Play for Keeps Page 6

  Chamber (Chambered, Chambering): To miss eighty-five percent of shots attempted, then proceed to have a very public breakdown. Involves blaming everyone from the referees and hoop manufacturers, to the pope for one’s lack of skill.

  Ty did his best to keep his expression neutral as he gave the answer he and Millie had cobbled together for questions such as these. “I don’t think playing and coaching are as closely related as people think. A great player may not be a very good coach. I know plenty of coaches in a variety of sports who never distinguished themselves as players.”

  “But you were able to use your success as a player as a springboard into coaching,” Chambers fired back, his body language making the statement an accusation.

  Once again, Ty chuckled. “Well, I’m hardly the first to go the coaching route.” Before Greg could spur his high horse on, he continued. “And it’s not like I jumped over a line of guys angling for a head coaching job. I started as a second assistant.”

  “At Eastern University, your alma mater.”

  He nodded, acknowledging the connection. “Right. I’m grateful to Coach Washington and Athletic Director Wisnowski for the chance. I learned a lot working beside my former coach. I can tell you, watching the game from his end of the bench was…an enlightenment.”

  “Grateful but not grateful enough to stop you from jumping ship when the Wolcott Warriors came knocking.” Greg stared straight into the camera’s lens and treated the viewing audience to his smiley sneer.

  Ty watched with a sort of detached amusement, wondering if the man had the semiconstipated expression patented or something. “I didn’t have to do some kind of interpretive dance for them to know the Wolcott offer was the chance of a lifetime. Not only did both Coach and the AD give their blessing, but they practically packed the U-Haul.”

  “Were they the ones who encouraged you to take a cheerleader with you as a parting gift?”

  Despite everything happening between them, it irked Ty to hear Mari spoken of so dismissively. “Mari and I had been married for some time when the first rumblings of an offer from Wolcott came through.”

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t spent as long planning his wedding as he had considering the offer from Wolcott. The trip to Vegas had been a spur-of-the-moment idea. They were married less than thirty hours after their plane had landed.

  “And her cheerleading days were behind her. I may have been older, but Mari wasn’t a student when we married. She was twenty-three.”

  “Now, a few years later, she’s left you for a young man who seems to be carrying the mantle you let slip.”

  Greg’s expression was so solemn; Ty could only assume this was his version of a mocking face. For one wild and woolly moment, Ty fantasized about letting his snark off the leash.

  He could smash Greg Chambers like a bug, expose him as a bitter wannabe. Ty was tempted. So tempted. Then he caught a flash of firecracker-red out of the corner of his eye and squashed the thought. He wouldn’t.

  Doing so would only be a Band-Aid slapped on his wounded pride. It certainly wouldn’t help the university or his program. And going off half-cocked would only hurt Millie.

  Poor Millie. Spinning this mess was an impossible task. Like the guy from Greek mythology who had to keep pushing a boulder up a hill. Did the chancellor and the AD appreciate how hard her job must be? She was one slick, savvy woman charged with wrangling more than a half dozen superjock–sized egos. Hell, he knew guys twice her size who’d crumble under the weight she shouldered. But not Millie.

  His Millie.

  Well, maybe not his yet, but she would be. Once he got this mess pushed to the back burner and his divorce was a done deal. The minute all the pieces fell into place, he’d be making his play. Resolved, he straightened his already straight tie as he focused his attention on Greg Chambers.

  “Yes, well, I’m sure we’ll work things out to everyone’s satisfaction. As for Dante Harris, any mantle he has to carry was put on him by the people who sit and talk, not by the people who are actually working with these young athletes.” He drew a deep breath and ran his hand the length of his tie. “The problem is, you all forget that fact. They are young athletes. Sure, they have God-given talent. Those who play at the collegiate level are both built to excel and driven to succeed, but they are still young enough to need and seek direction.”

