I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t hide from it.
And it all seemed so wonderful.
Adrian tensed as a wickedly handsome man in a tailored designer suit broke through the throngs of tuxes and gowns to approach us.
“Keep your knees closed,” Adrian whispered. “That is Jack Carson, quarterback of the Rivets. I sure as hell don’t trust him around a fertile womb.”
I could see why. Though he pretended to be a suave gentleman, Jack Carson had the swagger of a man who lived for trouble and survived only because he could seduce his way out of it.
Jack was big, far more muscular than suited a pretty-boy quarterback. Something told me he wasn’t the sort of athlete who simply called the plays and waited for the perfect moment to strike. He was a man of action…regardless if that action was right or wrong.
He shook Adrian’s hand with a dimpled grin that belied a far more scandalous nature than his impeccable suit and decent manners would have us believe.
“I wanted to introduce myself.” He stood eye-to-eye with Adrian but seemed leaner in comparison to a hockey player’s shoulders and chest. “I’m Jack Carson. I play for the Ironfield Rivets.”
“Adrian Alaric. Captain of the Forge.” Adrian took my arm, holding me a little too close in the presence of a man who wore his wedding ring with pride. “This is my…friend, Clover Crosby.”
“You a football fan, Clover?” Jack asked.
I’d never admitted to Adrian that I hated all sports, but I think he knew.
“To be honest…” I picked my words carefully. “I think hockey is a little more exciting.”
“I’m starting to think that too...” Jack scanned the room, noting the position of the journalists and sports reporters like a CIA operative might’ve memorized every exit. “Especially with the media coverage you guys are getting. Gotta say, I know a little something about having a bad reputation, but I’ve never had a photo of my playbook circling the Internet.”
Adrian found this amusing. “You sure?”
Jack thought for a long moment before hissing between his teeth. Somehow, the man managed to appear both proud and shamed. Seemed a normal look for Jack Carson.
“You’re right,” he said. “Once during my rookie season. No. Twice. But both of my pictures were blurry as shit. Yours? High definition, baby.”
Adrian downed the rest of his champagne. “At least the photographer got my good side.”
“Hey, any day you can humiliate your opponents by swinging your dick around is a good day,” Jack said.
“Yeah…” I arched an eyebrow at Adrian. “Pretty sure Sun Tzu wrote that in Art of War.”
The quarterback grinned. “To survive in any professional league, you gotta have the biggest balls on the field and off.”
“Would’ve preferred no one saw them though.” Adrian sighed.
“Fuck it. You’ve signed with the best PR agent in the country. It’ll be forgotten in a week.” He winked. “Or you could become a living God if that’s how you want to be remembered. Leah’s very good.”
I nearly laughed as Adrian stole the rest of my champagne in a frustrated gulp.
“You?” I said. “You, Adrian Alaric, got a PR agent?”
Jack winked. “My wife’s company. And if she can make me look squeaky clean, Captain Pecker here won’t have any problems.”
This didn’t reassure Adrian. “I never had any…issues like this before I came to Ironfield.”
“That’s the beauty of this city—it spawns chaos.” Jack gestured for us to slip further away from the party. He wasn’t the sensitive type, but he picked his words as best he could. “The Forge seem to be…”
Adrian clenched his jaw. “In disarray?”
“I was gonna say fucked.”
“That too.”
The quarterback paused as a waiter offered us new drinks. “Look, I’ve got as many years with the Rivets as you have in your league. And I get that every man has his own style of leadership.”
The Forge needed to act like a team before Adrian could assume the role as their leader. But he graciously gestured for Jack to continue.
“I won’t tell anyone how to control their guys…” Jack lowered his voice. “But if you could stop your crew before they make a shitty mistake, you outta do it.” Jack offered his hand but pulled Adrian close when he shook it. “Get your guys out of the back room before they do something stupid with that cocktail waitress.”
Adrian’s expression hardened. “What?”
“Three of your men followed some floozy waitress when she promised them a good time.” Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Problem is…her boyfriend found out, and he’s looking for a fight.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Don’t let the media learn about this one.”
“Shit.” Adrian handed Jack our champagne. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Just looking out for a fellow captain.”
We bolted for the storage closet, leaving the quarterback to juggle three glasses of champagne. A camera flashed, and Jack groaned as he realized he’d been captured in a rather compromising position with so much alcohol.
“Christ…” He swore. “Leah’s gonna kill me.”
The shouting carried down the hall from the fight, and the breaking of glassware had summoned the caterers and banquet staff. Servers loitered in the hallway, ringing their aprons in their hands as they assessed the chaos.
“We should call the police!” A ginger girl with shining braces tossed her cell phone at her coworker. “You do it.”
Her friend, a pimple-pocked boy with a squeaking voice, bit his nails to the quick. “What if the fire department comes cause we used the fire extinguishers to break them up? Oh man, my manager is gonna kill me.”
Adrian ignored them both. He kicked in the door to the storage room and crashed over a pallet of fifty wine goblets, breaking them all. But he managed to prevent three of the Forge from going WWE on the scorned boyfriend with extra folding chairs for the banquet.
“Fucking stop!” Adrian ripped a chair away from Vasha. “Стоп, хва́тит руга́ться!”
Adrian’s Russian must’ve improved as Vasha surrendered with his hands held high in the air. The other men weren’t as obedient.
Foam dripped from every surface in the room, including the three members of the Forge, their floozy of a lady, and her drunken, meth-skinny boyfriend. The fire extinguisher had been a good call. For some reason, a ring of scorch marks encircled the carpet, and a cloud of acrid smoke roiled to the ceiling.
Vasha, Orion, and Beau were not drunk enough to warrant this sort of behavior. It was the waitress who had caused the most damage, beating at her boyfriend with an oversized purse. Her blonde hair was mussed, and her magenta lipstick smeared a bubblegum halo under her bottom lip.
“So, it’s okay when you screw around?” The woman screeched. Her boyfriend did his best to cover his ears and his black eye. “But when I have some fun, suddenly we’re back together?”
Every whore had a silver lining. I nudged Adrian.
“Good news.” I almost giggled. “Your luck is changing. The Forge has their first puck bunny!”