Play for Keeps

by Maggie Wells

  It hit with a thunk that jolted through her, then clattered to the floor, bits and pieces of metal, glass, and plastic shooting out like shrapnel. Millie stared at the dent in the fridge’s gleaming facade and sighed. She couldn’t blame the man for wanting to rid himself of the instrument, but it hurt her heart to see a hapless appliance caught up as collateral damage.

  “Feel better now?” she asked softly.

  Ty pivoted on his heel, his lips drawn into a flat line but his eyes blazing. “He says he thinks she can refuse DNA testing until after the baby is born.”

  Millie nodded as she processed that tidbit. Then she sighed. She and Ty had been coworkers and friends before they became lovers. As a coworker, she’d done her best to see him through the media shitstorm. As his friend, she’d tried to shield him from more hurt than he’d already endured. Now, as his lover, she’d have to show him the photos that would hurt him but provide the ammunition he needed to force Mari’s hand if push came to shove.

  Tearing her gaze from his, she went back to her tablet. Three taps later, she had the first screenshot open. It was a photo of Mari straddling Dante’s lap, her skirt hiked up to her waist and her bare ass showing. The hashtags included #MakinIt, #MillionDollarBaby, and #IfAtFirstYouDontSucceed.

  “I’d say it’s possible but not probable you’re the baby daddy. We can force her to play along if needed.” Handing him the screen, she rose from her chair in hopes of outpacing the fresh surge of bile rushing up from her gut and ran for the powder room.

  Chapter 17

  Kate flopped down in Millie’s guest chair and folded her hands over her stomach. “Do you want the scoop, or do you want to call your boyfriend in to hear the unvarnished version?”

  Millie peered over the top of pink polka dot–rimmed readers. “Do we need varnish?”

  “Gallons. I tapped the sorority-girl network.” Kate scrunched her nose. “I was in a sorority once upon a time, but I sure as hell don’t remember college life being so…X-rated.”

  Snickering, Millie abandoned all pretense of typing the press release she’d been composing about sweeping changes the baseball coach was making in his program. “That’s because we remember the days before MTV started airing spring break festivities.”

  Kate waved the explanation away. “I was no virgin as an undergrad, but I swear, I didn’t learn about half the things they talk about until I was in my thirties.”

  Lacing her fingers together, Millie gave her friend a sympathetic stare. Which wasn’t very good. These days, she had a hard time finding sympathy for anyone. “Do you need a glass of whisky or something before we can get to the point?”

  “Mari’s been partying with the kids on the sly for the last year or so.” Kate wrung her hands together, then flattened her palms on the tops of her thighs. “She was involved with one of the boys on the football team over the winter, but he apparently broke up with her.”

  “Too clingy?”

  “Too kinky.” Kate shuddered, then laughed at herself. “Sorry, it’s just… Can you imagine how freaky you’d have to be to turn some nineteen-year-old boy off? Guys are walking boners at his age.”

  Millie forced herself to lower her eyebrows. She’d be damned if she’d let Mari Ransom and her antics force her to become reliant on injectable fillers. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  Wearing a grim smile of determination, Kate plunged ahead. “The girls said all she did was brag about how she liked to try new things and complain about how boring Coach Ransom was in bed.” She grimaced. “Their words.”

  “Her opinion,” Millie added.

  Kate sat up straight in the chair. “Her loss. Ty’s a good man, Mil. I wouldn’t have let him come within five miles of you if he wasn’t.”

  Her friend’s proclamation startled a laugh from her. “You’re my gatekeeper?”

  “I’m your friend.” Kate rose from the chair and strode to the door. “And I’m a goddamn giantess. It’s my job to protect you mere mortals,” she said with a grin that glinted. “He never woulda gotten past me if I didn’t want him to.”

  “Katie—”

  Kate made a slicing motion with her hand, effectively cutting off any protest. “No. She’s not going to keep pulling this crap. Not on him, and definitely not on you.”

  “This has nothing to do with me.”

  “Right, because you aren’t in love with the guy or anything,” Kate snarked.

