Hat Trick, page 9
After lugging the thing into the kitchen and placing it on the cluttered island, she decided that coffee was required before she read the card. Marcus had a penchant for overblown sentiment when he was in full seduction mode, she recalled, having been on the receiving end of it plenty of times.
She puttered around while the coffee brewed, sticking random glassware in the dishwasher, putting away the wine she’d left out the night before. Once the coffee was done she poured a big cup, splashed a little milk in it, and decided to watch the sports channel. The flower arrangement had begun to emanate strong and tempting odors, so she decided against the flat screen in the eating nook and wandered into what was once Marcus’s downstairs office. Ignoring how much the room still smelled like him—leather, a whiff of illicit cigar, his subtle cologne—she dropped into a chair and hit the remote, powering up the screen on the far wall.
It took her a few seconds to realize the interview she’d arranged with the coach of the new women’s team, the Lady Jacks—a name that still made her shudder—was showing again. She sipped and put her feet up on Marcus’s desk, pleased with how it had turned out, even on her tenth or maybe twentieth viewing. The guy was older, a retired college coach of some renown who’d lost his wife to cancer and had come to the club asking to be put on staff as a volunteer.
The setup, with the women practicing behind him as he answered the lady reporter’s questions, was perfect. Emily noted how good the black and red practice unis looked, catching her eye even as she tuned out the coach’s replies. He looked pretty damn good too, she thought, refocusing on him, Elliot Jacobs, in his black T-shirt emblazoned with the poker chip and playing card and his expensive-looking sunglasses. His teeth were blindingly white when he smiled. His face reddened a little at one point and he ran a hand over his close-cropped salt and pepper hair.
Emily gave herself a mental high-five for prepping him so well for the new sports channel that only used women announcers and reporters, knowing the one talking to him would ask personal questions. She held up her coffee cup as a salute when the man thanked the very attractive lady sports reporter then turned away, a whistle to his lips, in a morning cheers to the newest era of Black Jack Gentlemen marketing—The Ladies. She’d been handed the public and media relations side of the project to manage. And so far she’d gotten nothing but kudos, which had netted her a fair bit of grumpy attitude from her fellow marketing grunts. It had at least taken her out from under the wing of the acerbic woman who was now, technically, no longer her boss.
She flipped open her laptop to check the upcoming week’s worth of events. The LJs, as she called them, had their second actual match today, but they were scheduled for a whole slew of Detroit-related appearances over the next three weeks. Their grumbling had been muted. Most of them were grateful to get a small salary to be able to continue playing their sport. And at least two of them had hooked up with their male counterparts over the summer. There were rumors on top of rumors—including a couple about the sexy coach. But as the Rumor-Monger-and-Spin-DoctorIn-Chief, as Emily had been dubbed by the boys, she knew what to credit, what to handle, and what to ignore.
She clicked on the Twitter window and did few checks of the general match-day atmosphere. The club’s street team, which she’d been in charge of for her first few weeks of employment, was doing their job, tweeting regularly, hashtagging properly, engaging with the opposing team’s fellow online marketing groupies appropriately. She frowned at a few tweets from the male team members, reading between their lines. One in particular from Jason made her reach for her phone and hit fast dial for her intern.
“Hi, Em, how’s your morning?”
“Fine, Haley. Listen, what’s Jason going on about?”
“Hang on. Let me check.” Emily tapped the desktop, staring at the offending post:
Some women are best left alone. Bros B4 Hoes. Save a BJ from the maneater.
#groupies #suck #BJGDetroit
The fact that she didn’t even have to clarify to Haley that she meant “go to Twitter and read Jason’s post” made her smile with satisfaction. The Black Jacks had been featured in more than one article about how to run an ad campaign via social networking. Twitter was their platform, Facebook not so much since the new rules about boosting posts. But the kids on the street team did such a good job inside the soccer groups and on their own personal pages promoting that they were able to let the BJGDetroit Fan Page remain static, collecting likes and followers that approached a half million.
