The floor is wet and sticky, and I'm pretty sure I just landed on broken glass.
And the guy on top of me hasreallylong eyelashes.
His hands are planted on my chest. He's lean, compact, and there's this energy radiating off him that makes me think of a caffeinated squirrel.
"So, uh." He glances to the side, then back at me. "I don't want to alarm you, but the Christmas tree's on fire."
I turn my head.
The tree is absolutely on fire.
Not a little bit on fire. Not smoldering. Full-on flames licking up through the branches like it's auditioning for a disaster movie.
"Shit!" I scramble to get up, grabbing the guy's waist to help him up too, before we both become collateral damage.
He's lighter than I expected. I basically lift him to his feet without thinking about it. He steadies himself, hand briefly gripping my forearm, and looks up at me.
"I'm Devon," he says, like we're at a networking event and not in the middle of a crisis.
"Ace."
"Like the card?"
"Like the—yeah."
Someone screams, "The tree's on fire!"
"We established that!" Devon yells back.
The sound system the tree crashed into is sparking like a mad science experiment. Broken glass glitters across the floor like the world's most dangerous disco ball. Spilled drinks have turned the entire area into a melted skating rink. Half my teammates are on their asses. The other half are yelling.
Petrov appears out of nowhere with a fire extinguisher—where the fuck did he even find that?—and sprays the tree while screaming what I'm ninety percent sure is Russian profanity.
The foam hits the flames.
The fire dies with a pathetic hiss, replaced by a cloud of chemical smoke that makes everyone cough and gag.
Petrov stands there, extinguisher in hand, looking proud of himself. "See? I fix."
"You're a goddamn hero!" Becker yells from somewhere in the smoke.
With the immediate death threat neutralized, everyone starts moving.
And by moving, I mean creating absolute pandemonium.
Washington's trying to organize people, but no one can hear him over the noise. Becker's picking up glass with his bare hands. Groover's trying to mop up an ocean of spilled alcohol with a single cocktail napkin. Wall has his suit jacket off and is using it as a towel even though that jacket probably cost a grand.
I'm about to jump in when a whistle—sharp, loud, the kind that could shatter glass if there was any glass left intact—cuts through the chaos.
Everyone freezes mid-motion.
Devon has climbed onto the bar. He's standing on top of it, two fingers in his mouth, having just produced the loudest whistle I've heard outside of an arena.
"Okay!" he shouts. "Everyone shut the fuck up!"
The bar goes silent.
I'm staring. Everyone's staring. This guy—who I'm pretty sure is like five-foot-nothing—is standing on a bar commanding a room full of professional athletes, and we're all just... obeying.
