Page 86 of Love Game

“It’s the old ‘cheaper to keep her’ bit played out in reverse,” Avery said, lifting her glass of scotch in salute.

They’d retreated to Calhoun’s immediately following the ceremony to sketch out a game plan. So far, all they’d agreed on was the fact that he and Kate were well and truly married. Everything else seemed to be up for debate.

“It’s my job,” Danny pointed out.

“You don’t have a job,” Mike countered. Lifting his beer in a toast, he smirked at the happy couple. “To the bride and groom. I hope somebody thought to bring shoes and rice. They may need them.”

“The shoes weren’t to wear,” Millie said, taking a sip from her daiquiri without looking up from her phone. “They were supposed to symbolize the groom taking over responsibility for the bride’s upkeep.”

Mike snorted and toasted Danny again. “Good luck keeping this girl in shoes. You’d better find a job real soon.”

“This woman can buy her own damn shoes,” Kate shot back.

Tired of his friend’s double-sided razzing, Danny plucked the beer mug from his grasp, returned Mike’s salute, and drained the contents for him in three long gulps. “Fine then,” he gasped, setting the empty mug down with a thud. “Deliver the message. Kate and I will share the happy news with Gene and Jonas.”

“Sounds like a pop group, doesn’t it?” Kate asked, her smile a mile wide.

Danny couldn’t help but smile back. She’d gotten her way, and her pleasure was utterly undimmed by their dank surroundings or their friends’ unchecked cynicism.

God, he loved that smile.

“Let Martin know we’ve gotten married, and see if that smooths things over a little,” Danny said, buying in to her enthusiasm. Why not? They were already all in. Might as well hope they’d turn the right cards.

“I keep trying to remind you all that we’ve already made your termination public. Even if he wanted to back down, he can’t now. It’s out there.” Mike snatched Danny’s beer off its cardboard coaster and returned the favor. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he placed the empty mug back where he found it, then slid off the bar stool.

“He was one of those guys who spent the fourth quarter moping on the bench if you were down a few points, wasn’t he?” Kate asked, nodding to Mike.

“Yes,” Danny replied.

“I was not,” Mike refuted at the same time.

Clapping a hand to his friend’s shoulder, Danny looked him straight in the eye. “Thank you for coming today.”

Mike gave a jerky nod. “You didn’t need to send Thelma and Louise after me. I wouldn’t have missed it.”

Danny opened his mouth to tell him that he hadn’t sent anyone after anybody, but Kate stopped him with a firm hand on his thigh.

“We know that,” she assured him. “But it was more fun to send the Despotic Duo in.”

Avery sniffed at the implied insult. “I’ll have you know that we honored every one of the rights granted to him under the Geneva Convention.”

“Except this isn’t wartime, and he was kidnapped and transported, not taken prisoner,” Millie interjected, setting her phone aside with a sigh. Looking up at Mike, she tapped her fingernail against her glass. “I’m not sure you should bother much with Chancellor Martin. I think we need to take this to a higher authority.”

Mike cringed and closed his eyes. “Why do I have a feeling I’m going to hear something I can’t unhear?”

Millie cocked her head, her eyes unfocused. Danny could practically see the wheels turning in her head. Conscious that he’d most likely already put his friend at risk, he held up a hand to stop the calculating woman from saying anything more.

“Go,” he told Mike, nodding toward the door. “Go tell him. If nothing else, you can claim you tried to warn him about whatever idea Thelma has wriggling away in that steel trap of a mind.”

Millie scoffed and lifted her glass as if she were sipping mai tais on an island terrace and not watered-down premix in an off-campus dive. “I’m Louise,” she informed him primly, then took a gulp big enough to give an Eskimo brain freeze.

Mike nodded and stepped around Danny to plant a polite kiss on Kate’s cheek. “You were a beautiful bride,” he mumbled as he took off for the door before any of them had a chance to recover.

“Good thing he’s not an umpire,” Avery observed. “You guys would be so screwed.”

“Referee,” Kate corrected.

Her friend leveled her with an arch stare. “You say referee, I say frustrated ex-jock who’s into zebra cosplay.”

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