The Player's Club: Scott

by Cathy Yardley

  “I can keep a secret,” he found himself saying.

  “Swear it?”

  Scott nodded. “I swear.”

  “All right, then.” Lincoln smiled broadly, and to Scott’s surprise, the men in the room let out a barking cheer. “What’s your name?”

  “Scott. Scott Ferrell.”

  “Scott Ferrell,” Lincoln said, holding out his hand, “welcome to The Player’s Club.”

  “The Player’s Club,” Scott echoed, stunned. “No shit.”

  Lincoln burst into a laugh. “Heard of us?”

  “Who hasn’t?” Scott said. “Are you telling me that you…that all of you…are those guys that do all that crazy stuff? Jet-set all around the world, throw monster parties, pull amazing pranks?”

  “So it would seem,” Lincoln said, with a little frown. “We do other things, too.”

  Scott felt a bubble of excitement expanding in his chest. “And…you’d let me in?”

  “Interested, then?”

  Scott swallowed. “Hell, yeah, I’m interested.”

  Lincoln leaned back, crossing his arms, and smiled.

  “Okay, guys!” George yelled, putting an arm around Scott’s shoulders. “Let’s haze him!”

  With that, there was a loud cheer and Scott was grabbed and hauled toward the door.

  2

  “SO WHAT EXACTLY IS ‘The Player’s Club’?” Scott asked, yelling to be heard over the noise of the plane engine.

  Finn, the guy who he’d heard say the password, grinned broadly. “It’s a club like no other, my friend,” he yelled back. “It’ll change your life.”

  Nervously, Scott took note of the other smirking, high-fiving members surrounding him. He wondered absently if he were being kidnapped. Maybe they were some well-to-do cult. His stomach churned a little.

  “Before we go,” George shouted, with a slight slur in his voice, “we gotta go over some rules.”

  Finn rolled his eyes. Scott frowned.

  “Go where?” he said. So far, the “hazing” had involved getting blindfolded, thrown in a car and taken to the airstrip with several of the Players. Now they were on a cargo plane, winging toward the dawn over Marin County. Scott wasn’t sure what was going on, but at least they’d taken the blindfold off.

  “Players kick ass,” George said, weaving closer. Scott could smell Scotch coming off the guy like fumes. The guy patted his pockets, pulled out his wallet and handed Scott a card—an honest-to-God business card, that said PLAYER’S CLUB on it in raised type. On the other side, it said George Macalister, Badass and Head Player.

  “We do stuff that other losers only dream of,” George continued, weaving slightly. “We play harder, we drink harder, we spend harder…”

  Lincoln cleared his throat. Scott was aware that almost every guy on the plane was regarding Lincoln as the leader, and pointedly ignoring George.

  “Here are the rules, as we originally wrote them down,” Lincoln said. “Rule number one—to the true player, all life is a game.”

  Scott waited for him to clarify, but apparently it was one of those broad, sort of Zen statements. Scott nodded, encouraging him to continue.

  “Rule number two—the game is played in the field.”

  “Not on your couch,” Finn interjected pointedly. “Or on television, or on the internet, or your work cubicle.”

  Aha. Game as metaphor for life, Scott surmised. “Got it.”

  “Rule number three,” Lincoln continued, “every day is a new game.”

  “No ruts, no routines,” Finn clarified.

  “Rule number four—players don’t keep score.”

  “That means no grudges, and keep a sense of humor, especially with other Players,” Finn said. He was acting as translator, which was good, since this stuff was about as clear as mud. “Incidentally, you’ll want to put this on.” He handed Scott a nylon jumpsuit.

  Scott knew that asking “why?” at this point was proving futile, so he put the jumpsuit on. It was bright yellow. He noticed everyone else on the plane was putting on jumpsuits, as well. “Uh…”

  “Rule number six,” Lincoln continued relentlessly, “Players never lose. They just keep playing.”

  “Persistence and attitude,” Finn supplied, as he strapped on what looked like a backpack. “Whether you’re hitting on a woman or hitting one out of the park, we emphasize both qualities.”

  “Say, wait a sec,” Scott interrupted, suddenly feeling alert despite the fact he’d been up all night. “Is that a parachute?”

