“Ty?”
He jolted at the sound of Millie’s voice in his ear. Pulling the phone away, he gave his head a sharp shake to disperse any lingering reveries and glanced down at himself. He was a mess. The liquid fire that jetted out of him minutes before was now a cool, sticky reminder that he was alone. Again. Jacking off in his living room because the woman he was seeing thought she should call all the shots. A flash fire of anger ignited inside him. He scowled at the sad, sorry shambles he’d made of himself and cursed under his breath.
“You okay?” she asked.
No. He was far from okay. He was righteously pissed. He’d wanted to do right by her, and she wanted to toy with him. Yes, he’d told himself he could wait. He’d be patient and let her come around to seeing things his way in her own time. But he wasn’t going to play these games for long.
“I’m fine,” he answered, clipping the words off short. “Thanks for the story, Mil. I have to go get cleaned up. See you tomorrow.”
Without waiting for her response, he ended the call and dropped the phone to the floor beside his glass of scotch. “Why do I bother?” he muttered as he used the tail of his once perfectly pressed shirt to clean himself up.
Apparently, reminiscence and bitterness were two main ingredients in whatever witchcraft were needed to conjure up the ghosts of big mistakes barely past. His phone rang, and the screen lit up. Mari’s smiling face beamed up at him. He shoved himself up out of the chair, wincing as he yanked his shorts and jeans up over his hips. “That’s all I need,” he grumbled.
Ty stepped carefully around the abandoned drink and the shimmying phone. He made it two steps before the anger gripped him by the throat again, and he whirled to glare at the photo on the phone’s display. He’d snapped the picture here, in this room. The couch and chair had just been delivered, and Mari’d been so proud of her decorating skills. And he’d been happy to see her happy.
“Ain’t nobody happy now,” he said, directing the pronouncement toward the phone.
As if the damn thing heard him, it fell silent, and the call kicked over to voicemail. Swooping down, Ty dragged his hand along the floor until he scooped up the glass. No message alert chimed, so he bolted the drink, welcoming the burn of liquid fire scorching its way through his chest and down into his belly.
His mouth twisted into a grimace, he eyed the now-silent phone with trepidation. He wasn’t interested in anything Mari had to say. She had gotten what she wanted—a hotshot star in the making and a chunk of Ty’s nest egg. He had gotten his freedom. They had nothing left to say to each other. They’d said all that needed to be said in her lawyer’s office.
Shuffling his feet, he set the glass on an end table as he passed, then wandered into the powder room off the hall. The sight that greeted him wasn’t pretty. The lines between his eyebrows and around his mouth cut grooves into his skin. His eyes looked dull and tired. He needed a haircut. Leaning heavily on the pedestal sink, he peered into the mirror. “Get a grip. Tell her you’re not playing these games.”
He blinked, then snorted at his own theatrics. Flipping on the tap, he ran cool water over his right hand, washing away the residue of the evening’s activities. He was right. He knew he was. He had things he needed to say to Millie. Things that had nothing to do with naughty stories, yanking his own chain, and this power struggle they had going on. He needed to figure out a way to tell her he’d give her whatever she needed without coming off sounding like a pushover.
“Yeah, good luck, buddy.”
Chapter 14
Ty found few things as soothing as the thrum of a ball bouncing off hardwood. Eyes locked on the rim, he bent his knees and sent the ball arcing through the air. The previous year, their team trainer told him he figured Ty to be somewhere between fifty and five hundred jump shots away from total knee replacement. From that day on, Ty stayed well within the arc, and he made damn sure his feet never left the floor.
Palming the ball, he tucked it firmly against his hip and trudged to the foul line. He was on number forty-three of the hundred free throws he’d assigned himself.
His day had been chock-full. Wall-to-wall meetings, videos to review, phone calls, and a particularly excruciating staff meeting that included the public relations director, who’d been avoiding him for days. For a woman who prided herself on being conspicuous, she had a maddening way of disappearing each time she happened to catch sight of him.
Practice seemed to drag. The season was about to start, and the team was still off tempo. His assistant coaches were short-tempered, the players in turns petulant and belligerent. Fifteen minutes into a forty-minute scrimmage, his head throbbed from the cacophony of squeaking shoes, screeching whistles, and shouts from the sidelines.
Smooth as silk. Smooth as silk.
The mantra had started as a playground brag back in middle school, became his lucky bit of braggadocio in high school, then an integral part of his ritual with his introduction to Division I ball. Smooth as silk.
The words ran through his