  “I’m not.” The denial landed so far short of the truth it burst like a water balloon. The seconds ticked by as every lie Millie had ever told herself or anyone else concerning her relationship with Ty splattered all over the floor. “I don’t want to be.”

  Kate’s answering smile was sympathetic. “Oh, I know.”

  Desperate for a subject change, Millie waved her hand in dismissal. “First things first.”

  “I have the names, but I’d rather not write them down.” Kate wrinkled her nose in distaste. “We have tons of photographic evidence, thanks to her selfie addiction. Let’s give Ty’s lawyer a chance to reason with her like she’s a grown-up before we drag students into the mix. I think the fewer people who know what’s going on, the better.”

  “I agree.”

  Kate stopped when she reached the door. “But someone better clue the AD in before any of this caca goes kablooey.” She smirked. “We both know Mike isn’t a real big fan of surprises.”

  “No, he’s not” came a deep voice from the hall. As if conjured, the athletic director stopped in the doorway just behind Kate.

  “M-Mike. I didn’t… You were—” Kate stopped short, took a huffy breath, then concluded with a brisk, “Hi.”

  Millie chuckled as she watched her friend’s cheeks flush bright red. Nothing better than seeing her kick-ass giantess reduced to a stammering kid caught in the hall without a pass. Their athletic director seemed to enjoy her discomfiture too. Millie couldn’t blame him, really. Kate and Danny’s power play last spring had wedged the man solidly between a rock and a hard place. Mike and Danny had been good friends since their college playing days. Their interwoven personal and professional lives meant Kate, not a socially adept woman to start, had to navigate a whole minefield of awkward each time she encountered her boss.

  “Hi, Kate,” Director Samlin replied mildly. Poking his head around her guardian, he nodded to Millie. “Hey, Mil.”

  She gave him a regal nod. “Mike.”

  Smirking, he nudged Kate, demanding a more equal share of the narrow doorway. “I wanted to let you know Ty came by my office this morning.” Seemingly enjoying their uneasy interest, he let the announcement hang. “He gave me the lowdown on the situation with his ex-wife.” He paused, then heaved a long-suffering sigh. Mike clearly hadn’t forgotten the trouble Kate’s relationship with Danny had given him or the role Millie played in their escapades. “Also, he told me you two are…involved.”

  Millie sat up straighter. “I’m—”

  He held up a preemptory hand. “I really don’t want to know the details.” Kate snorted, and he manufactured another one of those forbidding stares. “It’s nice to be informed about what’s going on in my programs.”

  Millie sighed and pushed back from her desk. “Listen, I don’t want—”

  Tilting her head toward Mike, Kate spoke out of the side of her mouth but loud enough to be sure she was heard. “She’s totally in denial about the relationship thing.”

  “I am not,” Millie retorted hotly.

  Kate grinned, then elbowed their boss in the ribs. “Ha! She admitted it! They’re in a relationship,” she crowed.

  Growling her frustration, Millie thrust out an arm, pointing in the direction of Kate’s office. “Go. Out. Bye!”

  “So articulate,” Kate murmured with mock admiration. “No wonder you hired her. She’s a linguistic genius.”

  “Get!”

 
Kate blew her a kiss, then ducked out of the doorway, the sound of her throaty laughter lingering after she was gone. Letting out a breath, Millie reclaimed her chair, then gestured for the AD to take the seat her friend had abandoned. “She’s a menace.”

  “Danny’s influence. She was always so easygoing before.”

  Millie cocked an eyebrow. “Then you have no one to blame but yourself. If you hadn’t hired him, he wouldn’t have had the chance to come in here and warp my friend with his love juju.”

  “Love juju?”

  “You’re the one who said she hasn’t been the same,” Millie replied with a zing. “And you’re right.” She let her smile spread slowly. “She’s better. But don’t tell her I said so. Her ego is healthy enough already.”

  “Agreed.” He strolled oh-so-casually to the guest chair Kate had vacated and took a seat.

  The moment he looked up at her, Millie blurted, “Ty and I aren’t in a relationship.”

  “All reports to the contrary?”

  “Well, I mean, not a relationship-relationship.”

