But Dylan takes my hand. “Please come with me. You’ll have a good time. I promise.”
Brayden meets us outside the front of the bar. As soon as the three of us walk inside the doors and the customers see Dylan, the yelling gets so deafeningly loud I nearly block my ears. He waves and smiles like this is nothing, but the energy coming at us terrifies me. I wonder if this is what it feels like to come out of the tunnel before games. Or to meet with the hordes of media after games.
Dylan introduces me to everyone in sight. Most of the men are wearing cowboy hats or baseball caps, and the women are dressed casually in jeans and sweaters. The bartender’s filling up pitchers of beer so quickly it’s like he’s afraid we’ll run out before he’s served up another.
I shake my head no at the offer of a beer, but Dylan takes one for himself. I try to force myself into my social mode by striking up a conversation with the man next to me, but he only has eyes for Dylan. Everything Dylan says, they all laugh. Every time he laughs, they laugh harder. I almost feel like I don’t exist. But I find the whole experience fascinating.
After about ten minutes of this, the bartender nods to Dylan and gestures toward the back of the bar. Dylan takes my hand as he and Brayden push past the crowd and head for an unmarked door. Brayden opens it, and Dylan ushers me ahead of him into a quiet, dimly-lit back room where three more hot guys are playing pool and laughing.
They look up as we enter, and all I hear is—
“Dyl!”
“No way! You really brought someone with you? You’re going down just like Colt!”
“Come on over and fill us in!”
Dylan shuts the door firmly behind us, and just like that, the crowded bar disappears. And I’m left facing three curious stares.
“Jasalie,” Dylan says in a soft tone, his arm around me protectively. “These are the rest of my cousins.”
After a short while of each cousin talking over himself to explain who each of them is, I think I can put the right name to the face.
Jenson’s not really a Wild, but he and Colton met as kids, and now he’s considered one of them. He’s blond and a former football player who, like Brayden, chose another path. He says he’s got twin sons who he adores, but when I ask about his wife, his expression turns dark, and he makes it clear that he’s single. He tells me he flew in from Pennsylvania and that he wouldn’t have missed meeting me for the world.
I raise an eyebrow as Dylan and Brayden start up a game of pool a few feet away from us. “How come?”
“Because,” Cameron, the dark-haired hockey playing cousin from Minnesota tells me in a lowered voice, “Dylan doesn’t trust any—and I meanany—woman. So if he’s bringing you home like this, you must have gotten through some serious combination locks.”
“So you’re a hockey player?” I say politely, in a blatant effort to change the subject.
He nearly scowls at the question.
“Sorry,” I say quickly. “I must have misheard.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry for overreacting. I’ve been thinking of quitting, but my dad won’t give up the dream.”
“I hope everything works out for you.”
Cam relaxes at my calm tone. “Thanks. So. We’ve met a few of Dylan’s dates before but never in his home state. So back to you and how you’re the first woman Dylan’s brought home to Montana. Must be serious.”
I smile and again glance over at Dylan. He’s fully engaged in the game with Brayden, and both of them are cracking up at Dylan’s poor shot.
“It wasn’t supposed to be,” I say finally.
Cam breaks into a laugh. “You’re honest. That’s exactly what Dylan needs. I can’t imagine all the yes people he’s surrounded by in that crazy world of his. One reason I never want to go into the majors.”
“I can understand what you mean. Seeing into his world this past week has certainly been an eye-opener.”
“Are you in entertainment at all? Since you live in L.A., I have to ask, of course.” He grins like he’s a natural flirt but is doing his best to rein it in with me. “Not to pigeonhole you, but you’re beautiful and clearly could be a model or an actress.”
Jenson groans. “Easy on the creep factor, Cam.”
I smile. “It’s okay. No, I’m not. I try to avoid that part of Los Angeles, honestly.”
He raises his beer to me. “You’re good for Dylan. I hope you can make it work.”
“Yeah, Colton told us about the crazy deal Dylan offered you,” Ayden says, his bright blue eyes sparkling with amusement underneath his blue baseball cap with the red B in the center. “Any woman who takes a deal like that from a damn stranger must be someone special. Hey Dyl!” he calls out. “Did that tight-ass see the photos and agree to back your charity yet?”
