Game for Anything (22 page)

"My dad says I'm supposed to focus on football. He says it's going to make us rich." It was going to take every ounce of Ty's self-control to keep from rearranging Jack's father's face.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Getting rich in football depends on a lot of things." Jack frowned, probably because it was the first time anyone had ever told him fame and fortune wasn't a sure thing. "Like what? I've got the skills."

"You do. But things happen. You could get drafted onto a Super Bowl-winning team." Jack smirked like he already knew that was going to happen.

"Or you could get hurt, like some of the super-talented guys I knew in high school and college, and your career could end." He snapped his fingers. "Just like that." Jack thrust his chin out. "That didn't happen to you. You're a huge star."

"I'm one of the lucky ones," Ty said, even as he wondered if he really was. "And I worry about getting hurt, about being taken out on a stretcher, every single game." When he was younger and felt completely invincible, he'd never worried about the end of his career. But now, guys he'd played with since his rookie days were starting to retire. The ones with a plan for retirement did fine. But the guys who didn't have a single dream other than football just plain fell apart.

"Don't you have enough money to do whatever you want?"

"Sure," Ty conceded. "But money isn't everything." Until Julie had come back into his life, Ty couldn't see the point in anything but football. Now he had new ideas. He'd just started thinking maybe one day he could open his own summer camp in Grass Valley, maybe for kids like him who didn't have money for fancy shoes and trust funds. They'd play football, but they'd learn other stuff too. Like fishing and how to start a campfire. Ty wanted to run the idea by Julie, see what she thought.

"Your life has to be about more than football, kid," Ty said, deciding it was time to get straight to the point. "It doesn't matter if everyone else treats you like a god. One day someone is going to come along who shows you what a screwup you really are. And you're not going to be able to fix it, because the only thing you'll know how to do is play football."

Jack didn't say anything and he wasn't making eye contact anymore.

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad," Ty said. "And I'll still talk to your dad. I just want you to think about what I'm saying."

Jack jumped off the bench. "I'm going to be the greatest football player in history! I'm going to leave you in the dust. You don't know anything!"

Julie ran outside. "What's happening? Is your arm hurting, Jack? Do you need to see the doctor again?"

Ty had never seen such a hard face on a little kid. Except maybe his own in the mirror.

"I want to go home," Jack whined.

Julie nodded and gave him her keys. "Go ahead and wait in the car. I need to talk to Ty for a sec." She turned on him. "What did you say to him? He looked like he was about to cry." Ty willed her to understand. "Trust me, it was stuff he needed to hear."

"He's just a little boy, Ty. You hurt his feelings."

"I had my reasons for what I said to the kid."

"Go ahead," she said, her eyes challenging him. "Tell me your reasons. I'm dying to hear them." But everything was hitting too close to home. He didn't want to talk about it right now, didn't want to bare his soul in front of a restaurant with Jack waiting in the parking lot.

"Don't push me," he growled. Julie needed to back off long enough for him to get a grip. Her expression went from concerned to confused to cold in a millisecond. "You know what? I can't think of one single reason you could have for making a sweet little boy cry."

"Not even one, huh?"

Everything in him wanted to get down on his knees and explain the truth to her, that things weren't how she thought they were. But he'd done that before and it hadn't made a lick of difference. Julie had her mind made up. He was guilty as charged.

She moved toward him, her cheeks red, her blue eyes full of anger. "I was so stupid I actually thought you'd changed. That you could be a man for once, instead of the self-absorbed little boy you always were."

A slow anger began to burn inside of Ty, a fire stoked by every person who had ever doubted he could be more than a football player, by everyone who'd thought they could take advantage of a poor dumb kid like him.

"You want to know why your dates aren't interested in you, babe?" He watched the word
babe
hit her across the face like a hard slap, along with more he didn't mean, but somehow couldn't stop from saying.