  “Yeah, it seems sort of lame,” Finn said, “but these are the rules we came up with before our first jump. And, admittedly, we were sort of wasted when we wrote them.”

  “They are lame,” George yelled, laughing raucously. “Screw rules!”

  “Don’t put that parachute on, George,” Lincoln said. “You’re not jumping.”

  George scowled. “What the hell? I’m fine!”

  He was drawn away into a heated exchange with the jump master. Lincoln finished, “Finally, rule number seven—keep it in the league. You don’t tell anyone outside the club about what you do inside the club,” Lincoln concluded, his face stonelike, he was so serious. Scott was still eyeing the parachutes, but he nodded. “You don’t tell anyone about the existence of the Club. Not who’s in it, not where we meet…nothing.”

  “Anything else?” Scott asked.

  Lincoln grinned, and glanced at George. “More a guideline than a rule,” he said, shrugging…then nodding at the card in Scott’s hand. “Players don’t brag.”

  “Real players,” Finn added, “don’t need to.”

  Scott tucked the card away in a pocket, then looked over at the rest of the group. They were strapped up, tugging goggles on. Finn wore a wide grin as he headed to the door of the plane.

  “You’re jumping with me,” Lincoln said, and walked behind Scott. “Tandem. Don’t worry, this is my sixtieth jump, at least. You’ll be fine.”

  Scott pulled on his goggles, feeling adrenaline flood his system. “You know, I have this thing about heights,” he offered, wondering if he were making the biggest mistake of his life. This smacked of peer pressure.

  If all your new friends jumped out of an airplane, would you?

  “I figured,” Finn said with a roguish grin. “You had that look about you.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m going to love the view,” Scott said tightly, his heart threatening to pound out of his chest.

  “Actually, you’re probably going to hate it all the way down,” Lincoln said. “You might even get sick. I’ve noticed that cursing your ass off tends to help somewhat.”

  Scott watched as they opened the door of the plane, the pale early morning sunlight creeping into the hatch. The air was freezing cold, hitting him in his already queasy stomach like a cannon ball. “I don’t know that I can go through with this,” he said.

  “It’s easy,” Finn said, and then yelled, “Geronimo!” and dove out of the plane.

  The rest of the crew cheered—except for George, who was sitting sullenly by the jump master, his parachute on the floor, his arms crossed.

  One by one, the rest of them lined up, falling out or leaping out of the open doorway into the sky, hurtling toward the ground below. Scott felt his palms go sweaty. He craned his neck to look over at Lincoln. “I’ve heard about The Player’s Club.”

  “I bet.” Lincoln didn’t sound thrilled by this.

  “Why do you do this?”

  Lincoln seemed more pleased by the question. “Tell me, Scott. Are you happy with your life?”

  Scott was momentarily distracted by the intensity of his tone. “I guess.” He paused, almost squirming under Lincoln’s accusatory stare. “Well, I’m not thrilled but it doesn’t suck overly.”

  “And there’s a ringing endorsement,” Lincoln quipped. “When was the last time you were excited to wake up in the morning?”

  Scott blinked. “I…I don’t know.”

  “When was the last time you
did something that made you feel as though your life was worth getting out of bed for?” Lincoln pushed. “If you died tomorrow, would you think, man, I’m glad I got all that work done? Or would you think, my life’s going exactly the way I wanted it to go? I’ve got nothing to regret? I’ve done everything?”

  “Who lives like that?” Scott asked, bewildered.

  Lincoln smiled slowly.

  “We do.”

  Scott processed that for a moment.

  “Seriously,” Lincoln said, “if you decide you don’t want to join the Club, we’ll be okay with it, as long as you don’t tell anybody about tonight. We’ll probably be changing meeting locations anyway, we do all the time, so we’ll just vanish. If you don’t want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, that’s understandable. Hell, that’s sane.”

  Scott felt his stomach start to unclench. He’d satisfied his curiosity, hadn’t he? He knew what they were meeting about. He discovered what he wanted to. Now, he could go back to living his life in relative quiet.

  When was the last time you did something that made you feel as though your life was worth getting out of bed for?