She was trying to convince the woman managing the men’s side of Twitter to forbid them from having Snapchat accounts. Snapchat had been the cause of more than one inter-team altercation and a few embarrassing public messes.
“Oh, I think he’s just bitching about Cassandra.”
Emily scrolled around and saw that nearly every single teammate except @DecMac had retweeted the damn thing and many of them had posted replies echoing the sentiment. “What did she do this time?”
“Not sure. Want me to call Jason and ask him?”
“No, it’s all right. I’m probably just obsessing.”
Haley yawned in her ear. “Probably. But that is your job.”
Emily smiled and shut down the computer, determined to spend a little time outdoors that morning, messing around in her garden and enjoying the fall sunshine. “Thanks. Sorry to bother you so early. Please tell me you aren’t waking up next to Cam Cooper.”
“None of your business,” the girl said, sounding huffy.
“Kind of is, actually.”
“I’m not. He’s…well, anyway. I’m not. Okay, Mom?”
“Okay. See ya in a few hours.”
Emily set the phone down and stretched, then watched the sports network a while longer, absorbing the day’s worth of events that included plenty of major college football. That was one thing she never understood—why the new league would try and compete head-to-head for fans, even if the autumn season was really only about friendlies and exhibitions. The BJs had enough of a following and knew to schedule their home games on non-home days for the local college team. They were expecting a record crowd today, and Emily sincerely hoped some of it would trickle down to the ladies’ game.
Feeling fortified enough to handle whatever Marcus had thrown at her via the message on her giant flower arrangement, she took her coffee cup to the kitchen and plucked the envelope out from the middle of the fragrant blooms.
Em, I hope you enjoy this wakeup call. See you this afternoon—M.
She frowned, turning the card over, figuring he’d left his longer note there. It was blank. Confused by the out-of-character brevity, she tossed it onto the counter and refilled her cup, taking a few minutes to enjoy the quiet and the view from her large window overlooking the yard. On a whim, she wandered to the sideboard in the dining room and starting pulling out the framed pictures she’d slammed in there nearly a year ago, after Marcus had walked out of her life.
She ran her fingers down them as memories she’d firmly repressed for months tumbled around in her brain. Their wedding photo was one of them, of course—her in her Vera Wang sheath, standing with him, at the time already going gray and distinguished in his Versace tux, bracketed by what remained of his family and the few cousins she’d scrounged up to attend. The frame was filled with mostly bank employees and plenty of fellow former tellers. Friends of hers up until that point, when she’d left their ranks and joined a different, lonelier club—that of young, pregnant, trophy wife, swimming a new and dangerous sea amongst her sharp-eyed, sharp-clawed peers.
Her favorite of all the posed shots at various fundraisers, dressed in gowns she wore once and stuck in her massive closet, was one at a tailgate party. Marcus was a proud and very generous alumnus of the university in town and she loved attending the football games. They rarely missed a home event and most times had VIP party privileges.
She smiled, touching the image of Marcus’s face as he gazed at her. She had her mouth open, laughing, she remembered, at something off camera. The photographer had caught them in an odd moment—one where her picture-perfect husband was staring at her, poor little teller girl who got knocked up by the big-shot bank president with abject, sappy love in his eyes.
She picked that one up and carried it with her, going from room to room to room, realizing that for the most part, she’d not darkened the door of over half her own home for months. The furniture loomed large, perfectly polished and dust-free, thanks to the housecleaning service Marcus continued to pay for. The light lemon scent filled her nose as she passed her fingertips over every piece that she’d been tasked with purchasing, no real limit other than that of reason.
She smiled as ghostly conversational snippets passed through her memory banks. One in particular, of Marcus calling from whatever all-important meetings he’d been in to ask about a giant charge hitting his Amex until she informed him that if he wanted to directly supervise the purchasing, he could get his ass out of the office and do so. She’d been furious at him, giving her shit after telling her to “go forth and fill the house,” making her feel even more useless. She’d flopped into a folding chair she’d set up in the kitchen, still under construction, nearly eight months pregnant and feeling as frumpy and unwieldy as a woman could.
