Page 2 of The VIP Doubles Down
“Yet again the jock surprises us with his intellect,” Gavin snarked.
Luke leveled a bland stare at him. “I had to take three gut courses a semester to play college ball. When I got bored, I listened to the professor.”
Gavin snorted. Luke Archer was famous for memorizing his team’s playbook. He had a mind like a steel trap, which was why Gavin had no doubt he would earn the highest possible score on every financial test.
“I’m fortunate,” Nathan said. “I’ve been able to make my peace with my father, thanks to Chloe. But you never got the chance, Miller. That’s a damn shame.”
Gavin’s father had died suddenly, struck down by a massive heart attack as he carried a bag of horse feed out of the stockroom of the family store. Gavin had met Nathan and Luke for the first time in this very bar right after Gavin returned from the funeral. They’d gotten drunk together and made the ridiculous wager. A wager two of them had won well before the one-year deadline they’d set. Gavin was the only one whose stakes were still at risk.
“I’m not sure there was any peace to be made with my father.” Gavin’s mother had bolted when he was a child, unable to bear the isolation of the rural Illinois town and the joylessness of her older husband. He remembered her turning on the radio and dancing around the living room, her brightly printed cotton skirt swirling around her bare calves while the heart-shaped locket at her throat threw out glints of light. Every couple of songs, she would try to tug his father to his feet to join her. But his dour father just shook his head and sat in his lounge chair, pretending to watch television. Gavin wasn’t fooled, though. His father’s eyes followed his mother’s graceful, swaying figure through every dip and turn.
When she abandoned her small family, she’d left the jeweled locket on Gavin’s dresser with a tiny strip of paper folded into it that read,Love you, lightning bug. Always have, always will. XO, Mommy.He’d never heard another word from her.
Luke cleared his throat, yanking Gavin back to the present. “We know you’re still having a problem with writer’s block.”
He jerked, and his back muscles protested with a jab of torment. “Has my agent been talking to you?” Gavin injected a warning note.
“Only about writing my autobiography now that I’m retired.” Luke’s tone was a mix of amusement and exasperation.
“You told us yourself,” Nathan pointed out.
“Because there’s no point in keeping it secret when all my readers know the publication date has been pushed back yet again.” Gavin took another swig of bourbon, trying to wash away the bitter taste of failure.
“So we want to take some pressure off you,” Luke said. “We want to cancel the bet.”
A boil of anger flushed sweat out on Gavin’s forehead. They thought he was so pathetic that he would back out of a wager of honor made between gentlemen. The edge in his voice was razor sharp as he said, “I don’t renege on my bets.”
“We’re not suggesting you renege,” Nathan said. “We’re withdrawing from the wager.”
“You can’t withdraw. You’ve won, both of you.” Gavin could feel the rage tightening his already rigid shoulders. “Frankie has confirmed that you found women who genuinely love you, although God knows why.”
“It was a ridiculous bet,” Nathan said. “We’d had too much to drink.”
“And we were in dark places,” Luke added. “A bad combination.”
“Don’t insult me,” Gavin said. “I proposed the bet.”
“No, I did,” Luke said. “You challenged us to find a woman who loved us for ourselves, not our money. I forced the stakes on you, both the secret ones and the charitable donation. And set the one-year time limit.”
“You’re really pissing me off, Archer,” Gavin said. “I am capable of finding the right woman and putting an engagement ring on her finger before this October. Writer’s block doesn’t interfere with that.”
“Simmer down,” Nathan said. “Neither of us knew what you’d just been through or we never would have agreed to the bet.”
Somewhere in the rational part of his brain, Gavin acknowledged that was probably true, but dark clouds of temper were overwhelming his better judgment. “You’d just found out that a woman you loved had lied from the moment you met her, Trainor,” he pointed out before leveling his gaze on Luke. “Andyourbest friend had just retired from football, leaving you staring at your future retirement with profound depression. My father’s death was no more serious.”
“We’re your friends, man, so we know it was more than that,” Luke said, shifting in his chair.
“Really?” Gavin gave the two men a cold smile. “Tell me what you think you know.”
“Your ex-fiancée showed up at the funeral,” Nathan said. “To use you for her career.”
“And your stepmother wouldn’t let you sit with the family,” Luke added. “That’s heavy stuff on top of losing your dad.”
All the anguish Gavin had crammed firmly into the far recesses of his memory flooded out, sending a burn of black ice through his veins. “My friendship with you two was an unfortunate mistake,” he said, before polishing off the last of his drink.
“Oh, stuff it, Miller.” Luke’s pale blue eyes sparked with irritation. “Friends cut each other slack when they need it.”
Gavin didn’t want slack. He wanted something to clear away the gray fog that seemed to hang over the world around him, muting sound and color and feeling. Strangling his ability to write. Truthfully, he welcomed the burst of anger his friends’ offer had ignited. “No favors,” he said. “In fact, I’m going to double the amount I have to donate to charity if I lose the bet.”