  Scott took a deep breath. From the open hatchway, he watched the sun start to peek over the horizon in shades of salmon and gray. The ground looked very, very far down.

  “Last chance,” Lincoln said. “Just stay on board, and you’ll get dropped off at the airfield. Take one of the limos waiting there. It’ll get you home, no questions, no judgments.”

  Scott waited a long, painful moment.

  He pulled his goggles over his eyes.

  “Let’s do this.”

  He caught Lincoln’s quick grin, making the guy look ten years younger. Within a minute, he was hooked up on Lincoln’s harness. Lincoln told him what the jump would be like, but in Scott’s hyper state, he barely understood a word.

  “Okay, here we go,” Lincoln said. “One…two…”

  Scott held his hands out, feeling the rush of the wind.

  “Three!”

  With that, Scott found himself leaping out of the plane, with nothing but air whooshing between him and the ground.

  IT HAD TAKEN AMANDA A FEW days from her brunch with Jackie to actually get the courage to ask Scott out to dinner. Now she stood in front of Scott’s apartment, wearing her “sexiest” outfit—a white, eyelet-trimmed tank top over a breezy, silvery skirt, with white sandals. It might not scream “have-wild-hot-sex-with-me,” but it was the best she could manage with what was in her wardrobe. She confessed she mostly had either business outfits, or comfy, grungy clothes.

  If he took the bait, she thought anxiously, she might need some wardrobe improvements. Underwear—lingerie, she corrected herself—at the very least.

  She knocked on his door gingerly. She’d decided the best approach would be to ask him out in the early afternoon, before he went out for the evening. She doubted he spent a lot of evenings home alone. She’d see if she could book some time with him during the week, like a Wednesday night or something. The guy couldn’t be busy every night of the week, could he?

  There was no answer. She knocked again, feeling uneasy. Maybe he wasn’t home. Maybe he was home…and with, er, company.

  This could be bad. Very bad.

  Oh, God, what was I thinking?

  She heard someone fumbling with locks, muttering incoherently. The door swung open wide. “Mmmmhello?”

  She struggled not to gape. There was a trail of clothes from the door to the bedroom beyond. At least they were presumably only his clothes…

  Then she got a good look at him and her mouth fell open. He was standing there, just wearing a pair of shorts. Did the guy not own a shirt? Not that she was complaining, but…damn.

  “Um, hi,” she said, biting her lip. His hair stuck out in cute angles, and his eyes were low-lidded, his skin flushed from sleep. He was good enough to eat—as if he’d just gotten out of bed, and would like nothing more than to go right back. She wouldn’t mind joining him.

  What is he doing getting out of bed at one o’clock in the afternoon? Even for a Sunday that seemed a little, well, unusual. On the other hand, not everyone was a morning person like herself.

  She forced herself to focus.

  “Hi,” he said, his voice husky and a touch warmer. He stretched a little, the motion doing nice things for his muscles. She knew she was staring. “Sorry. I was out really late last night. This morning, I mean.” He looked a tiny bit goofy as he sent her a crooked smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back. “What’s up?”

  Her hormone levels were up, for one thing. And worse, they were throwing off her plan. “I, er, made a bunch of brownies, and I thought you might like some…”

  She held out her bribe. Seeing his response to her hot cocoa, she knew he had a sweet tooth. She was armed with a dozen double-dark-chocolate brownies, with bits of macadamia nut toffee dotting the surface, interlaced with ribbons of caramel. She might not be sure of her own wiles, she thought with a small smile, but her sweets could seduce a chocoholic at ten paces.

  “Brownies.” He said the word reverently, his eyes going fully awake as he took in her offering. His stomach growled, and he laughed. “I haven’t eaten since last night. Those look amazing.”

  She handed over the plate, and he quickly grabbed one off the top, taking a large, unapologetic bite. His moan of pleasure made her skin tingle.

  “This is incredible,” he mumbled around a mouthful. “This is heaven wrapped in chocolate.”

  She smirked. “You should taste my Thin Mint milk-chocolate mousse pie,” she murmured. “Trust me, it’s orgasmic.”

  He paused, then grinned wickedly. “Don’t tease.”

