or the latest trendy wine from Italy or Napa. Sure, Ryan was a millionaire because of his career. He also was a down-home kid who drove a pick-up truck and spent summers at home with his parents in Canada.
It was one of the good things about hockey players in general. They were down to earth. They weren't getting their names in the headlines for causing trouble. But that also meant that around a group of lawyers, they were sitting ducks.
Lucy heard about it happening once a few years ago. A law firm won an auction at the Pirates' annual charity event to have dinner with Sam Martin, one of the players on the team. Apparently, they were all chummy with him at the restaurant. But two days later, there was a fistfight in the office among three different lawyers about which one would call Sam and get his business in a potential divorce case. Each one of those lawyers thought they were the smartest one to take on the case and knew what was best for someone who wasn't even their client.
Lucy liked Ryan, she could at least admit that to herself. She didn't want to throw that poor guy in this shark tank with these jerks. But she also didn't want anyone here knowing that she was dating Ryan McCloud. She wasn't sure why though. There was no shame in it. There were plenty of guys who were here with women much younger than them, but they were men. They could get away with that. A female lawyer with a younger man on her arm who wasn't as smart as these guys? It was a disaster waiting to happen.
She still had a good time, laughing at jokes from her co-workers or talking to lawyers from other firms about cases they were working on, trying to get some gossip about what was going on in their offices. She talked to Doug's date about what she did for a living.
"I'm an influencer."
"A what?" Lucy asked.
"I post pictures of fashionable shoe trends on my Instagram."
Lucy grabbed her glass of wine. She was going to need it if she continued this conversation.
"So how do you determine what's a trend?"
The woman shrugged. "It usually just depends on what a company sends me," she said. "For awhile, I was getting a lot of black sandals, like way too many, and I was like, 'Ashley, at some point, you have to say no to more sandals!'"
Right, her name was Ashley. A few of Lucy's friends had little sisters named Ashley — friends whose sisters would probably be Ryan's age now. Lucy took a big swig from her wine glass.
"So they just send them to you and you don't have to pay for them?"
"Nope," Ashley said matter-of-factly. "I have more than 100,000 followers on Instagram so I'm a pretty big deal."
"So that's a big number of followers?"
"Yeah, but that's because people know I know what I'm talking about. You can't just get that many followers for doing nothing," she said.
"Gotcha."
