Celi-Bet (Solomon Brothers #2)

by Leslie North

  “I’ll get right on that once I’ve paid off the Learjet.”

  Once again, he felt like the asshole with the 90-million-dollar, four-year contract. He reached for the passenger door, trying to recall the charm that made it open.

  “Is everything they say about you true?” Willow asked.

  They. He couldn’t begin to guess who—sports commentators, gossip rags, league players—or what—free agency mistakes, different woman every night, overpaid, undertalented, traitor to Sacramento. By the tone of her question, he knew something or someone had cast him in a negative light. Not that he cared what Bolt girl thought.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think Chase Holbrook, leading NBA scorer and playboy about town, wasn’t the Chase Holbrook riding shotgun tonight.”

  Her edge had softened. Maybe he had offended her with his car comment. Maybe she had simply run out of her seemingly endless supply of energy. Or maybe, just maybe, he was growing on her a bit.

  “And I believe Tarek,” she added.

  Uh oh. Chase mentally braced himself. “What did he say?”

  “That none of you are your image. And I should give you a chance.”

  He nodded. “That mean you’ll be a bet monitor?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Impulsive people aren’t generally prone to thought.”

  “And thoughtful people aren’t generally prone to impulses.” The two of them in a nutshell. “Now get out. You’re cramping my style. Being seen with you.”

  A laugh sputtered free of his lips. As expected, his door wouldn’t open.

  Willow scrambled in her seat so that her bare legs stretched across him and her ass wiggled up beside his hip, full-on childbirth position, no boundaries. He caught a whiff of the air freshener in her wake. She braced against the Vega’s frame and pushed with her feet. The door popped open.

  “John DeLorean?”

  “John DeLorean.” As if his name lent credence to her argument that the shit-brown Vega was a ‘beaut.’”

  He unfolded himself from the car, grabbed the duffel he had stashed at his feet, and turned in time to see her lean all the way across the seat, say “’Night, Magnum,” and pull the door closed from the inside. She peeled out of the parking lot, her tailpipe erupting in gunfire at least twice on the way out of the parking lot.

  Chase crawled into the plush interior of his SUV, locked his doors, and let the engine warm. He pulled out his cell phone, the text draft to Tarek just under his lock screen.

  Rather live with your mother. Bet off.

  He watched the blue cursor blink then hit the delete button. Delete, delete, delete, until the message was gone.

  Estelle rose before Good Morning, Pittsburgh. Before the infomercials on television had switched over to regular programming, before electricity was no longer necessary to cut the darkness, before Willow had time to access REM sleep. Someone, somewhere along the way had convinced Estelle that walking her butt cheeks along the floor, legs extended, forward and backward, was good cardio for her heart. So every day at six a.m., Estelle squeezed her saggy bits into a leotard, à la Jane Fonda, and slayed the shag carpet in front of the couch like a greyhound with worms. When her labored exhales summoned the elderly gods of soft porn, Willow decided she’d had enough. She slipped on her coat and slippers, tiptoed out onto Estelle’s back porch and called Dylan. She knew the hospital woke him up early.

  His sleepy face appeared on her screen.

  “Nice bed head,” he said. “Where are you?”

  She couldn’t tell him she’d been evicted. No one in her family could know. News would spread like a contagion. She didn’t need to give her parents any more ammunition for their argument that her life needed focus.

  “Outside.”

  “It’s gotta be twenty degrees. I can see your breath.”

  She did her best to blow those fancy gangster-smoke rings. Didn’t work.

  “Say hi to Mike.” Dylan turned the phone’s camera lens to the hospital bed beside him. The two teen boys looked so out of place against walls painted with balloon-wielding pandas.

  “Hi, Mike.” Willow waved. When the camera angle returned to Dylan, she said, “I thought you had a private room.”

  “I gave it up. Some seven-year-old got banged up pretty bad in a traffic accident. Family never leaves his side. My old room had a couch with a fold-out bed. Besides, Mike here is the worst Sonic player in history. Makes me feel better about my scores.”

