Like Lucas expected, the girl giggled as she turned bright red.
“Mr. Brooks.”
Lucas turned to see his new boss in some sexy little shorts, leaning against the door. Adler already hated Lucas so there was no way in hell he was going to give him more of a reason by checking out his wife.
“Mrs. Adler, how are you?” Lucas asked as he came towards her, taking her hand in his when he reached her.
“I’m great, better than you from what I hear,” she said as she led him into the office. He walked in before her as she shut the door. “Have a seat.”
Lucas did as she asked as she came around her large black desk and took a seat. The bright blue chairs stood out in the black and purple room, but who was he to judge her décor? Pictures of her brand new baby girl were on every surface in the office, along with a huge picture of the whole Adler clan above her desk.
“So practice didn’t go well?” she asked again, and he looked across the desk at her.
“I’m extremely tired. I swear, tomorrow will be better.”
“Sure do hope so. We come off break in six days, I need you ready to go.”
“No problem,” Lucas said with a nod.
“Good. Now I’ve gotten a lot of flak for wanting you on my team Mr. Brooks…”
“Lucas,” Lucas said. He hated when people called him Mr. Brooks. He wasn’t that damn old.
“Lucas,” she said with a grin, “but I believe in you. I know you’re a great player if you can stay out of that damn box. We need your stick, we need more shots on goal, and I know you can do that.”
“I can,” Lucas agreed.
“Good, Shea seems to think so, too.”
Lucas’ eyebrows shot up. “Adler thinks so? I thought he hated me.”
“No, he’s still a little pissed about you breaking his nose a while back but he thinks you’re a great player. A great addition to the team.”
“Wow, that’s good to know,” Lucas said, and it was. He was nervous the team didn’t like him and if he knew one thing, there had to be a brotherhood between the players for a team to work.
“You’ll fit in great, the guys are a hoot.”
“Sounds great.”
“Now, ground rules,” she said as Lucas nodded, “no sleeping with any of the staff, dancers, or wives/girlfriends of a player.”
No shit.
“No drinking, smoking, drugs, anything on game days.”
“Won’t happen anytime,” Lucas said, and she smiled.
“I know but I gotta say it anyways.”
“Of course,” Lucas said with his flirty smile, but then changed it when he remembered that Eleanor Adler wasn’t some girl he was trying to have sex with but his boss. It was so weird having a female as his boss, but he knew Mrs. Adler was no joke. She knew what she wanted and who to kill to get it.
Mrs. Adler moved a stack of papers in front of Lucas and he froze. He looked down at the stack of paper and all the words started to jumble together.
This was about to go bad.
“Let’s go over some other rules. You can read along with me as I point out the big ones.”
“Um, well, you see.”
Fuck, f**k, f**k.
Lucas looked around the room as he tried to figure out what he was gonna do.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I, uh, I forgot my glasses at home. Yeah! I didn’t know we would be doing paperwork, my manager/assistant is out in the waiting room, can I go get him? He can help me.”
“Uh sure, I’ll call him in,” Elli said before picking up the phone and telling her assistant to send Levi in. A few minutes later, Levi walked into the room with a confused look on his face until he saw the paperwork in front of Lucas. Lucas watched as he put on his ‘Ladies love me’ grin and held out his hand for Mrs. Adler.
“Mrs. Adler, so much more beautiful than I was told,” he said as they shook hands.
“Why thank you, and you are?”
“Levi Moss, Lucas’ manager.”
“Wonderful, we need to go over the Player Regulations paperwork and Lucas forgot his glasses.”
“He can’t read anything without them, so let’s do this.”
For the next hour, Lucas sat and listened as Mrs. Adler went over the paperwork. He hated when these things happened, but that was what Levi was for. To always be there when Lucas wasn’t able to read something. It was hard to admit that Lucas had dyslexia, but he did. He couldn’t read without taking an hour on each word. He felt like it made him less of a person, and if people knew about his condition that they would judge him or think he was stupid. And Lucas didn’t do well when people called him stupid. That was the main reason why no one knew except for his mom and Levi about the condition.
Oh…and Fallon.
Lucas didn’t mean or even realized he had said her name out loud, until both Mrs. Adler and Levi looked over at him. Levi had an annoyed look on his face while Mrs. Adler had a surprised one of hers.
“What did you say, Lucas?”
“I’m sorry, I was just thinking, do you know Fallon Parker?”
She smiled sweetly. “I do. She is a very good friend of mine and is the reason we are partners with her family’s wine company.”
“Um, well, I used to know her, and since I’m in town now, I would love to see her again,” Lucas said. Mrs. Adler smiled again as Levi glared at Lucas.