Page 23 of Play for Keeps

Wrapping one of the thin, rough towels that came with the short-term rental around his hips, he stepped from the shower. Water beaded on his shoulders and rolled in tickly rivulets down his back, but he paid the tickling streams no mind. Goose bumps pebbled his skin. He tried to blame his shiver and the subsequent goose bumps on the air-conditioning, but he knew all too well it was more likely caused by the message alert on his phone.

Millie had called.

In all the weeks since he’d dropped her off in front of the Merryton Hotel, he’d been the one to do the dialing. A hot rush of pleasure heated his skin. He could almost hear the droplets of water sizzling as he reached for the phone and scanned the missed call notification. A part of him wanted to curse the old man for strong-arming him into going to one of the casinos for dinner. The other part was glad he’d been the one to be unavailable for once. He liked calling her later in the evening. Bedtime.

At least, bedtime for her.

For him, they were prime time. Which meant he usually showered later. Better to wash all evidence of his pent-up frustration away before hitting the hay. But tonight, after a couple of hours in the trenches, he needed to wash the stench of slots, smoke, and the all-you-can-eat snow crab off before he could settle in. Peering into the mirror, he ruffled the water from his close-cropped hair. He saw more gray hairs creeping in on the sides, and the other day, the old man had teased him about the silver stubble in his beard. He rubbed his hand over his cheek, trying to decide if he wanted to shave before calling her back or wait for morning.

He opted to play it smooth and hard to get. Pulling his razor and a can of cream from the cabinet above the sink, he smirked at his reflection, feeling smug. She could wait. At least a few more minutes. Millie certainly had no compunction about postponing their chats to a time more convenient for her.

Clean-shaven, minty fresh, and unable to stand waiting a second longer, he snatched up the phone and padded into the condo’s master bedroom. The furnishings were comfortable if not a bit generic. The bed was a standard king, which meant he slept diagonally most nights, but the pillows were firm and plentiful. Hitting the recall button with his thumb, he propped a couple against the headboard, then dropped onto the bed. The knot at his waist loosened a bit but held the ends of the towel together enough to keep him decent.

“Hi, Ty.”

The throaty rasp of her greeting did things to him. Stirred thoughts and urges he’d bank for later. For now, he had to set the jumble aside and form coherent sentences. “Hey, sorry I missed your call.”

His lack of explanation might have been a bit of payback. Millie never gave excuses for why she would need to call him back or accounted for her time in any way, so he followed her lead. He didn’t want her thinking he counted down the hours until he could talk to her again. Even if he did.

Playing by the unwritten conversational rules, he opened with an inane yet remarkably telling question. “How was your day?”

She sighed. “Boring. I hate summer session. Campus is like a ghost town in the afternoons. Kate has banned me from her office because I told her I was tempted to release the bikini picture from her honeymoon. I have no idea why she’s being such a pill. If I were built like her, I’d dance a bikini-clad flamenco on top of every swimsuit edition in the athletic department’s secret archive.”

Ty wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond, so he stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed one ankle over the other, and started in what seemed like the safest place. “Secret archive?”

She guffawed. “Don’t play innocent. I know what’s in the file cabinet at the back of the bull pen.”

He smiled, the image of Millie rifling through the battered metal drawers in search of contraband forming in his mind’s eye. She wasn’t wrong. When the university’s human resources director cracked down on “potentially offensive” materials displayed in the workplace, the warren of cubicles housing the coaching assistants was hardest hit. All calendars, posters, and, yes, a nearly exhaustive collection ofSports Illustratedswimsuit editions were deemed too dangerous for public display. But instead of taking the stuff home, some smarty-pants locked all the loot in a filing cabinet no one bothered to use once departmental records became computerized. A limited number of duplicate keys were made, and being awarded one had become a departmental rite of passage.

At least now Ty had a pretty good idea who’d planted a copy of Burt Reynolds’sCosmopolitancenterfold in the mix.

“Are you the one who keeps slipping issues ofGQandEsquirein?”

“Not me,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I can tell you people really are crazy about a sharp-dressed fella.”

“Sadly, I don’t think they’re having any impact on Mack’s or Beau’s wardrobe choices,” he said gravely.

Mack and Beau were the elder statesmen of the Warrior coaching staff. They were known for their love of polyester shorts, snow-white athletic shoes, and, in Beau’s case, striped tube socks color coordinated with whichever polo-collared shirt his wife of over forty years had pressed for him. They were also two of the handful of coaches who’d willingly relinquished their keys to the cabinet. As far as Ty knew, the head coaches declined their copies. He knew far better ways to get shit-canned in professional coaching than ogling two-dimensional versions of scantily clad women. The three-dimensional ones caused enough trouble.

“I’d run away with Mr. Beau if he’d ditch that hussy.”

“Watch yourself. She may look all sweet and charming, but I’m pretty sure Mrs. Beau would claw your eyes out if you put the moves on her man.”

Millie heaved a heavy sigh. “No use. I can’t get the guy to look twice at me anyhow.”

“I have fifty that says he’s looked more than twice.”

Her delighted laugh made the prospect of coughing up fifty bucks on a bet he couldn’t prove one way or another totally worthwhile. “You’re so good for my ego.”

“Is that why you keep talking to me?” he asked, knowing the question was shameless enough to border on pathetic but beyond caring.

“No, I keep talking to you because your voice gets me hot.”

Stupefied by her bluntness, he stared at the ceiling for about ten beats too long to be cool, then pulled the phone away from his ear, not certain he’d heard her correctly. “I, uh… Did you just say—”

She didn’t let him finish. “So Danny told Kate I was ogling him when I went to the fitness center.”

Reeling and desperate to catch up, he blurted. “Were you?”

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