Love Game

by Maggie Wells

  She stroked a hand over his head, then pressed it to his cheek, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I have an IUD, Danny. That’s what I meant.”

  “Oh, thank Christ.” Squeezing her captive hand tight, he surged into her. “You feel so good.” He panted the words, staring into her wide eyes as he thrust into her. “I didn’t want to stop.”

  “But you would have.”

  The confidence in her response stilled him. He gazed into her eyes and nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” She stared at him, surprised by the admission. She hitched her legs higher, and he settled even deeper inside her. “You’d have taken that chance?”

  He bit his lip, then nodded. “For you? Yeah, I’d take the chance.”

  Chance. Didn’t she realize he was risking everything for her? That had to mean something, right? A decision made. He almost snorted at the thought. A decision meant there’d been a choice. But there hadn’t been. Not for him. From the moment he’d first clapped eyes on her, there’d been no other option. Only Kate. His Kate.

  “I’d take it too, if I could,” she admitted.

  Things moved fast after that. Faster than he would have liked, but once they committed, there was no breaking up that play. Not until they both scored. She broke before he did, but just barely. Minutes later, they lay sweaty and spent.

  At least he was. Kate’s skin was dewy and glistening. Then again, their frantic pace had whipped her smooth, dark hair into a frenzy of tangles. He lifted his arm to straighten it out, but his hand weighed a ton. It fell to the bed again, and he sighed with contentment. Even her tangles were beautiful.

  “So he was a menopause baby?”

  The question wriggled its way through his postcoital haze. He gradually became aware of other things. Fingers smoothing his chest hair. Soft kisses along his shoulder. The sting of scratches on his back. Wetting his parched lips, he dredged up the best response he could manage. “Huh?”

  “Your brother was an oops?”

  “Oh. Uh, yeah.” He ran his hand over his face to wipe away the rest of the cobwebs.

  He felt her smile. “Poor guy. That’s Tommy?”

  “Yeah.” A lump rose in his throat. The same ball of regret and resentment he tasted each time he thought about the brother who was barely civil to him anymore. As if he were the one who deserved to be angry.

  “I had no idea there was such a gap between you.”

  He swallowed the lump along with the absurd urge to laugh. “Oh yeah, there’s a gap.”

  “He’s coaching in the NFL now?”

  Danny closed his eyes as he nodded, once again sending up a silent prayer of thanks for Pate Wilson. The wily football legend was too smart to confuse his brother’s talent for coaching with Danny’s penchant for fucking up. “Quarterbacks coach.”

  “Did he play quarterback?” Kate asked.

  Danny shook his head but couldn’t muster the strength to speak out loud.

  She sighed and drew little patterns through the hair on his stomach. “You were a quarterback. I bet it was hard growing up in your shadow.”

  Those maddening circles tickled, so he stilled her hand by covering it with his. “I bet he’s happy to have operating knees.”

  “He probably worshiped you.” Her remark held a note of teasing, but it struck too close to home.

  “If he did, he had a funny way of showing it.” Silence blanketed them.

  “I only have my sister left. Audrey.” She laced her fingers through his. “We’ve never had much in common, but my niece, Kylie, is more like me.” She sighed contentedly. “She’s at camp this week, but we have to pretend we don’t know each other, because she doesn’t want the other kids to know we’re related.”

  “Kids,” he said with a short laugh.

  “Did you ever want any?”

  He shrugged. “To be honest, I never really thought much about it.” He turned to look at her. “You?”

  “I figured if it was meant to happen, it would happen. It just never happened, and after my divorce, I figured it wouldn’t.”

  They lapsed into silence once more. The television flashed and glowed. He squinted at the logo painted at center field, marveling at the sharpness of the display. “This is a great TV.”

  Kate snorted softly and burrowed deeper into the curve of his neck. “Better be. It cost enough to feed a small village for a year.”

  He chuckled. “Took me forever to find the DVD setup, but I figured you had to have one in here.” His lips curved into a smile, and he kissed the top of her head. “You watch film in bed.”

