Sacked (The New York Nighthawks 1)

Her words tumbled out nervously. “Um…this—this is from, um, the gentleman at the bar.” Since she was still holding the glass, she used her elbow to gesture behind her. A guy who barely looked old enough to drink was watching Naomi with a cocky smile. Clearly, the kid was too young to know that he shouldn’t be messing with a woman who was here with the team. Making it into the VIP section must have gone to his head.

Before Naomi could say a word, I grabbed the glass and downed the contents in one swallow. Then I handed it back to the server. “Tell him ‘thanks’ from me.” The kid frowned at me, and I scowled. It was enough to get the point across because he turned in his seat, suddenly absorbed in a conversation with the guy next to him.

The server nodded and spun around, scurrying out of the VIP area.

“Do my eyes deceive me?”

Fuck.

My friend Axton, the owner of the club, came strolling over to us with a shit-eating grin. It was an unusual expression for him. We’d played high school ball together, then a couple of years in college. Eventually, he decided he didn’t have an interest in going pro and joined the military. He was recruited into the CIA, but that was all I knew about that because he wasn’t allowed to talk about whatever it was that he’d done for them. Then three years ago, he moved back to town permanently and opened this club. He’d given me some hints on what had happened, but we’d never had a real conversation about it. I didn’t push it because I didn’t want him to be forced to kill me.

“Is that Prentice Wright I just saw drinking?” he crowed. “In my club? What happened to the guy who always tells me I should treat my body like a temple?”

“Nice to see you too, Axton,” I grunted.

He stopped next to me, and his eyes strayed to my companion. They widened right along with his smile. “And here with a woman? Did Hell freeze over, and I missed it?”

5

Naomi

Prentice didn’t look happy with his friend, but I was tempted to jump up and give the guy a hug. I had felt a huge surge of relief when he’d shared that Prentice didn’t normally drink and never dated. All of my worries about him walking into the club with a different woman on his arm every night had been put to rest. And I felt as though maybe I really wasn’t imagining the interest in his dark eyes.

Jerking my chin toward the man the server had pointed out, I explained, “Prentice was just helping me out. I’m not much of a drinker, either, but that guy sent me over a drink.”

Axton slanted a knowing look at his friend. “Uh-huh, I’m sure he was more than happy to help you take care of that.”

“Don’t you have stuff to do?” Prentice glared up at him. “One of your employees probably needs you for something. This place is packed.”

“That it is.” Axton slapped him on the back. “Good talking to you, man. So glad you came in tonight so we could chat.”

“Mm-hmm,” Prentice murmured, unbothered by his friend’s teasing.

After Axton walked away, I leaned forward. “You didn’t have to scare him off. Contrary to what my brother thinks, I’d be okay here on my own while you talk to your friend.”

“I’m here with you because it’s exactly where I want to be,” he assured me, reaching out to rest his hand over mine.

Butterflies swirled in my belly at his words, leaving me breathless. “Oh.”

“You gonna stop trying to get rid of me?”

“That’s not what—” I caught the teasing gleam in his dark orbs and sighed. “Yeah, I guess you can stay here. If you really want to.”

“I do.”

Holy moly. Hearing those two words from his mouth did crazy things to my ovaries.

“What are your plans now that you’re living with your brother? Do you have a job lined up already?”

“Sort of.” When he did a little circle in the air with his hand, I added, “I’m taking over Nixon’s social media accounts for him. The usual stuff like coming up with a strategy to grow his audience, taking photos of him at practice and on the field so he has good content, and responding to his followers. That kind of thing.”

“That’s a hell of a coincidence.”

My brows drew together. “What is?”

“I had to let my social media guy go recently,” he explained. “Any chance you’d be interested in taking on another client?”

“You?” I squeaked. It was one thing to help Nixon out with his accounts. As a rookie, he didn’t have a ridiculous number of followers yet, so I couldn’t really mess up too badly. But I was sure that if I pulled Prentice’s accounts up on my cell phone, I’d find he had millions of them. “Shouldn’t you use an agency or something?”