Her skin broke out in goosebumps as she recalled how he had, indeed, left his office and surprised her in their half-finished house with a pair of diamond earrings and one of the sexiest encounters she’d ever had. He’d loved her pregnant and had acted accordingly that day. She shivered and smiled down at the picture again.
No, Emily. No. No. NO. He’s a serial cheater. Remember?
But…can you forgive him? Do you want to?
She blinked and put the photo facedown on the massive dining room table that had gone unused since the Thanksgiving dinner before she’d seen those awful texts from her—the woman Marcus claimed had left him because he still loved his ex-wife. The sunlight hit her eyes when she looked out through the French doors out onto the deck. With it came a clear vision of another, different man—Declan MacGuire, with his thick red hair, dancing green eyes, syrupy brogue, and firm young body.
She tugged her phone out of her robe pocket and found the one friend who might be able to talk some sense into her—hell, the one friend she figured she even had anymore. The trophy wife club had dropped her like the proverbial hot potato when news of her divorce hit the rumor mill.
She typed out a text, figuring that to be less intrusive on an early Saturday morning:
Quick, tell me I’m insane for thinking I should get back together with Marcus.
Sophie responded within seconds: You’re certifiable.
Emily grinned and answered: Thanks. I knew I could count on you.
She saw the little bubbles indicating Sophie was answering. The words made her do a double take: But forgiveness is a virtue we could all use more of, right? Do you still love him?
Emily tapped out several replies, deleted them all and decided to ponder that question for a while. Leaving the photo on the table, she ran upstairs, changed into jeans and a T-shirt and then headed outdoors.
After a couple of hours of flower-planting therapy, she ate a salad and watched some football before grabbing a shower and putting on her official Lady Black Jacks shirt and a fresh pair of jeans. Noting that she should toss a few loads into the laundry and figuring that could wait, she left the bed unmade and flipped open her laptop in the office, adding her tweets to the general promotional efforts while she waited for Marcus and Michelle to show up.
Acknowledging that the thought of being around Marcus for several hours was making her jumpy, she poured a glass of wine, set it aside in favor of water, then paced a while longer. As she put away the pictures she’d been mooning over like some dewy-eyed virgin, anger tickled the edges of her consciousness. A relief—since she’d much rather be mad at her ex-husband. It was way easier.
Michelle came barreling into the house, hollering about getting her Lady Jacks shirt. Emily stayed in the foyer, watching as Marcus unfolded his tall body out from behind the wheel of the latest model of Jag, the most expensive yet understated car he could get his hands on. Determined to find reasons to be and stay mad at him, she saw how he checked his phone, tapped out some message, smiled, then tucked it into his pocket.
Probably already has some fresh chick on the hook. He always did.
She whirled away from the window, letting the fury take her, heat her face, make her heart race. “Come on, Shell,” she called up the front staircase. “I can’t be late. You know that.”
“Coming,” the girl said, tripping down the steps in a shirt that matched Emily’s. “See?” She held it out. “Gotta represent.”
“Yeah, right. Okay, let’s go.” She grabbed her tablet and keys from the hall table and turned toward the open front door, nearly running right into Marcus who stood, hands in his pockets, wearing a grin and an officially logoed Black Jack Gentlemen jersey. The older one with the car company name on the front, the small poker chip emblem to the left, and the utterly obnoxious and much maligned #BJDetroit on it. The new ones had the hashtag correct—#BJGDetroit. But she wasn’t about to tell him otherwise. Besides, those old ones were getting to be collector’s items by now.
“Nice,” she said, refusing to meet his eyes. “Let’s go. I’m late.”
The drive downtown was made in silence. Her temples pounded with tension, but she would be damned if she’d give in to any urge to make nice with the man. He didn’t want her. He was just between firm-bodied twenty-somethings and wanted to get laid. After directing him around to the staff parking section, she jumped out and tried to catch her breath. He got out and opened the door so Michelle could join him. “So, do we go with you or what?”