  “More of a relationship then,” he commented mildly, imbuing the word with a mysterious third meaning with a slight change in inflection.

  “Shut up.”

  He laughed then, crossing one ankle over his knee and relaxing into the seat. “I couldn’t care less, Millie.” She started to say something, but he winced and held up both hands in surrender. “I mean, I care. You know, as a friend.” Looking less relaxed by the second, he leaned forward slightly. “As your boss. And his. Whatever.” He threw his hands up. “Tell me we can move past this point in the discussion.”

  “We can move on,” she agreed with haste.

  “Okay. Well, so you know, no big secret or anything. Other than the thing with Ty’s wife.” He cringed again. “Ex-wife.” He glanced back at the now-empty doorway where Kate had stood. “The alumni are still touchy about Danny. Up until now, Ty has been a favorite, but the publicity around Dante’s leaving school and Mari’s involvement… None of this is Ty’s fault, I know, but I don’t have to explain to you the powers of perception.”

  “We’re going to shut this thing down.”

  She must have said the words with enough conviction to convince Mike, because he uncrossed his legs and prepared to stand. “Good. Let me know what I can do to help.”

  “We’re trying to keep everyone and everything related to the university out of the picture.”

  “Best plan of all,” Mike said with an approving nod. “Keep me posted.”

  The minute he left, she sagged in her chair. Letting her eyes slide shut, she focused only on her breathing. Air in, air out. In, out. Then she took a mental status report. Her skin felt too tight. The realization brought a ghost of a smile to her lips. Normally, a woman her age would welcome the taut feeling. But this wasn’t an “I feel pretty” kind of thing.

  More like she was ready to burst at the seams. Stretched so tight she was tender. Parts of her felt bruised, even though she hadn’t a mark on her. Like someone had loaded her into a tumble dryer and flipped the switch.

  A small laugh escaped her, and she opened her eyes.

  Denial. She had a reservoir of the stuff buried deep inside her. This was the reserve she tapped into at about the mile-twenty mark. The one that pushed her through the wall. Her ability to spin crap into gold was her magic elixir. Her superpower.

  She rolled her shoulders back and wriggled until she sat straight in the chair. No matter what anyone said or thought, she had a heart. The organ itself might be battered and somewhat hardened, but apparently, it was in full working order. And right now, it ached.

  She glanced at her watch. Ty had planned to meet his attorney at eleven. She’d planned to sit in her office and wait until he texted or called with a progress report. One more way of standing back. Pretending she wasn’t in this. In love with him. And Kate was right. She wasn’t fooling anyone. Not even herself.

  Sitting on the bench, waiting for news wasn’t enough anymore. Time to lace up her shoes and get into the game.

  * * *

  Millie found Ty slumped at a bus stop outside the lawyer’s office, his head back and his eyes fixed on something in the middle distance. Not wanting to startle him, she cleared her throat, then placed her ever-present tote on the bench beside him. “Is this seat taken?”

  He smiled as he lifted his head, but his eyes remained dull and lifeless. “Hey.”

  She dropped down on the bench, leaving the bag as a barrier in case she was tempted to crawl into his lap and wrap herself around him, though she knew any attempt at comfort could take a turn inappropriate for public consumption if she touched his sun-warmed skin. “So, did they kick you out?”

  He tipped his face up to the sun. “I heard all I needed to hear.”

  “Care to share with the class?”

  He didn’t look at her. “Are you sure you want to get involved?”

  The petulant challenge was weak, but she didn’t hold his pique against him. She’d jerked him back and forth on the topic enough to grant him some leeway. Taking a breath, she let it out slowly, then said, “I am already.”

  Her assertion captured his full attention. “What if I find out I’m the father?”

  She sucked in a sharp breath. The question was blunt enough to shake the pillar of denial she’d been building her hopes on. She forced a wobbly smile. “Well, I guess my answer depends on whether you intend to get back with your baby mama.”

  “No.” He answered with such quick conviction the breath she’d been holding whooshed from her. “But I will be the baby’s father.” He paused. “I mean, if I am the father, I will be a real father to my child. I may be dealing with Mari. At least for the next twenty years or so.”

