He directed Jen as the line snaked through the tables. She had no microphone on, the deejay did all the talking in this club getting patrons on their feet. She left the conga line and approached the velvet ropes.
“Wanna dance?” she asked in that flirty way of hers.
“I never turn a pretty lady down,” Hutch said with a grin. He hopped up and Nate moved back in the conga line to make room for him. The music swelled and Jen snaked through the room gathering up many of the people who all wanted to say they danced with Hutch Damien.
Hutch was a bona fide Hollywood superstar who’d started his career as a teenage rapper, but not with that hard-edged gangster rap—more of a sophisticated and fun sound that had him climbing the pop charts. He had movie-star good looks that he capitalized on to make films that people loved. And he was a genial guy.
Nate and he went way back to before his playing days when they’d both been rich boys at prep school. Since that image didn’t jibe with Hutch’s public persona of a rapper who made good, they seldom mentioned that fact to anyone.
Jen led them into the middle of the dance floor and then moved off to the side as the music ended and the deejay played “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira.
Nate left T.J. and Hutch on the dance floor as a group of women came up to dance with them and probably grab a picture or two on their cell phones.
Jen was nowhere to be seen forty-five minutes later. He sent a message to Cam checking in to see if there was anything he needed from him. Then he tweeted about the club, talking up Hutch and T.J. on the dance floor.
He pocketed his phone and sought out his friends in the VIP section. He quickly found Hutch and T.J. and sat down with them. But Nate couldn’t stay up here all night; he needed to make sure that there were celebrities throughout the club.
Nighttime was his busiest time but he loved it.
“Where you going?” Hutch asked him when he got up.
“We have a band performing downstairs.”
“Not until ten,” Hutch said, glancing pointedly at his watch.
Nate grinned sheepishly at his friend.
“There’s a girl…” T.J. said.
“There’s always a girl for our Nate.”
“Yes, there is always a girl. I think you’ll like her.”
“So she’s for me?”
“No,” Nate said. “She’s mine.”
“Fair enough, who is she?” Hutch asked.
T.J. took a sip of his rum and Coke and leaned over the edge of the table, his eyes skimming the dance floor. Jen was in the middle doing a flamenco dance. “There she is. The dark-haired one dressed in red.”
“Nice,” Hutch said. “She works here?”
“Yes,” Nate said, leaning back against the padding of the banquette. “Dance teacher.”
“What’s her name?” Hutch asked.
“Jen,” Nate said.
The fact that he was going to bring her up here said more than he wanted it to. His friends understood that he rarely invited someone who wasn’t a part of their group to join them. They were the same way. But Jen was different.
“I like her,” T.J. said. “She’s funny and knows how to move her body. And this one got jealous when she touched me.”
“I am not jealous of you,” Nate said.
That was one thing he’d never been. Even when he had been injured and had to quit playing ball he’d never envied those who still played. He didn’t waste time dreaming about what might have been. He lived his life to the fullest and if that sometimes meant he had to course correct then he did it.
“I know, man, just joshing with you. Go get your girl before she disappears,” T.J. said.
Nate glanced back at the dance floor. Sure enough, Jen and her assistant Alison were taking bows and leaving the club. For the night, he knew.
Nate stood up and walked through throngs of people in the club. He stopped to sign autographs for Yankees fans and posed for pictures with scantily clad women. He kept his smile in place even though he was impatient and wanted to get to Jen.
Cam texted him that there was some kind of problem with the guest list and Nate knew he needed to get down and take care of it, but he was afraid to miss Jen.
Afraid?
He shook his head and began making his way to the front desk instead of waiting for her. He walked down the grand staircase and looked at all the people crowding the dance floor and tried to take some satisfaction from it. This was his life. Luna Azul—the blue moon. Which had been the name of their father’s boat when they’d been growing up.
They spent long lazy summer days on that yacht, just his dad and his brothers. Away from their shrew mother’s demanding voice. Away from the shore where everyone wanted a piece of Jackson Stern, the PGA golf phenom. Away from the real world on the ocean where they could just be themselves.