In the Company

I stared at the group of men who obviously expected some instant recognition. Rose stared, her eyes widening even though she managed to be discreet about it, while I instead racked my brain for any inkling of who these men were. After a few seconds of awkward silence a few of them began to shift awkwardly, and a few cocky and bright smiles dimmed a little.

“Hi, I’m Ryleigh, um; nice to meet you,” wow, smooth. I hoped they would lack my awkward and un-professional introduction as I took a step forward and extended my hand. Max took it – at least I was pretty sure he was Max – and shook my hand before kissing it.

“The pleasure’s mine, ma chere,” I resisted the urge to wrinkle my nose at him, and instead pulled my hand away.

“Thank you,” and I proceeded to shake everyone else’s hand, Rose following suit. Deena had vacated the hall – probably to make her way into the boardroom – and had left us with these new clients.

“It’s them,” Rose hissed at me as we walked behind them to the boardroom that Deena had told us would be for our use today.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I managed to ask without hardly moving my mouth. One of the men – I think it was Brayden – kept looking back at us, but as soon as he was caught he blushed and whipped around to stare in front of him.

“The ones I ran into outside of the coffee shop,” she explained, and with ease I picked out the curly-haired blonde she’d described. Patrick Kane.

He seemed to be one of the most out-going of the whole group – I could easily see him running into the kind of trouble that our agency set out to fix. Too full of himself, too forward… it wouldn’t take much. The rest of them all seemed to fit a similar profile except for Brayden – he seemed too quiet and bashful to need to be here, but there had to be a reason.

Once we’d opened the door and led them inside we took our seats near the head of the table where Deena sat, and waited for the group to decide upon their own seating arrangement. There was some fairly idle chat, which had my head pounding; the to Tylenol I’d taken this morning weren’t cutting it anymore; I either needed a large cup of coffee or something tall and strong, preferably the latter once I got off work. Rose sent me a knowing smirk, and I resisted the urge to flip her off, knowing she’d tease me the moment she could about being slightly hung over.

Soon Deena had pulled out several different file folders and set them down on the table. The group of men – who were slightly rowdy before in talking with each other and making jokes – quieted immediately, knowing what was coming next.

“So, where would we like to start?” she asked, turning her attention to them. Dead silence met her ears, and this time I couldn’t resist a small grin, although I did a good job of hiding it behind my hand and faking a yawn. They acted like a bunch of high school kids in the principal’s office – all tough until they got right into it and realized their parents were about to be called.

“Sorry, not to disrespect you or what you guys do, but I really don’t think I need to be here,” the blonde one spoke up, and I caught a few eye-rolls from the others.

“Why is that, Mr. Kane? According to the information your team has given me,” she quickly found his file and opened it, her eyes skimming the pages at light speed. “That several accounts of drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, showing up to high-profile functions while intoxicated – not a misdemeanor because of being on private property but not good nonetheless – as well as several pictures that spread across the internet… would you like me to share them as well?”

The man all but squirmed in his seat, and I was again amazed at how Deena could do this. She was petite; hardly five feet tall and thin, with perfect hair and a pretty smile. She hardly came across as intimidating, but in mere seconds she could put somebody in their place without appearing to try. This happened to be one of those times.

“N-no, that’s all right,” he almost squeaked the words out, while a few of the others chuckled or grinned. I was pretty sure they must have already known all about these pictures.

“I really don’t think I need to be here either, I mean, we just won the cup. I get it, I was a little out of line, but can you blame me? And I really don’t want to be spending all of my time here when I can be at home celebrating with everyone,” Tyler spoke up, and got a few nods of agreement and encouragement. Deena’s gaze hardened, and I saw his expression falter slightly. This could prove interesting yet.

“Mr. Seguin, I really don’t think I need to lay this all out on the table for you. You’re an adult, and I will treat you as one. Your behavior has been an issue for the Bruins, Cup or not. And this? Further proof that you need our help. You need to learn to grow up and take some responsibility for yourself.”