  Mike’s protests rose above the video game noises.

  Willow smiled. “They have you up early eating that oatmeal slop again?”

  “Mike discovered the culinary art of Pop Rocks oatmeal.”

  “Party in your mouth.”

  “Exactly.”

  Willow knew Dylan’s early mornings were filled with doctor’s rounds, first round of PT for his prosthetic leg, and a host of blood tests to determine the progress of his osteosarcoma. Judging from the same bald head Mike sported, she guessed he was also there for cancer treatment.

  “Hey, you think we can get Mike in to see Holbrook, too? He’s a Knicks fan, but he said he’d put that aside for a chance to meet Chrissy La Roux.”

  At the mention of Chase, Willow’s stomach fluttered awake. Kinda like that early-morning car sickness feeling after Denny’s grand-slam hotcakes, but warmer. She had always kept it real with Dylan when the other adults in his life disappointed him and failed to treat him like the adult he almost was. But each conversation he mentioned meeting Chase, and each conversation she found a way to steer him in an entirely different direction. Previous night’s excursion aside, Dylan deserved a real hero, not an as-played-on-the-court hero.

  “Best aunt ever,” Dylan said to Mike. “Courtside seats, the works.”

  “Just need a green light from your docs to travel.” A green light she worried may never come.

  “Hey, Dad’s here. Want to say hi so I can put Mike away, once and for all?”

  Willow’s chest tightened. That her brother, Thomas, was at the hospital pre-dawn wasn’t a good sign.

  She kept her mood light. “Sure. Love you, Dyl.”

  “Love you, too, Wil. Say hi to Holbrook for me. Here’s Dad.”

  Thomas commandeered the phone. The background streaked by, from the dimness of Dylan’s room to a blinding, clinical light, Thomas clearly relocating to the privacy of the hallway. He wore his clean airline mechanic uniform and a somber expression.

  “What’s wrong, Thomas?”

  “His levels have taken a turn, Wil. The pump isn’t doing what they hoped.”

  The sub-freezing morning breeched her sheepskin-lined parka. She curled her knees to her chin and tried not to think of a world without Dylan’s light.

  “Does he know?”

  “Not yet. But it’s been one setback after another lately. He could really use something positive right now.”

  Willow knew what Dylan wanted that something to be.

  “Did you talk to his doctor about travel?”

  “He’s says there’s restrictions on it. If it was some kind of Make-a-Wish, they’d have the funds for a nursing staff to travel with us to Pittsburgh, but we can’t afford that.”

  At the mention of Make-A-Wish, tears sprouted. Dylan had been granted a wish. He had given it to an Army kid so she could see her father one last time at a meet-up in Germany. Another wish was in the works. But these things took time, and time was something none of them were sure Dylan had much of.

  Willow thought about Chase’s offer. Hold up your end, it’s all yours.

  She swiped at the snot freezing in her nose. “I’ll see what I can do, Thomas.”

  “Wil?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hurry, okay?”

  She nodded, unable to speak, blew him a kiss, and ended the call. For another twenty minutes, she listened to the noises of the awakening city and watched night lift its hold over the skies. A plucky but faint Hank William’s, Jr., song two-st
epped out through the crack in the sliding glass door.

  Dylan was such an amazing kid, so generous of spirit, so optimistic about the world, despite being dealt the shitty hand of cancer. If rumors about Chase were true—he only moved to the Alloys for the money, he was a man who only looked out for number one—he could crush everything that made Dylan, Dylan. And Willow refused to allow that on her watch. But on the off chance she learned the rumors weren’t true, that knowledge would surpass any amount of money.

  Even ten grand.

  Willow went inside to pack.

  5

  Bzzz. Bzzzzz-bzz-bzzzzz.

  “Coming. Jesus,” Chase snapped as he stumbled out into his foyer, a sock dangling from his toes and tripping up his progress toward the relentless visitor. His pink boxers, imprinted with iced and sprinkled donuts, offered little protection against the morning chill. Reaching the door and pummeling whoever was assaulting his door chime had taken higher priority than finding clothes. He glanced through the peephole.