  Pausing to collect his thoughts, he slid his damp palms over his thighs. “If anything, I’ve learned we fail as coaches when we allow these athletes to start believing their own press. I didn’t shield Dante Harris from you and every other media mouthpiece who’d crowned him king before the season had even ended. Every coach has to put forth the effort to reach a player who seems to be unreachable. Because of my personal situation…the suspicions I had about my marriage, I couldn’t see beyond my own admittedly healthy ego. I didn’t do everything I could do as a coach and as a mentor to help him review all his options before he put the play into motion.”

  Ty nodded, almost to himself. “I failed him.” But before Chambers could launch his celebration dance, Ty beat him to the punch. “So, yeah. As you pointed out earlier, my career as a professional player was a bust, and I think we all know I pretty much tanked as a husband too. Maybe I’ll turn out to be a failure as a coach. We’ll see. But I believe only one thing makes a person a true success—conquering the fear of failure.”

  He smiled wanly for the camera.

  “Someone once said success was going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm, and I can tell you I am every bit as enthusiastic about the Wolcott Warrior basketball program as I was the day I started the job. And I can guarantee you I will be every bit as enthusiastic about the game of basketball tomorrow as I am today. These past few weeks have been a setback both personally and professionally, but that’s all failure is—a temporary state before we try again.”

  Having said what he needed to say, he nodded to Greg, then began to unhook his microphone. Holding the tiny clip pinched between his fingers, he paused to speak directly into the mic. “Thanks for letting me have the chance to talk to you here tonight, but I have to keep on schedule. Always a treat to see you, Greg.”

  Chapter 5

  Temptation, thy name is Acqua Di Giò. Millie slid closer to the door of the town car. The distance wasn’t nearly enough. Ty seemed to take up every single cubic inch of space. She knew it wasn’t a purposeful thing. The guy was more than six and a half feet tall and, according to the crazy basketball junkie website she’d bookmarked, boasted a wingspan measuring seven feet across. He also wore a size sixteen shoe—the kind of stat she couldn’t help but memorize.

  “I think the interview went well.”

  She shook off the haze of attraction and looked directly at him for the first time since the driver closed the door. Bad idea. Meticulously groomed to be camera ready, the man looked even better than he smelled. “Yes. Very well, until you cut it short at the end.”

  “Not too short,” he argued. “Just enough to reduce the risk of me punching the guy on national TV.”

  Needing to shift the balance of power and keep his mood light, she swung her legs toward him, knocking her knees into the side of his thigh. “What’s the deal with you and Greg Chambers?”

  Ty looked out the window. The neon lights of Times Square danced across his face, highlighting the smooth curve of his high forehead and a jaw chiseled enough to make a statue jealous. “No deal. He’s a jerk-off, and I’m a failure.” He curled his index finger over his upper lip, but a tiny muscle jumped in his jaw. “No breaking news here. I just wish we could stop rehashing it.”

  “So what’s the old news?” she asked. He blew out a breath, and her suspicions were confirmed. Ty and Chambers had a history. A past that might prove to be more dangerous than a few insults mumbled to a small-time reporter. Knotting her fingers together, she kept her gaze steady, refusing to be shut down by his non-answe
r. “Tell me the story.”

  Without so much as a glance, he waved her off. “Nothing.” A beat passed. “Everything.”

  He shrugged those wide shoulders, and Millie grabbed hold of the armrest to keep from launching herself across the car at him. A week of intermittent bouts of sexual tension was one thing. Six straight hours of sizzle was enough to frazzle a nun. And she’d never been a particularly religious woman. Though at the moment, hearing Ty’s confession seemed to be the best way to keep her mind off the fact that this too-small town car was heading for her hotel, and if the itinerary SaraAnn had printed for her wasn’t lying, she had a king-sized bed in her room. “Tell me what ‘everything’ is.”

  At last, he looked at her. “It’s stupid. Kid stuff someone never outgrew.”

