This is not the first charity event I’ve attended, but it is the first being held underneath a thirty-eight-foot Acrocanthosaurus fossilized skeleton. I have to say, it makes this event so much better just because of the location.
That would be the North Carolina Natural Sciences Museum. I’m here with my Cold Fury teammate Van Turner, my brother Max, and his fiancée, Jules. He proposed to her in a magazine article, and she accepted just two days ago. Van is new to the Cold Fury, just as I am. We’ve been here less than two full weeks, both of us brought in to beef up the defense, as the Cold Fury is taking a very hard shot at a repeat Stanley Cup victory.
I want to hoist that cup, so the answer was a big “fuck yes” when my agent contacted me to see if I was interested. Actually, I think it was more like “fuckity fuck fuck yes,” because my older brother Max was the starting goalie for the Cold Fury and we’d never played on the same team before once we went professional.
I’m attending this black-tie gala tonight to help raise money for the museum. It’s not a cause that’s near and dear to me, but I’m here because Brian Brannon, the team’s owner, gave Max four tickets, which cost two hundred dollars each. He couldn’t come because his daughter, Lexi, was in a car accident three days ago and landed in the hospital.
Let me qualify by saying his new daughter, Lexi. Gray Brannon, the league’s only female general manager, announced it at a team meeting. Lexi is a long-lost daughter whom Brian purportedly didn’t know about and she’s recently shown up. More surprising is that she’s dating Roman Sykora, because he and Gray Brannon don’t get along.
Gotta love the drama.
That’s not the only thing causing stress within our locker room. We’ve got the playoffs looming in just a few months, and right now we’re at the top of our conference and want to keep that going in. But we have some key players injured, which is a major stressor, and Van and I are new to the team, so we’re trying to fit in to their system.
Add on to that that Gray’s pregnant and due in a few months, which sometimes makes for a cranky GM. I wonder if something’s in the water, because our team’s captain, Alex Crossman, is expecting a baby as well in July with his wife, Sutton. Zack Grantham, our second-line left winger, and his wife, Kate, are expecting a baby in August. He’s injured and riding pine, so he’s extra cranky, but he’s supposedly going to be good for the playoffs.
I sip my champagne and glance at Max and Jules. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“I’d like to be married first,” Jules says dryly. “And why would you ask that?”
I shrug, tucking my free hand into my pocket. “Seems like everyone’s getting pregnant lately. Gray, Sutton, Kate. It’s like a virus.”
Max chuckles. “Well, when you settle down, little bro, you’ll be thinking of babies at some point.”
There’s no controlling my visible shudder. Not at the thought of babies, but at the thought of settling down. Did you know it’s statistically impossible for a professional hockey player not to get laid if he feels like it? Why would I ever give that up?
“Just make sure you practice safe sex,” Van says with a wink. “Then you’ve got no worries. At least 99.9 percent of the time, if she’s on the pill.”
Jules rolls her eyes and drains her champagne glass. “I’m going to walk around and check out some of this exhibit.”
Max slips his hand around her waist. “I’ll come with.”
“Later,” Van says as they saunter off, then he and I are standing shoulder to shoulder watching the crowd. There’s a silent auction going on right now and people are circulating around the tables to put in their bids. The event is being sponsored by the Carolina Cold Fury and thus some members have to be here tonight to represent the team. I never mind dusting off my tux and rubbing elbows with people, but my interest in these events does wear thin sometimes.
“How much longer do you think we have to stay?” I mutter out of the side of my mouth to Van while keeping a pleasant smile in place.
“Half hour?” he asks back.
“Done,” I agree as my eyes move over the crowd.
“I’m going to hit up the hors d’oeuvres,” Van grumbles to me. “It’s the only reason I came.”
He hates these things and bitched and moaned about it the entire time he was driving us here tonight. He’s my temporary roommate for now and seems pretty chill, but he can be kind of an asshole at times.
My eyes move from Van’s retreating back to sweep the room, and that’s when I see her.
Going back to that statistical improbability about getting laid, I’ll clarify that it applies if the woman is single. I see no ring on her finger, which is the first place I look, then I take a moment to appreciate everything I’m seeing.
She’s tall and lithe, walking gracefully my way, but she’s not looking directly at me. She has long, curly fiery-red hair, and her ice-blue eyes are looking a bit distressed.
I turn my head to look over my shoulder, but the only thing behind me is the Acrocanthosaurus exhibit. That dinosaur isn’t going anywhere, so I look back to her. When she’s three feet away, her gaze sweeps to me briefly and I get a polite smile.
Then to my surprise she walks up to the exhibit, which sits raised on a tiled dais, and pulls up the skirt of her black evening gown. It’s simple but form fitting with thin straps, exposing light freckles spread across her shoulders. They match the ones over her nose and forehead. I’m not normally a freckle dude, but her skin is like creamy porcelain and her facial features are damn near perfect. She’s the type of woman who doesn’t need makeup because her face itself is the beauty, the freckles only enhancing it.
Yes, she pulls her skirt up to her knees, and without any hesitation steps up onto the tiled dais. She sidesteps through some silk foliage that’s added to give some idea of the terrain that this dinosaur once roamed and stops in front of the back left leg. With her brows furrowed, she squats with her legs primly angled to the side and reaches a hand out, rubbing her index finger along one of the bones.
Very interesting.
She’s totally hot and very intriguing. I figure she’s supposed to be fondling the dino bones, or she’s a nutcase and will be hauled out of here soon.
Before I can contemplate it further, though, she stands up and walks back through the foliage to the edge of the dais and looks directly at me. “Help a girl down?”
I take the hand she’s holding out to me as she pulls her dress up a bit in preparation to step down. “Absolutely.”
Her resulting smile is actually a little flirty as she quips, “My hero.”