  And saw the inside of a mouth.

  Only one person he knew could be that on at seven in the morning.

  “Willow.” Her name slipped out like a muttered curse on his pasty tongue. He hunched in the chill, his hands cupping his junk as if she had the superpower of x-ray vision.

  “I’m sleeping.”

  “With your lips to the door? Sounds comfortable.”

  “I have a cold.” He gave a sniff, just to sound convincing.

  “I haven’t been sick in five years. Killer immune system.”

  He was running out of viable excuses; he went for the jugular.

  “I’m naked.”

  The shuffling on the other side of the door stopped. Dead silence.

  Chase glanced through the peephole.

  Willow stood blindfolded, her neck scarf pulled up over her eyes. It was the first time in recent memory a woman didn’t jump at the chance to see him in his altogether. He found it refreshing.

  He tapped his security code on the panel—surprising, because he barely remembered his own name this early—and opened the door.

  She stood in a nest of suitcases and baskets and random crap that should have been boxed. Enough stuff to camp for weeks, months.

  “You know I’m going to break the record soon, right?”

  “I need all this to function.”

  “As a hoarder?”

  He picked up a ceramic ethnic mask that was, quite possibly, the most disturbing thing he’d ever seen.

  “As a woman of the world.” She moved forward, hands extended, blindfold slipping. First, she ran into the door jam and drew back as if she had touched a live wire. Then the wall of his chest—which she most certainly took her time inspecting.

  Chase rolled his eyes, over the theatrics, and yanked down the holey scarf. Just as he suspected, the scarf was as thin as mosquito netting. He shoved the mask into her hands and walked back into his penthouse. “Not this world.”

  “Quetz here is a Central American god of wind or corn or something. Anyway, legend says he was tricked into drunkenness and sex with a celibate priestess.”

  Chase aimed for the refrigerator to put distance between his tired brain and the absurdity of letting this girl into his life, but she was hot on his tail, dragging her stuff along with the rest of the story.

  “When he found out the priestess was his sister, he burned himself to death, and his still-beating heart became the morning star.”

  “Thank you for inhabiting my nightmares for the next decade.” He poured a glass of orange juice and offered it to her.

  “No thanks. I thought you could use some inspiration. To stay celibate.”

  “Lest I sleep with my sister and commit suicide by fire?”

  “Okay, you know what? The lady at the bazaar hadn’t had a sale all morning.”

  “Do you have an off switch?”

  “No.”

  Chase took a swig of the semi-sour juice, thinking nothing would unscramble his mind but coffee, when he realized she was inspecting his underwear. He stepped closer to the counter for cover.

  “Nice Underoos. Don’t see many men who can successfully pull off a Danish pattern near the netherod.” She made a motion with her hands, a cross between a flourish and an air trombone, and capped it off with a two-note whistle. “Might want to steer clear of the windows in those. Last I saw, the traffic copter had shots of women on the roof next door holding binoculars.”

  “What?” Chase gripped the edge of the granite countertop.

  “There’s also a swarm of scantily-clad women in the lobby, overwhelming Faustino. Don’t you watch the news?”

  Chase was so lost, he needed a miner’s helmet and written directions. What did his doorman have to do with anything?

  Willow grabbed the nearby television remote and switched on Good Morning, Pittsburgh. Next to a cartoon sun, the caption Chase Holbrook’s Shot at Love lit the bottom third of the screen. She dialed up the volume.

  The day’s hard-hitting stories had already been exhausted. By the program’s second hour, the network rolled out a panel of local socialites to give their take on all things irrelevant: winter color combinations, red carpet fashion critiques, Hollywood spats, and root jobs—whatever the hell those were.

  “Women all over the city are waking up to the news that Alloys player and one of the most eligible bachelors in Pittsburgh, Chase Holbrook, has been overheard saying that he just can’t meet the right girl but that he’s ready to settle down with that special someone,” said the Barbie-esque anchor. Chase remembered her giving him a full-court press at a kids’ charity event last year.