“I do take responsibility for myself! I get it, I did some stupid things I shouldn’t have but—”

“But you’re still not willing to accept the consequences. In the real world, consequences exist whether or not you believe you’re some hotshot athlete, Mr. Seguin. Now, my recommendation? That you shut your mouth and learn a thing or two before your team doesn’t want to re-sign you, got it?”

It didn’t take long for the meeting to end, the startled group of athletes making an exit as quickly as was humanly possible. As soon as they had left and the door had clicked shut behind them I couldn’t contain my laughter anymore, earning estranged looks from my best friend and my boss.

“What is with you?” Rose asked, and I finally managed to compose myself.

“It’s just… damn Deena you put them in their place!” finally she cracked the tiniest of grins, and then shrugged.

“You’ll learn, ladies. Now I hope you understand just what these clients are going to require. This is going to be a more than full-time job; you need to be integral in their lives to help them makes the changes necessary to have their teams satisfied with us. I hope you realize that I am basically placing my company in your hands with this one,” both of our jaws dropped as our gazes met.

“I, holy cow…”

“Wow,” Rose agreed, both of us too stunned for real words at this point in time.

“So I fully expect you to do the best job possible. It’s going to mean spending a lot of time with these men and you’ll have to know them inside and out to be able to start guiding them in the right direction. If today was any indication? They might not be exactly willing to make things easy on you. I have faith, however, that the two of you will do this company proud. I’m organizing a bit of a get-together so that other members of the company will be able to get acquainted with our newest clients and hopefully it will also give the two of you a chance to better know them as well,” she continued, and immediately I felt nervous. Big fancy parties like this? Not exactly my style. It made me feel like the little hick-girl from small town Oklahoma, like I didn’t – and never would – truly fit in.

“All right – sounds good. Formal or slightly casual?” Rose asked, and Deena responded with formal, before telling us she would have their files on our desks before noon, and that we were free to spend the afternoon familiarizing ourselves with their files.

“Oh my God! Now I know why they were all so familiar!” Rose burst as soon as we were in our own little office. I sat down hard in my chair, kicking off my pumps and putting my feet up on the corner of my desk.

“Getting ran into is usually pretty easy to remember,” I teased, and she gave ma a pointed look before sitting down at her own desk.

“No, not beause of that! They’re all in the NHL!” she insisted, and then laughed when she saw I was completely clueless. Sports weren’t really my thing – I mean, I watched the occasional football game or something like that, but I couldn’t tell you players or rules or much of anything else.

“The what?”

“The NHL – National Hockey League?” when I shook my head she groaned.

“Okay, I’m pretty clueless about all of it, but even I know what the NHL is,” she pointed out, and I rolled my eyes before opening up my laptop and putting the NHL into Google.

“Here’s the files Deena had done up for you,” Lydia poked her head into our office. She was a small, mousy girl with cute little glasses who did some secretary work. Ever quiet, and sometimes it was hard to even know if she was in the room because she made herself even smaller than her tiny frame and didn’t really speak. She was one of the nicest people I’d ever met though, and while we weren’t close and didn’t talk much I could kind of consider her a friend.

“Thanks Lydia,” I grinned, standing and taking the pile of paperwork from her.

“Did you see them? They were pretty cute,” she shyly admitted, making both of us laugh.

“They’d be a lot cuter if they hadn’t all but run me over this morning,” Rose agreed, and then had to relay the whole story to her. By the time Lydia left her cheeks were tinged a little pink from excitement talking about these ‘cute boys’ – it wasn’t a secret that she didn’t go out very much.

“Well, this looks like it’s going to be a long afternoon…” I sighed as I handed Rose her copy of the notes.

“Yeah, especially when you have to figure out what hockey is,” I stuck my tongue out at her before settling into my chair and opening the first folder. I was definitely going to need a glass of wine when this was all said and done.