Page 9 of Love Game

Avery nodded. “I’ll be there. Shaping young minds gives a woman a terrible thirst.”

Millie gave Avery a slow once-over, then gave her a syrupy sweet smile. “I wish they could figure out exactly what causes a woman to choose such a terrible skirt.”

“Ladies,” Kate warned. “No bickering until we have fuel to throw on the fire.”

“Oh, I have fuel.” Millie held the darkened screen up in silent reminder.

Kate sat up straighter. “You promise you won’t release that picture?”

Millie glanced at Avery, then turned back, her eyes alight with challenge. “Get me something better, and I won’t have to.”

“Blackmail.”

“Incentive.”

“Extortion,” Kate shot back.

“On that note,” Avery interjected, “see you two lovebirds at happy hour.”

The moment their fashion-flouting friend was out of earshot, Millie refocused on Kate. “Buy yourself some new workout clothes, Kathryn. You look like a refugee from the nineties.”

Falling back into a sulk, Kate crossed her arms over her chest and slumped in her seat. “I am a refugee from the nineties.”

Millie shook her head in disgust. “Looks like it’s time we had another shopping excursion. I can’t have you delivering commencement addresses in your shorts and sneakers.”

“But I rock the shorts and sneakers look.”

Millie’s expression softened, but she glanced warily at the wall rack that held Kate’s extensive collection of athletic shoes. “You do, but…no.”

“Lunch too?” Kate would submit to thumbscrews rather than say it aloud, but she loved shopping with Millie. The woman was flashy and irreverent and Kate’s personal heroine. Kate never failed to return from one of their expeditions feeling a little brighter.

Millie inclined her head, her ever-perfect pageboy curling over one cheek. “We will need food.”

“And wine?”

“I have been trying to consume more fruit.” Millie bit the inside of her cheek. “Think we can get Avery Steinem to join us?”

Kate snorted. “Not likely.”

Tapping the pointy tip of one glossy fingernail against the dark screen, Millie sent her a stern but sympathetic look. “I promise I’ll never leak a picture of you without lip gloss, but remember, I have to feed the beast.”

“Duly noted.”

“And I am on your side, doll.”

“I appreciate that.”

Millie raised her fist, then waggled her fingers in a girly wave. “Solidarity, sister!”

Kate chuckled as she jiggled her mouse to wake the computer. A document with the usual rhetoric half filled the screen, but even the daunting task of writing yet another speech failed to dampen her spirits. An afternoon of basking in Millie’s brashness was exactly what she needed to shake the fog that had enveloped her for the last few days.

Two weeks had passed since Danny McMillan’s hiring was announced, and the whole campus was abuzz. All questions of ethics and integrity were swept aside. Danny was the anointed one. The man destined to bring their never-a-contender football team to glory. Kate snorted and shook her head as she placed her fingers on the keys. Coach McMillan was going to need more than Millie’s manic publicity grabs to meet that goal. He needed a freakin’ miracle.

* * *

Wolcott University’s football facilities left something to be desired. Truthfully, they left a lot to be desired. Like a practice field that wasn’t actually a field.

Mike shifted his weight from one foot to the other but kept his gaze locked on the action on the field. “Not exactly what you’re used to, I know—”

---