A Captivating Conundrum (28 page)

I slapped Matt on the back of the head. "Dude…watch this. BAM!" I jumped off the couch as the three-point god made his statement. He went for the steal again and again, putting even more points on the board.

The clock raced down as Matt and I continuously swapped comments about how both of us were going to eat our words. I so wanted to win this one. Bobby had gone quiet; his legs were bouncing in a nervous fit as he watched the bright red neon fly through the digital numerals, just waiting for his chance to stand up and scream, 'In Your Face!' at me.

Chris and Nicole had been sitting in the kitchen for hours, chowing on the cookies, drinking my coffee and talking like long lost friends.

My man went up. This was it! One shot—all the way down the court. I suddenly wished for Michael Jordan to appear and see him literally fly to the basket like Harry Potter on his broom in order to make the only shot I needed to silence Matt and Bobby for the rest of the day. My man ran, he flew, he soared, and he…missed.

The crowd cheered as sheer pandemonium erupted on television, as well as in my living room. The two victorious men flew off their respective couches and showed almost every dance move I could possibly think of. Bobby's barbs were thrown, and I tried not to laugh as the two goofballs went from professional sports statisticians to complete geeks with their glasses of beer held high in the air, as if they were one step away from heading to the podium and receiving their very own MVP awards.

I never got mad about this; I actually loved the thrill of the game, the fights, the comments—let's just call it the upside of human interaction. However, I was still absolutely right and what we'd just witnessed was a total fluke.  

Bobby's face positively glowed as he threw himself off the coffee table and landed on the couch beside me. Kissing my cheek, he placed his head on my shoulder. "So, how bout that check?"

I tickled his ribs until he had to remove himself from the room to use the facilities in my stadium. I watched him race by Chris and Nicole but he stopped, turned, and planted a kiss on Chris that not only surprised me but shocked Chris as well.

As Bobby raced onward and upward, Chris shot me a glance through the door. "Wow. I really
do
like game day!"

I laughed and threw myself back on the sofa, not even noticing that Matt had once again taken up his spot beside me. I practically fell to the floor when I hit his lap, as he reached out and stopped me.

"Whoa."

I started to laugh. "Sorry, I keep ending up in your lap."

"You won't hear a complaint from me." He wiggled his eyebrows. "By the way, I told you your team sucked."

"You just wait until next year, pal. You will eat your words." 

"Why wait that long? Football call?"

I sat back and studied him. "The 49ers will begin a new reign."

He rolled his eyes. "Are you
kidding
?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding? They were one game out last year. I'm telling you…Montana, Young, Rice—they may not be the names anymore, but they're going to shock everybody very, very soon."

He sighed.

My hair rose on the back of my neck, as I began spouting off statistics—matching him step for step, as he defended his own absolutely moronic call. To an observer, we probably looked like two beer drinkers fighting at the local pub, but it was fun. I really did like arguing with someone other than Bobby for a change.

Realizing I was still perched on his lap and his hands were gripping my thighs tighter as we constantly spewed our long list of sports' intelligence, I slowly eased off to sit on the couch. 

His grip released, but the eyes changed a bit as I transferred my position; from a sports warrior to a man with a new emotion brewing in his mind.

Quickly I smiled, patted his hand and reminded him that he may have won this one but would not carry on his reign of power for long. 

Matt smiled and looked down at my hand, stroking the palm slowly and gently…

I cleared my throat. "Do you play pool?'

His gaze came back to me. "Sorry?"

"Shoot pool?"

"I don't follow pool."

"No, I mean, I have a pool table in the garage. Up for a match?"

He smiled. "Yeah, I'll give it a go."

Bobby sauntered back into the room as if he was just given the Nobel Prize for being right. His hands were hanging from the collar of his gray sweatshirt, looking like a beardless Abraham Lincoln ready to give a speech to the huddled masses. "Check please."

Reaching into my purse, I quickly wrote out the check and handed it to him.

He looked down. "This is made out to Butt Face."

"It's a small town, Bobby. Believe me, they know it's you."

"Funny." Raising it in front of his face, he showed it off to Matt. 

Matt snickered. "Five hundred bucks shall be 'Paid to the Order of 'Butt Face.'" His eyes, blue as the vibrant sweatshirt he wore, caught mine. "You always bet this much?"

I nodded. "Sure. Bobby and I each have our own little curio cabinets full of them. They are always framed to let the other one know when they were wrong. Keeps us humble. But, of course, my curio cabinet is WAY bigger than his. Today was just a fluke."

Bobby shook his head and refilled his glass. Stretching out on the couch, he waved the check in front of his face in the same manner Scarlett O'Hara did with her fan when the day became too hot for her milky white skin to take. "Today is righteous," Bobby said. "This check will receive a special place right in the middle of the cabinet so you can remember your failure anytime you wish."