  “After you tell me what’s behind this grudge match, we’ll mock him mercilessly. Now, go,” she prompted with a nod. He heaved another one of those whole-body sighs, and her hormones kicked into overdrive. Pressing her fingernails into the soft leather of the armrest, she forced a fake smile. “Unless you’re the one who never outgrew it.”

  He rolled his eyes at her tactics but gave in with grace. “We played against each other a few times in school. I won. We both declared for the draft. I got picked; he didn’t. I had the chance he thought he should have had, and I couldn’t deliver. Plain and simple.”

  “Doesn’t look plain and simple.”

  “You’d think at some point he’d let it go.” He shook his head and made a show of studying the blur of lights whizzing past his window. “It’s been twenty years. Why can’t he find another yardstick?”

  She had no answer and didn’t feel inclined to make one up. As far as she was concerned, it was better to let these testosterone-fueled flares burn themselves out. No sense in getting scorched when they got their drawers in a twist over the stupidest things. The male ego was a strange, indecipherable mystery, one she had given up trying to sort out years ago. So she changed the subject.

  “When do you leave for Reno?”

  He twisted his wrist and pulled back his cuff to check the time. She liked the way the chunky wristwatch looked on him. Usually, he wore a utilitarian sports watch, but this was one of those sleek stainless-steel deals that probably cost more than her first car. Hell, maybe even her current car. “Eleven forty. Plenty of time.”

  Millie’s jaw dropped as realization sank in. She’d made a general note of the flight time when she scanned the itinerary, but she didn’t think to check which side of the meridian they’d be on when he left. “Tonight?”

  He nodded. “Might as well get started on my residency.”

  “Oh. Wow.” A nervous laugh escaped her. She ran a hand through her hair, then quickly shook the layers back into place. No sense in scaring the man off for good with the Cruella de Vil look. “Yeah, right. Good plan.”

  She gulped down a lump of disappointment. In the back of her mind, she’d been playing out a variety of scenarios for the evening. Drinks. Dinner. An interview postmortem designed to slide right into playful flirtation. A chance to see if he liked her enough, wanted her enough to push past the playful part and try to make a play. She’d have to shut him down, of course. He was a married man, and while she claimed to have few scruples, vows were one of them. But it would be nice if he tried…

  “I’m following your advice.”

  She looked up, taken aback by the assertion. “Mine?”

  “Divorce her as quickly as I can.” He stretched his arm across the back of the seat as he leaned toward her. “Get up, get out, and get on with life. That’s what you said.”

  She gave him a wry smile. “Pretty easy to say.”

  “Surprisingly easy to do,” he countered. “Once the hangover wore off, I mean.”

  Tilting her head, she studied him in the not-so-subtle glow of Manhattan at twilight. “You’re not sad?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m not, but I will say I’m not as sad as I think I ought to be.”

  Millie pondered his statement. When David left her, her whole world imploded. For years, she felt fragmented and cast adrift. Then they’d run into each other and…nothing.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m not as sad as I should be?”

  She wet her own parched lips, then softly cleared her throat. “Uh, no. Your feelings are your own business.”

  “You’re not curious?”

  Millie pondered his question for a moment, then shook her head. “You know, I didn’t see my ex-husband for over a decade after we signed our divorce papers,” she said quietly. “We met when I was sixteen, divorced when I was twenty-six.” She cast a glance in his direction, trying to gauge his reception as she clarified her stance on the end of her marriage. “He divorced me.”

  “The man had to be a fool.”

  Millie chuckled. “I thought so too. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t heartbroken for a long, long time.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, so sincerely, her heart gave a dull thud of gratitude. “But you bounced back. I mean, look at you.”

  “Took me a while to—as you say it—bounce back.” She smiled as she recalled her metamorphosis. “When I hit my midthirties, I started dating again. With a vengeance,” she added with some relish.

  “I’m almost scared for the guys,” he said gruffly. “Or I would be, if I didn’t feel so damn jealous of them.”

  “Bought my first vibrator for my fortieth birthday,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken.

  “The gift that keeps on giving.”