He was so easygoing, the bastard. She hated him right then in the most irrational way possible. He had a real nerve, invading her new life with his old…perfect self.
“Yeah,” she said and started walking away from them. Michelle had been here plenty of times. If they got separated, she could guide her precious daddy around. Emily’s brain was spinning by the time she made it to the hall between the locker room the women were currently splitting with the men—under extreme duress on the part of both teams—and the bank of elevators leading up to offices overlooking the pitch.
There was a crowd—a pretty decent-sized one, if her ears didn’t deceive her. She smacked the up elevator button and stood, tapping her loafer-clad foot. Her ears got hot once she realized Marcus had joined her alongside the chattering Michelle. She was filling him in on everything, thank God, leaving Emily to stew.
They rode up the six floors in the sort of tense quiet that everyone can feel brushing up against their skin like something alive, with Emily and Marcus standing on far sides of the elevator and Michelle between them. The girl kept glancing from Emily to Marcus, picking up on the undercurrent of her mother’s distress, Emily knew. But at that moment, she simply had to shut down the part of her brain that had set up a clamor for her previous status quo—to just fall into Marcus’s life and arms and let him—What? Rescue her? She’d been rescued, once. Her life as a paycheck-to-paycheck bank wage slave had ended the second she’d caught the handsome executive’s eye at that retreat and she knew it.
What was her problem now?
The last night had been so very bizarre, so out of character for her take-charge, take-control, former spouse, she couldn’t square it with anything she thought she knew about him. Or the fact of his ongoing, seemingly comfortable silence now. But his presence in her new life, in her new workspace, now made her so jittery she thought she could climb the walls and cling to the ceiling like a cat.
She stopped about halfway down the carpeted hallway and turned to him. “You and Michelle should go out that way.” She pointed toward the glass doors opening onto the staff and VIP suite. Michelle took her father’s hand.
“Let’s go, Daddy. They have snacks and stuff.” He lifted an eyebrow at Emily. She frowned and nodded, needing him out of her space.
“Okay, sweetheart, show me the way.”
He let Michelle lead him away, leaving Emily to take deep breaths and slump against the wall. The door next to her opened, making her yelp. “Jesus, Soph, you scared me. Oh hey, Brody.” She smiled at the couple as they exited Sophie’s office, guessing they’d been messing around in there, given Sophie’s husband’s blush and rumpled shirt front. Marveling at how so many of her new women friends had much younger husbands, she forced thoughts of Declan out of her head.
“Hey, Em,” Sophie said, cool as the proverbial cucumber as always. “Looks like a great crowd for the pregame game.” She leaned into Emily’s ear as Brody made his lanky, loose-hipped way down the hall toward the observation suite. “Our boys have been sick for a week and are finally feeling better, so I convinced him to leave them with a sitter. Basically so I could jump his bones in private. Whew.” She pulled her hair up into a ponytail and smoothed the front of her Lady Jacks shirt. “Sophie needed that.”
Emily was grateful for the darkened hall, which hid the instant blush Sophie would have teased her about.
“Cool. Good for Sophie. I gotta grab a few things. I’ll be there in a minute.” Her friend grinned at her, winked, and started to follow her husband down the hall. “Oh, and um, Soph…”
The woman turned. Emily opened her mouth to warn her about Marcus, then shut it, unable to find the right words.
“Michelle’s out there,” she ended up saying before unlocking the marketing suite of offices.
“Great. Love that girl. We can talk about last night’s Dancing With The Stars.” Emily ducked into the office, grabbed her Bluetooth earpiece, and tuned it to her work phone. Haley was already down on the field, roaming and snapping photos. She had four other street team members up in the crowd, doing the same. They would communicate during the match to make sure that when a great shot got tweeted or posted, the rest of them would repost. Emily adjusted her device, hating its extreme dorkiness, but having learned this was the best way to handle the job as the roaming photographer for enough of the men’s games last spring.