As all good writers with a mass of wonderful lines just flooding their minds at all times, I sent him the finger and headed into the kitchen to make sure that Chris was still among the living after spending three uninterrupted hours with Nicole.

Looking down at the plate, now devoid of anything but crumbs, I stared into the sweet blue eyes that seemed to always be lit from within. "You ate two dozen cookies?"

"No," Chris's voice rose. "Nicole helped. After all, she's tiny; she needs as many as possible."

I looked at my agent. Her eyes were so wide—I assume from the abundance of caffeine and chocolate now running through her system—that she resembled  a person who was about to fly off the Empire State Building with a pair of ceramic wings strapped to her back. "You okay?"

Her smile was wide and her words came fast. "I love this boy!" 

Chris took her hand and stared up at me. "And how are you drunken lushes doing in there?"

"It's a keg of beer not a vat of vodka and a straw." I glanced into the living room and felt my heart jump in my chest at the man stretched out on my sofa. "Although vodka's a thought."

"Alcohol doesn't help, love." 

I looked down at him.

Chris winked. "Trust me. If I thought it would help me become rational and tell myself that I'm NOT head-over-heels in love with one of the men sitting in your living room right now, I'd be mixing Hemingway Daiquiri's and dancing on a table."

I snorted. "You missed the table dancing earlier."

"No I didn't," he said with a wink.

"I could use those Daiquiris's," I replied.

Nicole shot me a glance. "You don't drink liquor, Beth."

"Yeah, well," I sighed. "Maybe all those legendary drunk writers knew something I don't. If I took on the 'plague' maybe my head would stop spinning."

Chris's voice dropped to a whisper, "Matt's a plague all his own, my dear." 

Trying to escape the large smile now stuck on Nicole's completely stoned-out face, I shrugged my shoulders, ready to change the subject. 

"The looks get you?" Nicole snorted.

I studied the back of Matt's full brown head of hair and did what I always do—answered way too quick. "No. I mean, don't get me wrong, the guy has the longest eyelashes I've ever seen in my life and there
is
a bad boy buried in there, but…no. They say a man with power is born from humility and kindness. That's the one who sneaks up on you and, by the time you're aware of it, you're already screwed."

Chris grinned. "So you're screwed."

I snapped back into reality. "Don't be ridiculous."

Chris's face fell.

I patted him on the shoulder. "I already told Matt there awaits a beautiful black-haired goddess in California with absolutely every trait he's looking for."

Nicole scrunched up her nose. "Psychic now, are you?"

"As you know I'm a very good guesser." 

"Not when it's about you."

I sent her a glare and kissed Chris's cheek. "You, young man, are only one of two people who're screwed in this household. The other is the little shit I just had to pay $500 bucks to."

His face grew serious. "You think so?"

"Honey, I know so." I stared over at Nicole. "I will be losing my assistant soon."

She sat up straighter. "What do you mean?"

"I have a niggling thought that Mr. Bobby Morrison is going to go from an East Coast Yankee to a California boy very soon." 

Nicole looked at Chris. "You live there, too?"

He nodded. "I will soon. Broadway is definitely my world, but I have a gig there on the small screen, so I have to get a house out there."

"Oh." Nicole nodded. "That's too bad." 

"I'll still visit the city all the time. After all, there's nothing that can take the place of New York."

Nicole shrugged. "Not the same, really." She looked up at me. "I guess you're right, you aren't screwed. You wouldn't be caught dead as a California girl."

I laughed. "Not my scene."

As I walked around the corner and headed up to my bedroom for a shower, my face literally burned. I wasn't a good liar. I did know that I was a Yankee through and through, but for some reason that moronic little vagrant in my head kept telling me that, with one word from Matt, I would cave in a heartbeat.

If nothing else, a writer's career can be defined by one motto:
Have laptop, will travel
.  I smacked myself in the head.
Knock it off!

~ His ~

I was having the perfect Sunday. It was almost like I was hanging back home, chilling with my friends. Bobby was cool, Beth fought with me almost as much as Chance does—except she was a better opponent because she seemed to know everything about these teams since they first set foot on a court—and Chris was here enjoying himself with a woman who, after a while, grows on you. Let's just say the aura was cool. Add in the beer, food, fun and my team's victory and, hell, it couldn't
get
better than this.

Hearing the door close upstairs changed my mind. There was a way this day could get better. In fact, Beth could come back down, fall into my lap again and tell me she wanted to be that 'perfect woman' who was supposedly waiting for me out there somewhere. If that happened, I'd take her to one of the billion tiny churches in this area and marry her before she could change her mind.

"Sorry about your dinner interruption," Bobby said quietly from his place on the couch across from mine. 

I looked over. "Yeah…thanks."