  “It was Jeff’s setup.”

  “Ah, the infamous Jeff Sommers.” His smile faded at the mention of her ex-husband. He managed to hold back just a second. “What happened there?”

  “Nothing much, really. Mike hired Ty Ransom as head coach. Jeff was offered a job in Texas.”

  “And you wouldn’t leave Wolcott?”

  She quirked an eyebrow at the surprise in his tone. “You think I should have? You think I ought to have given up a job as head coach in which I had already won two championships for my alma mater to follow my husband halfway across the country so he could take another assistant’s position?”

  “Well, no, but you were married.”

  The genuine confusion in his tone seemed to soothe her ruffled feathers. “Yes, we were.” Settling back against him, she stared at the television screen. “So you’d think I’d at least rate an invitation, right?”

  “He didn’t even ask you to go?”

  Kate’s smile was wan. “Jeff blamed me for Mike not hiring him.”

  Danny started to sit up, but she pressed him back into the pillows. “Blamed you? How could he blame you?”

  “I didn’t go to bat for him, pull enough strings…”

  She trailed off, but Danny picked right up on the trail. “You were too damn good, made him look like the loser he is.”

  This time, her smile came naturally. She pressed a kiss to his chest. “I guess I could have tried to be less awesome,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t have worked.” He planted another kiss on the top of her head and subsided into the jumble of pillows once more. “Another unworthy idiot. Boy, you sure can pick ’em, Coach.”

  She stirred only enough to stretch her legs, the tips of her toes sliding down his shin. The curve of her arch fit his instep as if they’d been made to match.

  “Says the man in my bed,” she teased.

  He huffed and shook his head. “The ones who leave it are the morons.” Notching his finger under her chin, he nudged it up until she tipped her head back to look at him. “The man in your bed is the smartest, luckiest guy in the world. I’m not idiot enough to give you up. And if they want to fire a guy for being too smart, that’s their problem. Right?”

  She nodded solemnly. “Right.”

  Chapter 14

  Danny tucked the receiver under his chin and reached for a folder containing recruiting stats as he waited for the call to connect. “Hey, Ma.”

  “Danny.”

  As always, there was a tremor of relief in his mother’s voice when she greeted him. Like she was afraid she’d never hear from him again, even though he called every Wednesday like clockwork. Eileen McMillan only took calls during the hour between daytime programming and the evening news. Mondays, she caught up with her life-long friend, Grace. She had a standing hair appointment on Tuesdays, just as she had since he was a boy. He was allotted Wednesday, because on Thursday, she checked in on some of the older members of Saint Andrew’s congregation, and Fridays were reserved for her precious whoopsie, his little brother, Tommy.

  And heaven help anyone who attempted to deviate from the schedule.

  “How are you?”

  She inhaled as if she had to brace herself. “I’m just fine, sweetheart. How are you?”

  It was only natural that she’d be wary. After all, he’d broken plenty of bad news over these Wednesday afternoon calls. Danny did his best not to let
the condescension in her voice piss him off, but he was tired of her acting like he was walking around holding a pair of wire cutters. He’d done what he was supposed to do. Following the longstanding traditions ingrained in college athletic departments and the Mafia, he’d taken the blame and done his time. Now, he wanted a kiss on the forehead and a welcome back home, damn it.

  “I’m good, Ma. Great, actually.”

  “Oh? You’re settling in okay?”

  He caught the hopeful note in her voice and let a smile warm his voice. “Yeah, I’m just fine.”

  “Tommy says you’ll have your work cut out for you with that team.”

  Just like that, his smile disappeared. Tommy had no right to disparage any part of Danny’s life to their mother. Everything he had, every bit of career success that his younger brother had ever enjoyed, was because of Danny. He had no patience for his brother’s petty disregard. Not when he was the one whose personal life and public reputation were left in tatters. But as always, he did his best to keep their mother out of the middle.

