“But you’re friends.”
“Because I know that no matter what happens, Cella Malone always has my back. Always.”
“And you think I’m being a prick.”
“No! Not at all. I mean, from the outside looking in to the world of Malones ... complete and utter craziness.”
“But ... ?”
“But think of it this way. You get a couple of free dinners, your brothers could—accidentally, of course—see you hanging around Cella Malone and maybe the Marauder since she’s the only one on the team who can tolerate being around that man. You’ll get a chance to spend time with Butch Malone, and he does like you.”
“He does? Really?” Then Crush realized what a complete geeky loser he sounded like and lowered his voice several octaves to say, “Oh. Yeah. That’s nice.”
Dr. Davis smiled, but didn’t openly make fun of him. “And what’s most important to me—you can help make a girl’s life a little bit easier for the next four weeks or so.”
“The five-year-old?”
“I promise you Meghan is eighteen as of two-oh-three this morning. She’s an amazing girl who wants to be a doctor and always feels the need to smooth things over between her mother and the Malone aunts. I can assure you the aunts do not make it easy.”
“They give Malone a hard time?”
“Not always, but one in particular ... Cella’s tried, very hard, to find her own way in life. But her Aunt Deirdre fears her effect on Meghan.”
“But Meghan is Malone’s daughter.”
“Exactly. Of course, Meghan’s kind of my daughter, too. And my daughter, Josie, is kind of Cella’s.”
“And so you always have Malone’s back?”
“Always. If you want, you can think of it this way: You do this and you’re helping me out. Because if Cella gets into it with her aunt, she’ll come to me to complain, and I’ll be up all night listening to her rant. And then what if I’m not a hundred percent with my job? On the day that the Marauder is playing? Gasp!”
“That’s extortion, Dr. Davis.” Crush laughed.
Her smile ... gorgeous. “You’re absolutely right. But think about it. You’ll be helping out your favorite team, keeping them safe.”
“Low, Dr. Davis. That’s very low.”
“Due to my smaller size, I have to be able to fight a little dirtier than the bigger cats.”
“Dirtier and a lot smarter.”
“We have no choice when the Pride lions are running around calling us house cats.”
Crush blew out a breath. “Something tells me this might be the stupidest thing I’ll ever agree to do.”
“Really, Detective Crushek? Because something tells me ... this will be the best thing that’s happened to you in a very long time.”
Cella sat in the SUV, waiting for Jai to come out. That big, bastard bear was probably asking her out. All that class and education compared to Cella’s complete lack of both.
She briefly wondered if she could get away with just lying to her aunts until after the wedding. It would probably work with all of her aunts but Deirdre.
A knock at the driver’s window made Cella jump a little, but finding Crush standing outside her car door just confused her. She rolled down the window. “Hi.”
“Hi.” When he stood there, not speaking, she tentatively asked, “Is there something you need?”
“A promise. Two, actually.”
“Pretend we never met?”
He smiled and she had to admit—he had a really handsome smile. “No. I just need to know that when we’re done with your crazy scheme, the world will think you broke up with me.”
“To protect my fine reputation?”
“You mean your reputation as a brawler and homicidal maniac? Yeah ... not really my concern.”
“Oh.”
“But I don’t want Nice Guy Malone thinking I broke his daughter’s heart. Can you promise me that?”
“I can definitely promise you that. And the second?”
“That if you ever see me reaching for a Jell-O shot again, you’ll take me out like you did that goalie in last month’s game against the Utah Sinners.”
Laughing and cringing at the same time—she really took that goalie out—Cella nodded. “If it gets you to help me ... you’ve got it.”
“Then I’m in.”
Unable to help herself, Cella asked, “So you’ll be my pretend boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Will we have pretend sex? What about pretend children?” She pressed her hands to her chest and happily sighed, “How about a pretend dog?”
“Leave Lola out of this and don’t freak me out.” He stood tall—really, really tall. “So when do we start this?”