"Because guys don't like the third degree. You can't run a relationship like a business. And it's time to get it into your pretty little head that what went down between me and Jack is none of your damn business." He'd never been able to forget the look on Julie's face on the yacht when she'd said, "I hate you." Here it was again.

"Your image is no longer any concern of mine," she said. Then, just in case he wasn't clear that she was severing both their professional
and
personal relationships, she added, "I'll send your things by courier by this afternoon."

He watched her walk across the parking lot, get in her car, and drive away. Just hours ago she was naked on his lap. Now she was telling him what a worthless asshole he was. As if his father hadn't drummed that into his head every time he blew it on the field his entire childhood. His phone rang. "What?"

Jay's voice boomed out of the earpiece. "Got a couple of things to discuss this fine morning."

"Make it quick," Ty growled.

"Care to confirm a serious relationship with a pretty blonde?"

"Negative." Even if it killed him to say it, he was going to get the words out. "We were just having fun. We're done now."

"Got it," Jay said, moving smoothly onto his second order of business. "Looks like one of the biggest companies in the world wants your name and face attached to their product."

"Whatever," Ty said, not in the mood to deal with business right now. "As long as the money's good, I'm in."

Jay was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. "Great! I told them you wouldn't have any problem with the product."

A warning bell went off. "What is it?"

"I know how you feel about alcohol, and you know the League won't let players promote it anyway, so that's one big moneymaker that's always had a red X through it. But I've found the next big thing and they want you to be their man."

He paused for effect, and Ty suddenly wondered why he hadn't found a new agent a long time ago.

"Buzzed Cola is going to pay you ten million dollars to do worldwide print and TV advertising for one year!"

Ty didn't need the money and he wasn't a huge fan of the new ultra-caffeine drink that everyone swigged like water. He knew exactly why the advertisers wanted him on board. As soon as kids saw him drinking Buzzed Cola, they'd be lining up to buy cases of it. Ten minutes ago, he would have said no without giving it a second thought.

Then again, ten minutes ago Julie hadn't looked at him like he was the scum of the earth. Ten minutes ago, he thought that maybe, just maybe she was going to love him back. Too bad he was such an idiot. Julie was never going to stop thinking of him as a fuck-up. And right now Ty couldn't think of a single reason not to act like one.

"I'll think about it," he said, hanging up on his agent and calling a local cab company. "Hey, I need a ride from Palo Alto to San Francisco." He nearly gave Julie's address, before he remembered he wasn't welcome there anymore. It was time to go back to his overinflated excuse for a home. Alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

As a young child, Julie had mastered the art of numbing her emotions. She'd block out her mother's drunken scenes, she'd convince herself that her father's mistresses really were her nannies, just like he said. All of that practice came in handy as she drove Jack home on autopilot. She tried to go inside the beautiful stucco two-story house with him, but he barely let her hit the brakes before he jumped out of the backseat and ran through a side gate into his backyard.

Still, she missed his small, angry presence once he was gone and she was left sitting in her car, staring at the empty passenger seat that Ty had curled his tall, muscular body into for the past two weeks. Ty's final words played on repeat inside her brain;
"none of your damn business"
jostling for first place on the leaderboard of shame with
"You want to know why your dates aren't interested in you,babe?"

Even though she'd known all along that she was nothing special to him, that a guy like him couldn't possibly know the true meaning of the word
love,
she hadn't thought she would feel so much pain when he finally showed his true colors.

Julie drove back to the city, but before she went home, she needed to make an important pit stop. This time she was going to be the one to walk away first, to cut every single tie that bound them together. She walked into the Outlaws headquarters and had security buzz Bobby. A guy like him worked 24-7 and she had a hunch she'd find him in his office, making his way through a list of the people whose lives he planned to ruin now that he'd finished with her.

"Bobby Wilson here."

"It's Julie Spencer. I need a word. Now."

She had to give him points for how quickly he masked his surprise. "I can always spare a moment for a pretty lady such as yourself."

