The All-Star Antes Up
Page 10

“I told you the meeting was Spindle’s idea.” Trevor took a bite of pizza and chewed. “You didn’t have to come. I could have handled it myself.”
“I live in the building. You’re a guest.” When Trevor had texted him about the meeting, he should have asked more questions and controlled the situation, but he had a morning appointment with his coach. Furthermore, he got the feeling Spindle had had his own agenda for getting them all into his office.
Trevor tossed his half-eaten pizza on the plate. “Look, Jodie’s nagging me up, down, and sideways about finding another job because I didn’t get tenure. All I hear is, ‘Why don’t you finish your book? Why don’t you write a scholarly article? Maybe you’d have tenure if you did, and we could have a baby.’ So she doesn’t exactly put me in the mood for sex right now.”
“Christ, Trevor, that’s enough about your sex life.”
Luke agreed with Jodie’s logic, even if her methods weren’t effective. Trevor had been passed over for tenure at the small liberal arts college where he was a professor of philosophy, so he’d come to New York to drown his sorrows. Or dump them on Luke. Personally, Luke thought his brother should be in his office finishing the book he’d been working on for the last three years. Wasn’t it publish or perish in academia? Even Luke knew that, and he was as far away from Trevor’s world as it was possible to get.
“Don’t judge me,” Trevor said. “I remember the stories you told about the football groupies and some of the wild stuff you did with them.”
“I was a lot younger and stupider then,” Luke said. “But even more important, I was single. No strings, no rings,” he repeated, remembering last night’s conversation at the club. He didn’t add that he’d never had to pay for sex.
Nor did he mention his concern about the press. The concierge—Miranda—had said she wouldn’t mention it again, and concierges probably needed to be discreet. However, if her boss gave her a hard time and she got miffed, she might talk to a reporter. Luke didn’t want Jodie or his parents hearing about Trevor’s little escapade from the media.
As he thought of Miranda, he remembered the sympathetic look she’d given him and the genuine warmth of her smile. There had been real understanding there, but also some intriguing banked heat in her big brown eyes. Both had caught his attention because they were unexpected.
She’d turned down football tickets, too. No one did that. He knew her boss was going to sell the ones he’d accepted—he could see it in the way the man refused to meet his eyes. But Miranda, who was the injured party, had rejected his first peace offering. He suspected she had accepted the football just to appease him and Spindle.
He’d waited for her afterward to offer his assistance because he could tell that her boss was unhappy. She had put him off then, too. It was interesting.
So was the fact that behind that serene mask she wore, she had reacted to him. Most women didn’t try to hide that.
Trevor picked up the pizza and ripped off another bite. “Yeah, well, I didn’t have a chance to do wild stuff when I was young and stupid.”
Luke’s hangover made his stomach heave at the sight of the congealed pizza, so he took his brother’s plate and tossed the rest of the pizza in the garbage. “At least eat something healthy.”
Trevor stood up and leaned forward so his face was just inches away from Luke’s. “I don’t have to eat healthy, because I don’t make my living with my muscles. I use my brain.”
There it was. The one weapon Trevor could use to jab at his overachieving older brother. Luke stepped back to avoid the bits of pizza Trevor was spewing.
“I spend hours reading and researching and analyzing and writing and discussing ideas. It’s exhausting. Up here,” Trevor said, tapping his temple. “You don’t understand that.”
Luke crossed his arms and thought of the hours he spent watching video and reading scouting reports, pinpointing his opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, devising plays with the coaches, memorizing and running them with his teammates. It was exhausting, too, but that’s what it took to do his job to the absolute best of his abilities.
Trevor had always been the smart one. Their parents had been so proud when he had been the salutatorian of his high school class and gone on to Harvard for undergrad and his doctorate.
Luke, on the other hand, had taken the courses he had to in order to play football. His parents had been stunned when Luke received the National Football Foundation’s High School Scholar-Athlete Award, one of five given in the entire country. Their baffled astonishment when he’d told them about the luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City had been both gratifying and hurtful. They’d accompanied him, of course, but had spent the afternoon looking at the professional football stars attending the event—people he hoped to emulate—as though they were aliens.
Luke pushed that memory away. “I have a meeting at the Empire Center.”
“Go ahead!” Trevor shouted. “You with your helicopter waiting on the roof! With the groupies panting for your attention! With the view of the Statue of Liberty!” He waved his hand at the sliding doors that opened onto the penthouse terrace, where Lady Liberty’s torch showed above the railing. “You’ve got it all, and I’ve got nothing.”
Anger boiled up inside Luke, but he slammed the lid down on it. “You have a wife who loves you,” he said in a flat tone. “That’s worth more than all the groupies in the world.”