  “Then I ran into David again, and I wondered what the hell I’d been thinking, wasting all that time between him and…anyone else.” She turned to look him directly in the eye. “My point is that I know how you feel, being sad about not feeling more sad.”

  “I’m sorry that you do,” he said, enveloping her hand in his much larger one.

  The gentleness in his tone almost broke her resolve to keep her distance. Almost, but not quite.

  She wasn’t the gullible girl with stars in her eyes, nor was she the desperate parody of the panicked divorcée any longer. Millie knew who she was and what she liked. Cocktails with umbrellas and skewers of fruit she refused to eat, outrageously expensive dark chocolates, and shoes topped the list. A nice, hard fuck came in somewhere in the top five, but depending on the pickings, a hot bath with a good book topped it in the pecking order. She eyed the man sitting beside her, trying to slot where he might rank. As if reading her mind, his eyebrows rose, and his mouth curved into a panty-dampening smile.

  The driver hooked a sharp right onto a cross street, and Ty used the change in momentum to his advantage. A shiver zinged down her spine as his arm slipped from the seat to her shoulders. He curled one hand around her upper arm and pulled her closer as he slid across the soft leather seat. She looked up to find him lowering his head.

  “Don’t.” She pulled back, making it clear she wasn’t being coy. Darting a glance at the front seat, she ignored the persistent ache low in her belly and forced a tremulous smile. “The driver.”

  “I don’t give a damn.”

  “He might recognize you,” she insisted in a low whisper.

  “You really overestimate my public appeal.”

  Millie was about to say she could write a press release highlighting all the ways she found him appealing, but he pulled away. A pout threatened. Her upper arm tingled, demanding she take back whatever she’d said to deprive it of his warm caress. Her libido was working itself up to rage level when he leaned forward between the headrests.

  “Hey. How’re things going…Manny?” he asked the driver.

  For a split second, she wondered how he knew the guy’s name, but then she saw he had his credentials prominently displayed on the dash.

  The man barely flicked a peek at the rearview mirror. “Going better up here than back there, buddy.”

 
Ty chuckled and hung his head in mock shame. “I’m trying, Manny. I’m trying.”

  Clearly, the driver had seen such situations before. Heaving a sigh, he craned his neck and eyeballed the traffic ahead of them. As usual, cars sat bumper to bumper as they waited for the light to change. Anywhere else in the world, this would be called gridlock. In Manhattan, this was the usual flow.

  “You’ve only got about six blocks. Try harder,” the man said gruffly.

  Ty leaned forward. “Do you know who I am?”

  “No.” The answer came swiftly enough to be the truth, but Manny gazed long and hard into the mirror, his eyes narrowing. “Should I? What are you, some kind of big deal?”

  Ty shook his head. “Not at all.”

  “Then why are you askin’?”

  “My girl—” Ty shrugged as he cast a sidelong glance at Millie, then stared out the windshield. “She’s kind of shy.” The descriptor made Millie snort, but Ty seemed to gain confidence from her disbelief. “So I’m gonna kiss her and stuff for the next six blocks, and you’re gonna keep your eyes on the road. We get her to the hotel happy and in one piece, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “You’ve got a deal.” Eyes forward, the driver lifted his hand from the wheel and held it over his shoulder for Ty to shake. “Not too much of the ‘and stuff’ stuff, okay? I’m not one of those voyeur people or anything.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Negotiations concluded, Ty fell back, planting one hand on her door and the other on the back of the seat beside her head. “We struck a deal.”

  “So I heard.” Her smile faded as she planted a hand on his chest, needing to establish at least a minimal barrier between them. “Ty, I don’t think—”

  “Good. Don’t think.”

  “I want to,” she whispered, her lips hovering over his. “But now—”

  “Is the perfect time,” he finished for her. “Just one kiss, Mil. It’s going to be a long six weeks.”

  And God help her, he was right. “Okay. One,” she said, knowing they had a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping at one kiss, but too far beyond temptation to care.