  “I never said that.”

  “Holbrook is quoted as saying that he doesn’t have a type and so long as the woman has a kind heart, he’s open to dating women of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds.”

  The burgeoning headache he had labelled Willow a few minutes earlier swelled to a migraine named Tarek. This stunt had Tarek all over it.

  “As you can imagine,” continued the anchor, “single women from all over the city are rising to the challenge. Literally.”

  The screen filled with the shaky live image of a group of women on a terrace, holding up signs with various enticements: CALL ME; Biggest Fan; I love your donuts!

  “Oh, shit.” Chase ducked behind a kitchen wall.

  “At least you’ll be smothered by women with kind hearts,” offered Willow.

  “Close the blinds.” His voice was more hunted rabbit than suave pro-athlete.

  “I didn’t hear the magic word, Magnum.”

  Chase picked up Quetz. “Now, or your Mexican corn god bites it.”

  “Good enough.” Willow went to the sliding patio doors. Instead of drawing the blinds, she waved at the terrace women. On television, he watched the hopeful group jack-in-the-box with excitement.

  “Hurry up.”

  “There aren’t any cords.”

  “There’s a panel on the wall by the fireplace.”

  “Fancy.”

  He could have sworn she was taking her sweet-assed time. She pressed a button for the ceiling fan, the stereo—which thumped out a rousing dubstep before silencing—the spotlight over his Adolph Rupp trophy, again with the fan, then finally the blinds. Cloth shades closed on a barely-audible hum, meeting at the center and plunging the thirtieth-floor space into nighttime.

  “Fancy,” Willow repeated. She padded back to the kitchen, turned off the television, and opened the fridge. “Got any mayo?”

  The woman whiplashed him with her topic changes. “It’s seven-thirty in the morning.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to make a BLT. Although…”

  Whatever. “Second shelf in the door.”

  Willow seized the jar. “Oh good, it’s mostly empty.” She unscrewed the cap, dug her hand to the bottom to scoop out a handful, and smeared it on her hair.

  He pinched the back of his hand, desperate to wake up. No other explanation.

  She finishe
d her mayo hair smear and washed and dried the jar at the sink; Chase could have collected an entire swarm of flies in his slack mouth.

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Got a black pen?”

  “Far drawer by the coffee maker.”

  She uncapped the pen with her teeth and wrote L-U-S-T over the iconic yellow and blue label.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s like a swear jar, only for each impure thought, it’s one dollar—the sum of which shall be given to the women’s shelter on Fifth Avenue at the end of my duties here.” She placed the jar in a prominent place at the center of his kitchen table, adjusted it as if it were gem-encrusted and required a light beam of just the right angle to shine, and turned to pick up her suitcases. “Room?”

  “Hallway by the fireplace. Third door on the left.”

  In passing, she scooped up Quetz and placed him shotgun in her armpit. “Might want to take the service elevator on your way to practice. There’s enough skin in the lobby to fill the jar. Twice.”

  Chase buried his head in his hands and tried to massage away the tension building at his temples. He had just invited a circus into the most important stretch of games in his career.

  Home game versus Charlotte. Sluggish start.

  At the sixty-second gap between first and second quarter, Chase made his way to the team huddle. He knew Coach wouldn’t send him in yet; his heart rate had yet to ease from seven straight minutes of humping up and down the wood. His attention drifted.

  At center court, Bolt had dragged a young boy with some crazy dance moves out on the Alloy’s logo. They traded move for move until the skit whipped the arena into cheers each time the little boy took his turn. After the boy’s wickedly adorable Smooth Criminal dance move—hat and all—Bolt payed homage to him with a grand display of on-the-knees bowing.

  Tarek shoved his shoulder.

  Chase’s focus snapped back to the huddle and ten sets of eyes on him—not the least of which was Coach Perkins, his stare expectant, as if he had just asked him a question whose answer would pivot the entire offensive push for the second quarter.