Page 41 of Meet Your Match
“Vince, let’s fuck,”someone else cheered louder, and that made everyone laugh.
Except me.
Vince took all of it like a champ, winking at the girl who’d offered herself up before we ducked inside the bar.It was even louder once inside, but the bouncers didn’t stop us for an ID check or anything else before ushering us to the back corner, and up a small set of stairs to the VIP area.
I felt like I could finally breathe once we were behind the ropes, and Vince dropped my hand, high-fiving one of his teammates with it a moment later while I tried to gather my bearings.
Boomer’s was more of a club than a bar, as the guys had made it sound. Strobe lights and lasers flashed in the foggy darkness, go-go dancers shaking their asses on the bar while patrons slipped dollar bills into their garters. A DJ was front and center, and he pointed back to the team’s VIP area before spinning right into their win song, which made the crowd roar and jump and dance wildly as the team celebrated from our little corner.
I couldn’t believe they were still letting people in. The place was already packed, and all I could think of was what the hell would happen should a fire break out.
Warm, long fingertips wrapped around my hip, nearly encompassing the whole of me as Vince pulled me into him from behind.
“Drink?” he asked in my ear.
My eyes fluttered shut, but I forced them open again, turning more to break contact than anything else.
“Please,” I said over the music.
Vince nodded toward one of the tables in the back of our secluded area, each piled high with bottles. He poured ice into a tumbler and topped it with mostly Grey Goose, and a small splash of pineapple juice before handing it to me.
I downed the whole thing.
I was still grimacing when Vince took my glass and refilled it on a laugh. “You can hang out back here if you want to be out of the mayhem.” He nodded toward some cushioned booths in the back. One was empty. The other had two hockey players with a girl in each of their laps.
“What about you?” I asked.
A slow, lazy grin spread on his beautiful mouth. “I am the mayhem.”
I didn’t have Vince long before he was being pulled away by his teammates, and I took his offer, curling into the smallest form of myself I could on a booth in the back. I watched from afar as the team partied in a way I hadn’t witnessed since college. They took shot after shot, dancing and horsing around as they raged into the night. Smoke swirled from vapes and cigars alike, mixing with the lights to create a heavy, neon fog.
But even as I tried to make myself invisible, the guys wouldn’t let me.
Carter came back to grab me at one point, pulling me to the front to meet his brother who was in town for the game. I’d no sooner sat back down before Jaxson was sitting beside me. He’d brought two girls and a couple other teammates with him, and he made me part of the conversation, making sure I felt comfortable.
And I did.
I felt like I belonged there with them, like no one was judging me for being the lowly reporter, even though theyknewI was in a different class than they were.
At one point, I noticed Vince saying something to one of his teammates. The next moment, that teammate was walking over to introduce himself to me, to sit and talk and make sure I wasn’t left alone.
I wondered if he’d done that all night, if he was the reason I hadn’t had a spare moment to feel out of place.
It made my chest hurt in a way I wasn’t familiar with, to think he cared about me, that he wanted to make sure I had a good time.
But it also put all my defenses up.
I hated that. I hated that even when someone was doing something nice for me, I had this devil in the back of my mind telling me it was all a farce. I couldn’t trust Vince, or anyone who I felt was bred from a different cloth.
James had done that to me.
I wondered if that damage could ever beundone.
But then I remembered what my therapist had said — that trauma response was good for us. It kept us safe. It kept us from repeating a mistake, and thus the pain that came with it. It showed us red flags when we used to ignore them or make excuses for them.
I was glad I had my guard up. It was a sure-fire way not to get hurt again.
The night went on.