  “They need some work, but the administration is primed to rebuild the program.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

  Awkward silence hummed between them. Danny glanced at the time and wondered if they’d even make it to the usual five-minute mark without extra effort on his part.

  “So, Ma—” he began.

  “Did I tell you—” she started at the same time.

  They shared a laugh, then prompted one another to go ahead at the exact same time. That earned them another chuckle followed by Awkward Silence: The Sequel. Finally, Danny decided to break for open ground.

  “Ma, I’ve met a woman,” he said, unable to bite back his smile.

  “I’m finally going to the podiatrist for that bunion,” she reported, stomping all over his big news.

  “You are?”

  “You have?” And just like that, the wariness in her tone was back.

  He waited a beat, squelching the urge to snap at her. Most mothers would be happy to hear their son say they’d met someone, but not his. The last time he’d said something remotely similar, their family imploded. Rocking back in his chair, he gripped the armrests and dragged in a calming breath.

  “Yes, I have.” The pause that followed became Awkward Silence Part III: The Sound of Static. Bracing himself for impact, he plowed ahead. “You may have heard of her, actually. Lord knows you’ve spent enough time watching for me or Tommy on NSN. Her name is Kate Snyder, and she’s the women’s basketball coach here at Wolcott.”

  “The coach?”

  The quaver was back now too, and the dam Danny had so carefully built around his anger sprang a slow leak. “Yes, Ma, the coach. Did you think I was going to tell you she was a player?”

  “No, I just…I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

  Oh, he had no doubt about that. He just wasn’t sure what was shocking about her heterosexual son announcing that he’d met a woman who interested him. Suddenly, he wanted her to explain it to him. “Surprised about what exactly?”

  “Well, after all that happened…”

  She trailed off, leaving the thought dangling like the belt around the monk’s robe he was apparently supposed to put on the minute his last serious girlfriend had decided to marry his baby brother instead.

  “After what happened,” he repeated, unable to keep the edge from his voice. “You mean, after your precious Tommy set me up to get shit-canned and then married the woman I loved?”

  Okay, so it was the Reader’s Digest version of what went down, but hit all the high points. They just hadn’t unfolded in that order.

  “Daniel.”

  For once in his life, the use of his full name had little impact on him. “No, Ma, I’m not the one who screwed up. I’m not the one who betrayed his own brother. I’m done taking the flack for what he did.”

  “But is dating this coach woman even allowed?”

  She stopped him dead in his tracks. It wasn’t that she’d struck the nail on the head regarding his relationship with Kate but the fact that she still insisted on deflecting and denying on her baby boy’s behalf. Ignoring her question, he decided to use a little razzle-dazzle himself.

  “She’s amazing, Ma. Smart, funny, and totally down to earth. A great coach. Her interaction with the players is amazing. Instinctive. And you’ve seen her, right? Six foot two and beautiful. You know, a natural kind of beauty,” he added, knowing that his mother never approved of the overblown women that flocked to men who made their living in professional athletics. “Dark hair and really pretty, brownish-gold eyes. Like the color of good Irish whiskey, you know?” And because it never hurt to play on patriotism, he dangled the shiniest bit of background. “Has an Olympic gold medal too.”

  “But if she works for the school—”

  “Ma, don’t.”

  “I worry. You just got your job back.”

  Catapulting from his chair, he pressed his knuckles into the desk as he leaned over the phone and spoke directly into the receiver. “I’ve had a job all along. Maybe not at this level, but I’ve always been the head coach, no matter where I went. I’m no one’s assistant. And believe me, no one called in any favors to get those jobs for me,” he growled.

  “I’m only saying—”

  “I know what you’re saying, but I’m tired of playing the fuckup. I’m not the one who did all this.”

  “Don’t you use that language with me,” she huffed.

  “Stop acting like I’m the screwup,” he barked. “I did everything right. I did everything I was supposed to do. I took the fall, but now I’m back up, and all I’m asking is for you to be happy for me, for once in your life. Just me. Not because I can do something to help you or Tommy, but because, right or wrong, I’m doing something for myself.”

