The All-Star Antes Up
Page 4

“What are you going to do?” Miller asked. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes glinting. Luke poured himself another glass of Trainor’s scotch.
“Nothing,” Trainor said. “I don’t care enough to expend the energy.” The truth of it showed in the flatness of his tone.
“Disappointing,” Miller said.
Luke disagreed with the writer. You couldn’t let them know you were hurting. “It’s the only way to go.”
He wished he’d kept his mouth shut when Miller swiveled toward him. “Have you had your heart broken?”
“Half a dozen times,” Luke said. “I got over it.” The last time was in college.
“Ah, yes, the stoic, monosyllabic jock.” Miller was amused. “If I wrote you in a book, you’d be too much of a stereotype and my editor would complain.”
Luke had learned silence at the home dinner table, letting his family’s academic debates rage around him as he mentally reviewed plays for the next game. It had turned out to be a useful skill because it kept people guessing. He let his gaze rest on Miller.
The writer shifted in his chair and blew out a breath. “Since we agree that women are nothing but trouble, maybe we should play cards. It would distract us from our problems.”
“Cards? Where the hell did you get that idea?” Trainor snapped.
“Don’t they say, ‘Unlucky at love, lucky at cards’?” The writer gave them a one-sided smile. “Although it’s hard to predict who will get the good luck in this group.”
Luke took a swallow of scotch and leaned forward. “I don’t buy it.” The two supremely successful men drinking with him didn’t get into the Bellwether Club by sitting back and just waiting for good things to happen. “Everyone at this table knows you make your own luck. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“Luck is the residue of design,” Trainor said with a nod.
“We’re all big on quotations tonight,” the writer noted.
Luke had a flash of insight. DaShawn looked forward to retirement because he had someone to share his future with, someone to give him a focus and purpose, someone who needed him.
Luke faced retirement with profound dread.
He slashed his hand down to silence Miller’s blathering. “How important is finding a woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?” Trainor took a sip of his drink while Miller lounged silently in his chair. “Pretty damned important,” Luke continued. “How much effort has any of us put into the search?” He gave Trainor and Miller each a hard look.
Trainor shook his head. Miller shrugged. Luke went on. “I’m guessing not a lot. We see the same women at every event. Friends or colleagues fix us up. Maybe we even get a napkin slipped into our pocket and call that number.”
He wasn’t proud of that, but he’d done it when he was younger and the woman was hot.
“Speak for yourself on that last one,” the writer said with a smile that was part envy, part amusement. Trainor chuckled.
Luke didn’t let Miller throw him off stride. In fact, not much threw him off stride, including women. But maybe the time had come to change that policy. Maybe he needed a Marcy. That way, he wouldn’t feel so goddamned depressed about his best friend leaving the game. “Our problem is lack of focus. We aren’t making it a primary objective in our lives, so we’re failing.” When you were on the field with bodies, voices, and refs swirling around you like a dust storm, having the primary objective in mind made all the rest fall away.
“So we should be wife hunting instead of running a business or winning football games or writing the next bestseller?” Trainor shot back. “If you’re that desperate, hire one of those executive matchmakers.”
Luke dropped the temperature of his stare to frost level. “That’s like using a ghostwriter.”
He got a belly laugh from the novelist.
“At least the transaction would be honest,” Trainor said, an edge of cynicism in his voice.
Luke leaned in, resting his forearm on his thigh. “How badly do you want a wife and family?”
Trainor swirled his drink around in his glass as he considered the question for several seconds. “I’m listening. Miller?”
“Hell, yes, I’m still looking,” the writer said. “What’s the point of all this if you’ve got no one to share it with?” He swept his free hand around the bar where just one leather chair cost more than a scalper’s ticket to the Super Bowl. Miller turned back to Luke. “And, of course, you need a passel of sons to toss footballs with in your white-picket-fenced yard.”
“I’m hoping for daughters,” Luke said. He didn’t want any of the ugly competitiveness that had gone on between him and his brother. “But, yeah, I want kids. So what I’m saying is, we need a plan.”
The writer hummed softly under his breath, then held up his hand. “I have a better idea.” Miller’s eyes gleamed with unholy glee. “Gentlemen, I propose a challenge.”
A challenge was interesting.
“We go in search of true love. We keep looking until we find it.”
Luke sat back in disgust. “This challenge is a load of garbage. How do you prove you’ve found true love?”
“A ring on her finger.” Miller gave him a barbed smile. “Sorry, Archer.”
Luke remembered when DaShawn showed him the engagement ring he’d bought for Marcy. His friend was lit up like a kid at Christmas as he opened the velvet box. “I didn’t get her the biggest diamond,” DaShawn had said, flipping the box back and forth so the stone caught the light. “But I got her the most perfect diamond, because she’s the perfect woman for me.”