Page 11 of Arrogant Rucking Player

Just… No Mason.

“Lena, have the first courses been cleared?” I grabbed my best waitstaff as she darted past me.

Her cheeks blazed as she shoved what looked like a handful of something into her apron. “Uh huh. First course is away. Chaz knows. Mains are up soon for the set menu, then dessert.”

“Okay.” I turned on my heel and headed back downstairs, checking the other tables. Amazingly, the rest of the night ran fairly smoothly so far. I’d pulled one of my regular bar staff, Josie, out from her normal area and put her on the front desk while I helped wrangle the team upstairs for the event.

“How are you going?” I reached over Josie’s head to dive into the emergency chocolate stash I kept behind the till for moments just like this one as my empty stomach rumbled on cue.

“I’m fine,” she muttered absently, crossing out a line on the ledger where we kept our bookings, never having made the transition to a digital system. With so many hands in the pot, a paper based process seemed simplest. “We have two more parties left to come in for the night and we aredone.”

“That will be a relief. Any dramas down here?”

“Only your two boys in the bar having it out low key.” She pointed the end of her fluffy pen bearing crossed, googly eyes over her head without looking up.

I glanced at the bar where Kesh handled two customers at once, passing over a pair of beers and taking change from another for a cocktail that she speared with a piece of spiralled lime.

Two tall figures hunched at one end of the bar. I didn’t recognize the older man but there was no disguising Mason’s dark, shaved head or the ink that peeked from the rolled sleeves of his white linen shirt. His collar was open at the top button as he half turned in my direction, gesturing to the open level upstairs. He looked so different in jeans than his usual sports coaching clothes minus a seasoning of mud that I had glossed over him more than once in my search for him this evening I suspected.

But I couldn't miss him now.

“I think they’re starting to make people uncomfortable,” Josie continued. “Wanna break it up?”

I stared at the gap between Mason and his friend where they sat at the bar. The rest of the patrons squished together away from them in the smaller space where we placed everyone waiting for tables once we ran out of rooms and reservations bulked up, especially on a Saturday night close to Christmas.

On a night like tonight.

“Right.” It was time to pull my reindeer hooves up and behave like a big doe. “I’ll handle it.”

“I never doubted you.” Josie turned away to greet her next booking that she swiped off the ledger with her fluffy pen. One of the googly eyes drooped and fell off the feather as I stalked across the floor, fixing my antlers firmly in place.

“Gentlemen, I believe your table is upstairs, if your drinks are ready?” I nodded to Kesh to make sure their order was complete.

All done,she mouthed back, grabbing two martini glasses. She coated them in sugar syrup, then dumped them upside down in a tray of salt crystals, already chatting to her next customers lining the bar.

Mason twisted about, the tight expression shifting into something more relaxed and like the version of him I recognised. “Nyla. I wanted to look for you after I finished here. This is Leon. He’s my coach.”

“Hi, Leon.” I waved. “I’d shake hands, but I’m not terribly clean right now.” I winced at how that came out and hoped for no snappy comeback tour.

Fortunately, Mason’s coach seemed to be made of the same stuff as much current crush.

You can’t have a crush on your kid’s summer football trainer.Even if he was the only one who had taken the timeout to listen to both Brady… And me.

Double wince for the desperation bid on the lonely reindeer at the bar.

That was not the right reason to crush on a man. Even a six foot something plus one who looked like Mason that I wanted to lick.

Stop. That.

We need to focus on restaurant things. Not the lickable football thighs.

Okay, this was getting out of hand. Or thighs. Uh, rugby hormones. Or, something.

I wanted to rest my head in my hands and make a hideous, unsociably acceptable noise, but instead I kept on smiling until my cheeks ached. Mason’s coach looked slightly alarmed.

“Your table is this way,” I managed to utter through fixed, straining facial muscles.

My body moved on its own as I rotated on my heel and marched my reindeer dressed behind up the stairs, leading Mason and his coach back to his teammates. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, the fake as hell smile had fallen off my face and my muscles resumed their usual programming.

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