Julie ground her teeth together. God, she hated being called "pretty lady" every other sentence. Maybe it was time to take some kickboxing lessons. That way she could knock the teeth out of the next guy who acted like she was a Thoroughbred for sale.

His door was open when she got off the elevator.

"Now, what can I do for you, my dear?"

She smiled sweetly. "I quit."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Are you referring to your job with my boy Ty?" Julie wanted to tell Bobby that Ty was irredeemable. She wanted to say that there was no point in hiring another image consultant or PR agency to replace her, because working with Ty was an impossible task. But even in her current state, she knew those were the rantings of a woman done wrong. Worse, they made her sound pathetic and lovelorn, something she swore she'd never be again.

"I'm afraid I took your client on under false pretenses. I had never worked with a professional athlete before and it turns out that an assignment like this is beyond the boundaries of my expertise. You will not be receiving an invoice from my company for the work already done." Bobby sat back in his chair, then tilted his cowboy hat back on his shiny bald head. "Trouble in paradise?"

She refused to react to his taunting. But she wasn't going to lie either and say that she and Ty hadn't been an item; even though they hadn't lasted twenty-four hours in the public eye.

"Ty Calhoun and I are not a couple. And from this point on, he is no longer my client. Good luck with the team."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I shouldn't have resigned from the Outlaws account without talking it over with you first. I've put the entire company at risk," Julie said bitterly. Amy sat next to Julie on the couch in her office and rubbed her back.

"I should never have let you take the assignment. Not after what you told me about your past." Julie shook her head. "I needed the money. For the stupid building." Damn her pride for not billing Bobby for the time she'd put in. She was screwed. "I don't know how I'm going to pay the mortgage and everyone's salaries. I'm so sorry."

"If you're waiting for me to tell you that you did the wrong thing, forget it. Sometimes your principles have to come first. Besides," Amy added, "you did a great job. Ty was photographed at charity events, fund-raisers, and as a coach at a children's camp, plus he was the subject of several great, feel-good feature stories. You virtually eradicated his image as a good-for-nothing bad boy overnight. We're bound to get some great new clients."

Julie wished her friend's praise could make her feel better. But not only was her business on the verge of ruin, she felt hollow and cold. She had to figure out a way to stop loving Ty. Because even though he was a selfish bastard, she still couldn't stop thinking about him. What if ten years of longing stretched into twenty?

What if she never got over him?

The only way she knew how to forget Ty was to bury herself in work. It had almost worked before. And until she could figure out another tactic, work was all she had. Julie typed in her email password and let herself be buried beneath a flood of queries and demands that suddenly seemed utterly meaningless.

No matter how Ty tried to fill them, there were too many hours in the day. He got up early to sweat away his demons in the gym, he stayed late with the new round of kids at Tony's football camp, and ran for miles along the cliffs near his house.

During the week he'd been at Julie's, his house keeping staff told him the all-day parties had whittled away, leaving his house empty and silent as a tomb. Ty couldn't see the point in inviting his buddies back over, in having a bunch of bikini-clad women in his backyard anymore. And he definitely couldn't head down those steps beneath his garage and not revisit that first potent kiss, the one that proved ten years hadn't dulled their passion for each other in the least.

Thank God training camp started next Monday. He just needed to make it through the rest of the week, then he could bury his feelings in football and ice packs and strategy sessions. For a couple of days he'd actually considered doing the Buzzed Cola ads. But spite and pride were damn stupid reasons for advocating something he despised.

He closed his eyes to get through his next set on the bench press, and when he opened them Dominic was standing behind him, spotting.

"Benching three hundred pounds isn't the smartest thing in the world to be doing by yourself," Dominic said.

"Gotta get ready for pre-season."

Dom nodded. "I'm glad you're here, actually. I wanted to chat for a minute." Ty dragged his sorry ass over to the pull-up bar. "Shoot."