  “Of course you’ll be a father to your child.” Reaching over her bulky bag, she took his hand and laced her fingers though his. “And you’ll be a great one.”

  He laughed then. Rough and low. The kind of laugh so laden with disbelief, he couldn’t seem to get any air under it. He closed his eyes, but his grip on her hand tightened. When he looked at her again, his expression was pained. Millie ached to launch herself at him, public spectacles be damned. She wanted to smooth the lines away with her lips and fingers. She’d lock her lips on his and draw the bitterness out of him like snake venom. Which, in a way, it was.

  “I dread telling my father. Is that pathetic?” His question pulled her out of her thoughts. He chuckled, but she heard little true happiness in the sound. “Christ, I’m forty-two years old, and I’m scared to tell my dad I might have gotten a girl in trouble.”

  “A girl in trouble,” she repeated, his choice of phrasing making her smile. “Yes, you are quite the villain, aren’t you?”

  “I’m serious,” he said, scowling at her.

  “I know you are.”

  Unable to hold back one more second, she reached for him with her free hand. He nestled his cheek into her palm. Dark, curling lashes swept down to shield his eyes, but she didn’t need to see them to know the caress helped.

  “I gave up thinking about babies a long time ago. They weren’t in the stars for me. I think maybe because I knew deep down I didn’t want kids.” The confession came out of the blue, but once she started, Millie found herself hard-pressed to stem the flow. “I suppose some people would think that makes me a horrible person. An unnatural woman. But I never felt the…tug or tick or whatever women are supposed to feel. But maybe I just didn’t get that far.” She pressed her hand to her belly. “Not that I don’t like kids. I just never pictured myself having them. I always kind of thought I would make a good aunt. Like Auntie Mame.” She smiled. “I think I’d be really good at the spoiling part. Unfortunately, no siblings, so the aunt thing didn’t work out.”

  He returned the smile, his eyes warming. “I bet you would be an awesome auntie.”

 
“Kate and Danny probably won’t have kids at this point in their lives, but Avery’s younger. She still has time.” The smile widened into a grin as she pictured all the gaudy, glitzy presents she’d heap on her friend’s imaginary children. After all, someone had to contradict the hippie-dippie granola influence in their lives. “And now, maybe you.”

  His expression sobered. “Maybe me.” He raised their joined hands to his mouth and brushed feathery kisses across her knuckles. “I don’t want to lose you over this.”

  “You won’t,” she whispered.

  He raised his gaze to meet hers. “You mean that?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, then lowered their hands to his thigh once more. “We got Mari to agree to a noninvasive prenatal test. That should at least give us some indicator. If we’re not sure of the results, we can try a more invasive procedure, but they’re riskier, and I don’t know if I’d want to take the chance.”

  Millie nodded as she digested the information. “No. Right. That makes sense.”

  “Either way, paternity won’t be legally determined until they do the testing after the baby is born.”

  “I see.”

  “Some claim the noninvasive testing is accurate, some say it’s BS, but I think it’s worth trying. I have to know something one way or another.” His expression grew somber. “Either way, I’m in for another six months of limbo. And I thought waiting six weeks for a divorce was bad.”

  She gave him a wan smile. “Six weeks was bad.”

  He looked her straight in the eye. “I’ve got no right to ask you to go through this with me, but I want to.”

  A myriad of questions, answers, and commentary scrolled through her head, but like the crawl at the bottom of a television screen, she ignored them in favor of the headline. “I’ll be here for you.”

  His eyes brightened, but his smile was sardonic. “You sure? Up until last night, you were singing a different tune.”

  She laughed. “You’d think you’d have learned by now not to listen to anything I say.” Releasing his hand, she swung her bag to the ground and scooted closer until they sat hip to hip. Then she took his hand again. But instead of threading her fingers through his, she raised his arm up over her head and draped his bicep over her shoulder. Settling into the crook of his neck, she patted his chest. “Words are spin, Ty. I’m a woman of action. Pay attention to what I do, not what I say.”