his nearest teammate, clamping a hand around their upper arm and hauling them close. “Xappa!”
“Ow, what?” Xappa righted the box tucked under the other arm.
Stanton’s brother’s BFF. Maybe not the best person to ask, but Tay was desperate. “Switch jobs with me.”
“What? No.” Xappa tried to yank his arm away, bicep bulging beneath Tay’s hand.
Tay held firm. “I’ll owe you one.”
Small eyes narrowing, Xappa looked to Stanton, to the box, back to Stanton. In the box was the branded swag for each seat: a rolled-up T-shirt, a hat, a beer koozie, and a pen, all somehow wrapped together using sparkly white ribbon.
“You buy my drinks tonight,” Xappa said.
“Done!”
Stealing the box from him, Tay headed for the nearest swag-free table, leaving behind a best friend who just rolled his eyes at him before handing Xappa one end of the streamer.
As much as social gatherings of more than four people weren’t his thing, Dakota Cotton couldn’t keep the grin off his face even two hours into the Foundation’s celebration party. They might work for the same organization, in different capacities, obviously, but most of the Foundation’s employees and the members of the team hardly interacted outside of friendly hellos if they happened to cross paths at the arena, where the Foundation’s offices were located on the fifth floor. This was the first time he’d ever been in the same room as an entire NHL team. Just the thought tickled him.
By now, he should’ve been used to hanging out with professional hockey players—his youngest brother played for Vermont—but there was something about meeting them and conversing with them and generally breathing the same air that spoke to every one of Dakota’s childhood fantasies.
Speaking of childhood fantasies, he had a four-year-old son who’d disappeared into the crowd ten minutes ago, Sharpie in one hand, Toronto jersey in the other. Dakota sought out Andy’s dark head while pretending to pay attention to the conversation he’d somehow become a part of, but there were too many large bodies.
Through no fault of his own, he’d ended up in a conversation with two of the team’s communications interns. As a thirty-four-year-old, divorced, full-time, single dad with a mortgage, preschool costs, a son whose current hobby was 3D puzzles, and an ex-wife whose participation in their lives had been almost nonexistent since the divorce three years ago, he didn’t exactly relate to early twenty-somethings. Especially early twenty-somethings who spent their Friday evenings grabbing a drink with men or women they’d met via dating apps and their Saturday nights in dance clubs with too loud music, too many people, and too expensive drinks.
Hell, he wouldn’t have related to them when he was a young twenty-something himself. He’d always been a “stay at home with a good book” kind of guy. If he was feeling particularly extroverted, he’d headed to his best friend’s to play video games and drink cheap beer he’d outgrown before he’d hit thirty.
Excusing himself, he navigated around tables, groups of conversing people, and running children, none of them his.
With the pre-event networking hour over, dinner eaten, speeches heard, and videos thanking donors and highlighting successes aired, the evening had turned into a dance party. They had a private party room at the Drake Hotel, the trendiest hotel you ever did see, with a large dance floor in the center upon which half the attendees were currently dancing to the live band’s cover of “Mr. Vain.” Servers cleared off the tables of any last remaining dishes, and a large crowd had formed at the bar where experienced bartenders twirled and slung bottles, putting on a show to match the room’s decor—Art Deco, low ceilings, dim lighting. Dressed in a black suit paired with a pale blue shirt and red tie, Dakota felt out of place among the players’ designer suits and the glitz and glamor that was the Drake.
A circuit of the outer perimeter of the room didn’t yield an Andy Cotton, but he did spot his broad-shouldered cousin—Dakota’s plus one—speaking with a few of the players, Lacroix, Staples, and Barnes. Of course, Calder would be right in the middle of the action.
Dakota caught his eye and mouthed, Andy?
Calder looked over his shoulder, then sent Dakota a thumbs up. Taking that to mean that Andy was having a good time and didn’t need him and trusting Calder to keep an eye on him, Dakota headed for the bar.
“A glass of the Oban 14, please,” he said to the bartender who, surprisingly, came right over.
“Ice?”
Dakota wanted to nurse it,