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“Depends, what will Steven think?” the player who I now recognize as Benny Garrison asks with a sly smirk.
“Sorry, don’t know any Steven,” I say, sitting down, and Benny reaches over and slips the napkin out from under my drink. He waves it in front of me, and there in black marker is the name Steven and what I can only assume is his phone number.
“You can have that,” I say, and one of the players across from us reaches over and takes it.
“Thank you, don’t mind if I do,” he says.
I offer my hand to introduce myself. “Brendan Grant.”
“Harrison Roe, but you can call me Harry, as long as you promise to call me.”
He wraps his large fingers over mine and squeezes tight.
“Sorry, I play for the other team,” I say, and Benny laughs.
“Plus he’s one of the reporters, Harry, you might want to ease up,” Benny says, and Harry releases his grip.
“Another one. We’ll have the whole press room at our table soon enough,” Harrison complains.
“Another one?” I ask, and Benny rests back against his chair, revealing Ian fucking Levram sitting beside him.
“You met my man Ian here?” Benny asks, and I do everything I can to keep my lips pressed shut. I nod and take a sip of my drink to fill my mouth with something other than the words I want to say.
Ian’s cheeks flush pink. “I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot,” he says and reaches across Benny to shake my hand. “Again, sorry about stealing your taxi.”
“You think I’m pissed about a taxi?”
Ian lowers his hand back to hold his glass, and his cheeks burn brighter. My stomach is turning, and as much as I would love to blast him, he’s at a table with several of the players who I need to want to talk to me or I’ll never get back to hockey.
“Umm, well, yeah. I mean, what else could it be?”
“Yes, please, do tell,” Harrison asks, leaning forward in his seat.
“It doesn’t matter. Look, we’re all here to do a job, right?”
“Well, this is an off-the-record table tonight, so if you want to stay, you have to be cool with that,” Gordon says, his red hair mostly hidden under an Animal Control cap.
Shit. I had hoped to get something I could use in tomorrow’s copy. But making friends with players goes a long way to getting good quotes, so I can stay off the record for now.
“No problem here. You good with that, Ian?”
He nods, and for a while, the table settles into easy conversations about the game, the dancing, and what the players are looking forward to about the tour. Stevie Peterson spends most of the time on his phone texting his girlfriend. She’s almost seven months pregnant and terrified he’ll still be on tour when the baby comes. He could be, but he still tries to reassure her that it will all work out.
“So how’d you score your seat on the tour?” Harrison Roe asks me.
“Just lucky, I guess,” I say, glancing toward the bar. I should go grab another drink.
“I’ll say,” Ian says.
“What, you don’t miss writing for the gossip column?” I ask before I can check myself.
“Hell, no. I hated that shit. But you know how it is when you are coming up. You do what you’re told until you can do what you want.”
Even if he didn’t like writing all that shit about me, it doesn’t change the fact that he still wrote it, and now, instead of covering my all-time favorite sport, I’m here covering the dance squad.
“I read that last article you wrote,” Benny tells him. “Something about a player’s fiancée caught cheating.”
“I remember that one,” Harrison adds. “I didn’t read it, but the picture was hot. I’d love a man to take me like that. What you say, Ian, up for…”
