The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(10)

“Nobody knows that better than I do,” he said. “You spent your whole life running away from the team. Even when you were married to me.”

“It had nothing to do with the team. Everything to do with them. And being afraid I’d turn into them.”

He checked his own phone. I didn’t know if he was seeing anyone at the moment. But the night was young. And he was still Touchdown Ted Skyler. God’s gift.

All you had to do was ask him.

“You are going to do this, right?” he said.

“No.”

He had the mug halfway to his lips.

“You’re joking.”

I didn’t say anything, just gave him a look he probably felt he knew as well as he did the deferred money he had coming to him when he retired.

“Okay. You’re not joking.”

“I had spent most of the day talking myself into it,” I said. “That somehow I owed it to Dad to honor his dying wish, or whatever you want to call it, and make things right between us even though he’s gone.”

I drank more beer.

“Then I saw that headline and I knew I was kidding myself. That I couldn’t hold on to the life I’ve made for myself and go back to the life of being a Wolf.”

“She Wolf,” he said.

“Don’t start with me.”

He waved at the bartender, who came over and took Ted’s order for a Scotch. I didn’t say anything, but almost by reflex he said, “I’ve got a driver.”

“Of course you do.”

“This is some serious shit here. I need a real drink.”

He waited until the bartender came back with a glass of Johnnie Walker. He told me he’d read once that Joe Namath used to drink Johnnie Walker.

He toasted me, drank, and said, “You have to do this.”

“Why? Because you think I’d give you a better chance of holding on to your job?”

The grin disappeared, but only briefly. “Maybe you’re more like them than you think.”

“Sorry. I did call you.”

“So you did,” Ted said. “But you sound as if you’ve already made up your mind. So why did you call me?”

“I wanted to see if maybe you could un–make up my mind.” I grinned. “Other than on the subject of that TV twink, you were always pretty honest with me.”

“I think you should do it,” he said. “You’d be good at it. A lot better than your brother is.”

“Any random member of the grounds crew would be.”

“Look at what Jeanie Buss has done with the Lakers.”

“She didn’t mind having a public fight with her brother over control of her team,” I said. “But that’s not me.”

“You sure? And what fight are we really talking about? Sounds like you got all the power you need today.”

“Dad used to talk about being famous. He said it was like living in a Macy’s window. That’s not me.”

“I was under the impression everybody wants to be famous,” he said.

“I had my taste just being married to the quarterback of the team. And found out I didn’t like that particular taste.”

He leaned forward. He was still cute as hell, even though I could see him getting older around the eyes.

“If you quit, they win. You get that, right?”

“Or maybe I win, by holding on to the things that really matter to me.”

“Forget the paper for the moment,” he said. “This is an NFL team we’re talking about, Jennifer. You need to think about this, because your father obviously gave it a hell of a lot of thought.”

“Maybe he just wanted to screw Danny over.”

“Or maybe he wanted to save the Wolves.” He gave me another one of his lopsided grins. “Though now that I think about it, they might be the same thing.”

“I’d be walking right back into everything I walked away from,” I said.

“When you broke your father’s heart.”

“He sure found an interesting way to get even. And what heart, by the way?”

“Whoa,” he said, and then I told him I’d stolen that line from the second Mrs. Joe Wolf.

We sat there in silence. He’d shown me something tonight, I had to admit. He’d been engaged for ten long minutes in a conversation that wasn’t about him.

“I’ve been thinking about something since Joe died,” Ted said. “After the last preseason game, I went up to have a drink with him in the suite. We used to do that a lot. Anyway, he and Danny were arguing when I came in. And your father said something like the worst mistake he ever made was putting Danny in charge of the Wolves, and the second biggest was leaving him in charge. And Danny said, ‘So take the team away.’ And Joe said, ‘You think I won’t?’ And then Danny said, ‘And you think I won’t end up with it anyway?’”

“What did that mean?”

“No clue,” Ted said.

“You ever ask him?”

“Sounded like a Danny problem, not a Ted problem.”

“For now,” I said, “Dad has taken the team away from him.”

“Has he ever.” Ted finished his Scotch. “Sleep on this.”