Cella grimaced and admitted, “Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
The passenger door opened up and Jai slipped into the seat as Cella explained to Crush, “Kid’s birthday dinner. Please?”
He looked off, blew out a breath, then finally nodded. “Yeah, all right. I’ll follow you. Just let me take Lola to my next-door neighbor’s and then I’ll be ready to go. Oh, unless I need to dress up?”
“The only parties Malones dress up for are wakes and weddings.”
“I don’t think I’d consider a wake an actual party.”
“It depends on who died.”
He shook his head, refusing to respond to that. “Let me take care of Lola before I change my mind about all this.”
“You can bring Lola if you want,” Cella offered, feeling pretty impressed with herself for doing so.
Crushek stopped, looked at her. “You want me to bring my fifty-pound dog—”
“Thought it was a foster?”
“—to a predator-only birthday party?”
Cella blinked. “Well, when you put it like that ...”
With another sigh, the bear headed back to his house and dog.“He had a point about bringing the dog,” Jai murmured, finally closing her door.
Cella shrugged. “Yeah, I kind of realized that once I said it. But by then the words were already out of my mouth... .”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Cella and Jai had returned to the house with the bear following behind in his own truck. As soon as they’d walked in, her aunts descended on him. But they’d barely gotten out their prying, annoying questions before Nice Guy came to the rescue, pulling Crush away and out back to meet with the rest of the uncles, male cousins, and her father’s old hockey buddies.
And that had been four hours ago. She hadn’t been able to speak to him except to ask if he needed salt for his steak and did he want more potato salad. He seemed to be doing okay, although it was really hard to tell. The man so rarely smiled and around her dad he just looked sort of ... terrified. Terrified he’d end up making a fool of himself in front of his hero players. Poor thing.
But Cella kept her eye on him, just in case he looked particularly miserable. As she peeked in on him through the kitchen window, he still didn’t look too bad, so she went back to washing the dishes.
“Okay,” her mother said from behind her, putting more plates in the sink. “I take it back.”
“Take what back?”
“That bears have no purpose on this planet other than to annoy me. That Mr. Crushek is very cute.”
Cella chuckled. “You are such a bigot, Ma.”
“Of course, I’m not. I just think cats are better than everyone else. Doesn’t make me a bigot. It makes me a realist.” She kissed Cella’s cheek. “You holding up all right?” she whispered.
“Yeah. But she’s pushing me.”
Deirdre had been in rare form the entire evening. Lots of jokes at Cella’s expense, always under the guise of “just kidding” or “Isn’t she adorable when she’s fucking up?” But Cella knew better. The woman wanted to make her look bad in front of Crushek, and in front of Meghan. And any other time, Cella would go toe-to-toe with the witch, but not this time. Instead, Cella sucked it up, smiled, and found reasons to walk away. For the first time at any family party, Cella spent more time in the kitchen helping with food and doing the dishes than she did outside with her uncles, father, and godfathers.
Kathleen walked in through the sliding door, more dishes in her hands. “I’ll get one of your cousins to take over here,” she promised, placing the plates in the sink. “Go spend more time with your girl.”
“Did Bri leave yet?”
“No. He was giving that bear the third degree for a while, but now he’s avoiding your brothers.”
“I told them to lay off Bri.”
“They don’t know how. But Pauline’s taking care of it.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Kathleen stood on the other side of Cella. “He seems like a very nice boy.”
“Bri?”
“No, idiot. The bear. I have to admit, I was a little put off when he first walked in. I haven’t seen a scowl like that since my grandfather died. But he’s very sweet.”
“He is.”
“And he doesn’t know what to do with you.”
“Who does?”
Kathleen relaxed against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest. “He doesn’t have any family except those brothers, eh?”
“Nope.”
“Heard you already punched one.”
“He was pretending to be him. It was rude.”
“Don’t worry. I think he liked when you did that anyway.” Kathleen patted her shoulder and whispered in Cella’s ear, “That’s the kind of man you want, Cella Malone.”