  He hung his head, letting his gaze go unfocused as he listened to his mother’s quiet crying on the other end of the line. A sound he’d heard too many times. One he shouldn’t be listening to now, when he’d been trying to tell her he finally found someone who made him happy.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. After a lifetime of conditioning, the words came automatically. What he wasn’t used to hearing was the rasp of tears in his own voice. He cleared his throat. “I am. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry, Ma.”

  Sinking back into his chair, he fanned the pages of the open file with the pad of his thumb. Each sheet featured a meticulously kept record of every attempt at player contact. He wasn’t taking any hits he didn’t deserve. Not from anyone.

  “No, it’s not allowed, Ma, but I don’t care.” Certainty settled deep in his gut. “You see? That’s why I had to tell you. It’s not allowed, and I don’t care. That’s how much I care about her. I just wanted you to know.”

  *

  Calhoun’s was quiet. The students were gone, and the summer crowd wasn’t big on spending gorgeous, warm evenings in dank, dark bars. That made it the perfect spot for this particular meeting of the minds. Kate smiled as Avery glanced over her shoulder, pushed aside the scotch she’d ordered, and reached for one of the tall straws protruding from Millie’s unguarded hurricane glass.

  “Why don’t you just order one for yourself?” Kate asked as Avery used the tip of her finger to siphon off a hit of strawberry daiquiri.

  “I refuse to subscribe to society’s preordained notions of what a woman should drink.” With a shrug, Avery drew the straw from the glass, positioned the business end over her open mouth, and lifted her finger.

  Kate grimaced as the sticky, sweet drink trickled from the straw into her friend’s mouth. Reaching for the pint she’d ordered, she held it up for inspection. “I’m drinking beer. What does that say about me?”

  Avery grinned and dropped the straw back into the daiquiri glass just as Millie returned from her sojourn to the ladies’ room. “It says your taste buds are dead.” The second their trio was complete, she lifted the whisky she’d ordered on convoluted principle in a toast. “May they rest in
peace.”

  “Amen,” Millie said as she repositioned her straws.

  Kate rolled her eyes. “You do realize we look like the start of a bad joke, don’t you? A jock, a priss, and a feminist walk into a bar. Who orders the umbrella drink?”

  Avery’s brow puckered. “How is that humorous?”

  “It’s not. That’s why it’s a bad joke.” Kate reached over and gave Avery’s hand a condescending pat. “No matter how hard you try, we’re still a cliché.”

  “Well, you are,” Millie said, her pointed gaze traveling from the tracksuit Kate wore to her half-drunk glass of beer. “And Betty Friedan over there fights it so hard she’s turned herself into one.” She pressed one perfectly manicured hand to her breast. “Me? I’m an original.”

  Avery snorted. “Are there any parts on you that are still original?”

  “One nip,” Millie shot back, referring to the eyelift she’d had the previous year. “I had one little nip, and it was medically necessary. My vision was compromised.”

  Kate rolled her eyes but made certain she opened them just a little wider. The truth was, she understood Millie’s decision to have surgery better than she liked to let on. When a woman spent half her life defying gravity, it was hard to give in gracefully to signs of time.

  Leaning in, Avery folded her hands on the sticky tabletop. “Yeah, well, you’re old news. What I want to know is how many times our Katie here has been compromised.”

  The shift in topic startled her, but the change wasn’t nearly as disconcerting as their probing gazes. “What?” she managed to blurt.

  “You’re fucking Danny McMillan,” Millie stated bluntly. “A lot, I’d say.” She turned to Avery for confirmation on her diagnosis.

  Lips pursed, Avery surveyed her carefully. “I concur. Well and often, judging by the size of those bags under your eyes.”

  “What? How?” Kate sputtered. “Why would you—”

  “Oh, please,” Avery said, waving away her protests. “We’re not judging you. I, for one, am proud. And more than a little jealous.”

  “And I’m a little pissed that you didn’t tell me,” Millie said with an arch look. “But I can get past it—”