Sneaky agenda, come on down. “Are you threatening me?”
“’Course not! You’ve got it all wrong.” He moves in closer. “Remember I told you about that LT position going at 70? Well, I need a favor.”
“From me?”
“Yeah, I need you to … uh, recalibrate that warehouse incident. Make me look a bit more …”
“Heroic?”
He grins. “Yeah, no reason why my equipment failure should be such a big deal.”
“Except that it is. It was. You didn’t check it and you ran out of air. And I ended up on the mop for a week because of your dumb mistake.”
“Abby, Abby, Abby, you’re going about this all wrong. You need to be thinking of how much trouble Rossi will be in for taking advantage of the boss’s daughter and not reporting it. He’s running out of bridge.”
“No one’s going to care about that,” I say, though my bluster is obvious.
“You want to take that chance? Be a good girl and tell Venti and your pops that I pushed you out of the way of that crashing ceiling. That you wouldn’t be here without me. It’s more true than not.”
He leaves it at that, walking by me into the locker room. Rage ripples through me, a veritable storm in my chest. My first instinct is to run to Roman and let him handle it, but I know what he’ll do.
Punch Woz in the snoz. Get himself fired. Tell the world that we’re sleeping together.
Not necessarily in that order.
Now this fling is negatively impacting crew dynamics. Either I keep Woz quiet with a “recalibration” of that warehouse run or I report his mustache-twirling ass and get my CO in trouble.
I brought this on myself. I should have let Roman do the right thing from the start: report our relationship to the brass and deal with the shift changes that would make it right.
Now I can’t reveal this shoddy attempt at blackmail because if I do, Roman will go berserk. Heads will roll, and one of them might be the man I’m starting to care about against my better interest.
“Sammy!” Jude stands and hugs our friend as if it’s been years since they last saw each other instead of a week ago at the Dempseys’ cookout. “Been on any good runs lately?”
Sam catches my eye. “Is that what this brunch is about? Let me get out the tape measure.”
I stand to give him a hug. “No, it’s about Bloody Marys, chocolate banana chip pancakes, and waffles. No dick comparisons, please.”
He grins, activating those cute dimples, and takes a seat opposite. “There is no comparison. We all know I’m the flat-out winner there.”
A scoffing Jude settles into our booth at Fern’s. “They must love you and your big … mouth at 70.”
We spend the next few minutes catching up and trying to—yep—one-up each other on the coolest situations we’ve encountered so far. I thought I’d have a head start with Betsey the Boar, but by the time Sam has regaled us with a tale about a guy covered in molasses and handcuffed to a radiator, we know we have our winner.
“Alright, enough of this work stuff,” Sam says after our orders are in. “Time for the true gossip. Jude, baby, who ya bangin’?”
Suddenly on edge, I pick up an empty sugar packet and start to fold it into little squares. It’s one thing to omit details of your dating life, it’s quite another to deliberately lie about it to your friends. I can hardly tell the truth: that my brain’s been full of Roman for the last few weeks. That I’m living and breathing him.
I can’t even tell them about Wozniak and his sneaky blackmail attempt. They’d probably have good advice but it would involve coming clean about my dirty affair.
Jude grins. “Well, there’s this bartender at the Manhole—”
“Subtle,” I murmur.
“—and he’s called a few times since our wild night.”
“Have you picked up?”
Jude looks horrified. “Why would I want to do that? One and done, friends. Too much man candy for me to be wasting this goodness on the same dick and balls for more than a night. It’s not fair to the rest of my public.”
We give him a hard time about that but it doesn’t matter—he’s unmoved by our teasing. When we rotate to Sam, he’s unusually coy.
“What do you mean you’ve got your eye on someone?” I throw a confused glance at Jude who shrugs his ignorance. “Why aren’t you telling us more?”
“Because it’s at a delicate point in the proceedings.”
Jude grabs Sam’s arm. “Are you saying there’s some woman not dying to let Sammy the Whammy into her panties? Who is this paragon?”
“I’m over here,” I kid, though we all know I wouldn’t go there.
Sam rolls his eyes, but also looks a little uncomfortable. “She’s not coming around as quickly as I’d like. But I’m up to the challenge.”
I wonder if it’s Madison Maitland, the first Mrs. Cooper. He was chatting her up at the cookout and couldn’t take his eyes off her at Dempseys’.
The food arrives and we dig into French toast and amazing omelets, letting Sam off the hook while we chat about TV shows we’re watching (my current girl crush is Rebecca in Ted Lasso) and how the Cubbies are doing (not great, but it’s only June).
“So Alex Dempsey was looking for you at the party to introduce you to Bastian Durand,” Sam says to me around his chewing. “But you’d already left.”
“Yeah, right. Can you see me with a pro-hockey player? I don’t even like hockey!”
Sam gives me a weird look. Maybe I protested too much.
Jude shakes tabasco on his eggs. “Who cares if you like hockey or not? You can’t make time for a quality piece like Bastian Durand?”
Sam chuckles. “You know Jude would if Hudson Grey came calling.”
“Who?”
“Hudson Grey, the new Rebels player they traded in from Jersey,” Sam says.
“Wait, is Hudson Whatshisface the hockey player you have that huge crush on?”
Jude’s face is the color of the red leather banquette we’re sitting in. “It’s not a crush. I just think he’s … hot. I think lots of guys are hot.”
“Yeah,” Sam starts, “but you don’t tell me to shut my piehole whenever Cal Foreman or Theo Kershaw are on the ice. You’ve got a major thing for Mr.-Grey-Will-See-You-Now. I think it’s cute.”
“He came out this year, didn’t he?” I recall it being a big deal, though why we’re still at the point where any pro-athlete’s announcement about whichever way his dick points continues to make news is beyond my comprehension.
Jude nods. “Yeah, it’s more common now but the NJ team org wasn’t as cool about it as they could have been. Rebels will be a better fit. More progressive.”
“Is he dating anyone?” Not that I care but I’m curious to see Jude’s reaction. He’s usually so devil-may-care about this kind of thing.
Sam chimes in. “Well, he’s missed his shot with Cade Burnett as that guy’s all loved up.” I don’t follow hockey closely but even I know about Rebels defenseman Cade Burnett, the first out player in the NHL, a situation made even more newsworthy because he was, and still is, in a serious relationship with the then Chicago Rebels general manager. “Plenty more fish that swim his direction these days,” Sam goes on. “Maybe if you’re nice to our girl here, she can get you an in with Hudson Grey. She’s almost dating Bastian Durand and his brother plays for the Rebels.”