  The grin made her skin tingle and her stomach flutter pleasantly. She cleared her throat. “I was thinking of making one Wednesday night,” she said, hoping it sounded casual. “Maybe you could stop by. For a slice.”

  There. If that wasn’t suggestive, then she’d swear off chocolate for a year.

  “Really,” he drawled, taking a step closer to her, his dark brown eyes warming her. He was still smiling. “That sounds…nice.”

  She shivered. How did the man manage to pack that much invitation in just one syllable? Especially one she’d always considered completely innocuous?

  “What time should I drop by?”

  She smiled, feeling relief and adrenaline pump through her bloodstream. “How about…”

  Before she could set a time, his phone rang. He let it ring once, twice, still staring at her. Then he cursed softly, as if he remembered something. “Wait a sec. I’ll be right back.”

  He dashed inside his apartment, leaving her at the open door. She could hear his voice, saying a slightly grumpy, “Hello?”

  She waited, her whole body alight. This could work. She’d lay a trap with chocolate, and once she got him in her apartment…

  What was she supposed to do then?

  She gulped. This required a little more planning. Jackie probably had a risqué idea or two to try out. At least she had a few days to…

  “I wasn’t expecting you to call me so soon.” Scott’s surprised tone broke through her mini-mental-panic-attack, accentuated by the fact that he’d deliberately lowered his voice. It was so strange to hear, she suddenly strained to catch what he was saying.

  “What? When?” he said, sounding obviously surprised. “Yeah, yeah, okay. I’ve got the address. Am I supposed to bring anything?” A long pause. “Okay. I’ll be there. And I’ll clear my plans.” Another long pause. “Yeah, I remember the rules. I won’t tell anyone.”

  He remembered the rules? She frowned, puzzled. What rules? And why did he suddenly sound so secretive?

  He came back to the door without the brownies, looking a little sheepish. “Um, sorry about that.”

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “What? Yes. Sure.”

  He wouldn’t look at her, and he was shifting his weight from foot to foot. She wasn’t a master criminologist or anyth
ing, but was he hiding something?

  “Well, anyway…how about seven?”

  “How about seven what?” he repeated dumbly.

  She felt the blush creeping over her cheeks as embarrassment kicked her squarely in the ass. “Um, seven o’clock Wednesday?” she said, hating the now-blank look on his face. “For the Thin Mint chocolate mousse pie…?”

  “Oh. Oh,” he said, and now he looked embarrassed. “Um…something’s come up.”

  “Oh,” she echoed, hoping that she didn’t look as disappointed as she felt.

  “Oh, hey, don’t take it that way,” he said quickly, and to her utter chagrin she realized she probably looked even more disappointed than she thought. “I really did want to go. Do, I mean.”

  “Maybe we could reschedule,” she muttered, feeling masochistic.

  He sighed. “I would like that, I really would,” he said. “But…”

  “But.” She cut him off. “Trust me, that’s explanation enough. Okay! Enjoy the brownies, I’ll see you around.”

  She turned to flee, to bury her mortification in hot chocolate…heavily doctored with Godiva liquor, or maybe some Bacardi. But before she could get two steps away, his hand was on her arm, catching her. Stopping her.

  “I mean it,” he said, and she could hear the sincerity, see the heat and truth in his eyes. He stroked her arm as he spoke, and she shivered. “I can’t remember the last time I had an invitation I’d like more than a slice of your pie.”

  His voice was so deep, the words so warm that she reveled in it. That is, until her mind put together the double entendre, and her eyes widened to the size of teacups.

  He apparently did the verbal math at about the same time. “Whoa. I didn’t mean it that way,” he quickly clarified. “I mean, I sort of… Oh, crap. I am screwing this up.”

  She laughed. “Actually, it was pretty smooth, all things considered. Sort of crept up on me.”

  “Well, normally I take a woman to dinner first, before moving up to the nudge-nudge-wink-wink stuff,” he said, and she couldn’t help but giggle. “The bottom line is, I like you, and I’d love to spend time with you.”

  She nodded, waiting.

  “But this week is turning out to be sort of crazy,” he said, dropping his hand from her arm. “I’m sort of mixed up in this…” He paused. “I’ve got a…” He stopped, looking frustrated. “My life has gotten a little complicated recently.”