How to Score (3 page)

“I can’t believe you’re even opening that door,” Paul said dryly.

“Including or excluding your choice of pizzeria?” Luke asked.

Paul had roared.

“No offense, bro,” Luke said, “but you don’t exactly give off the sympathetic, supportive vibe my clients are looking for.”

It was probably true. They looked alike and sounded alike, but that was where the similarity ended. Luke believed in talking things out, while Chase was all about action. Luke said they’d developed different coping tactics while growing up in a dysfunctional family. Since Luke had studied all that psychology crap, Chase would take his word on it.

“So I’ll fake it.” Hell, it couldn’t be as hard as Luke was making it out to be. After all, Luke was doing it, wasn’t he? And there were no licensing requirements for life coaches, so Chase wasn’t technically unqualified.

“I just ran a new ad, and I’m booked solid,” Luke had said. “It’s a full-time job.”

“So I’ll refer the newbies to someone else and coach your worst cases in the evening,” Chase had said. “Write down what you want me to say. I’ll follow your directions.”

Luke had snorted. “That’ll be a first.”

Ultimately, though, Luke had agreed, because he didn’t have a choice. Paul had retrieved Luke’s files, and Luke had spent several hours at the Oklahoma City bureau office, writing detailed notes, lists of things to say, and instructions about his six neediest clients. He also jotted down a list of sports terms.

“Most of my clients call me Coach, and they expect a lot of sports talk,” Luke had explained. “I use a lot of sports references, such as ‘To win at the game of life, you have to learn how to score.’ ”

Chase had rolled his eyes. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“No. I relate everything to plays and practice and strategy and skills.”

When the transport team arrived, Luke had handed Chase an enormous cardboard box filled with files. “Promise you’ll take good care of my clients.”

Chase had taken the box and nodded, a hard lump in his throat. “Don’t worry. I won’t fumble the ball.”

So far, so good,
Chase thought as he gazed at the three stacks of files on his table—the tallest stack for the clients he’d referred to other coaches, the medium-sized stack for the clients he’d try to put on hold for six weeks, and the short stack for the clients he was actually coaching.

The next client was due to call in ten minutes. He strolled into the kitchen and grabbed a Coke from the fridge. So far tonight he’d coached a man who hadn’t left his house in two years, an obnoxious braggart who couldn’t understand why he had no friends, and Horace. He’d bitten his tongue so many times it was a wonder it was still attached. It was excruciating, having to listen to these morons whine and moan, then respond with nothing more than pansy-assed, sports-laced suggestions. What these folks really needed—and probably really wanted—was a hard kick in the end zone. Left to his own devices, Chase would straighten out these gutless wonders in a few short weeks. Too bad he wasn’t going to get a chance to prove it.

The apartment felt stuffy. Chase blew out a restless breath and strode toward his terrace, wanting to grab some fresh air before he got tied up with another pathetic loser. Popping the tab on his Coke, he opened the sliding door and stepped outside, leaving the door open so he could hear the phone.

It was September, but the night was hot. In Oklahoma, autumn didn’t really kick in until mid-October. Still, Chase sensed a change in the air. The breeze carried the scent of rain, and the wind was brisker than usual.

Chase inhaled deeply, leaned against his terrace railing, and gazed out at the Tulsa skyline. Lightning zigzagged over the Williams Tower as a strong gust of wind plastered Chase’s maroon OU T-shirt against his chest.

A noise like a small avalanche sounded behind him. Chase turned to see his brother’s files crashing to the floor, the tall stack pushing the other stacks like dominoes, the papers tumbling out of the folders, the wind blowing pages and manila folders around the room like autumn leaves. With a muttered oath, Chase quickly stepped back inside and closed the door, but not before another gust scattered the papers like confetti.

The phone rang.

Great—the next client was calling, and Chase didn’t have the file. Hell, he didn’t even know the client’s name. It took him two more phone rings to locate the appointment book from the heap of papers on the floor. He snatched up the receiver half a second before voice mail caught the call. “Hello?” he said gruffly.

“Luke?” purred a sultry female voice.

Out of habit, he almost said no, then caught himself. “Uh, yes.”

“I took your advice about how to handle Joe, and it worked!”

“That’s great, um… ” Chase quickly flipped through the appointment book, looking for the name of his brother’s 7:30 client. “… Samantha.”

“It’s Sammi—remember? Being called Samantha makes me want to twitch my nose and call for Darren.”

Chase smiled. “Oh, yeah. Right.” Where the heck was her file? He dropped to his knees and snatched up two manila folders. Neither was the right one. He crawled across the dining room floor, reaching for another.

“Are you okay? Your voice sounds kind of funny.”

Hell. This girl was way too observant. He covered the mouthpiece, feigned a cough, and raised his voice to a slightly higher pitch. “I’m fine. I just, uh, have a little cold.”

“Oh, you poor thing. You ought to take some vitamin C and zinc and eat some chicken soup.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

“You live in Tulsa, don’t you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, you advertised in the
Tulsa Tribune,
and you have a local area code. So I was thinking I could bring you some homemade chicken soup.”

The offer sounded oddly… nice. Too nice. Overly nice.

Crazy nice. “That’s, um, very kind, but no, thanks. I’ve got some soup in my pantry.” It was a lie; all he had was beef jerky, Doritos, and a box of stale Cheerios, but she didn’t need to know that.

Where the
hell
was her file? Chase crept forward on his knees, grabbing at the scattered folders with one hand, holding the phone to his ear with the other. He’d encourage her to talk and just play along until he found her file or figured it out. “So—you and Joe are working things out?” he prompted.

“Oh, yes. Things are much better!” Her voice poured over him, silky and rich, with just a hint of a southern accent. It reminded him of a dessert he’d once had in New Orleans called Chocolate Sin. “You’re a genius!”

He warmed under the praise, which was ridiculous, because she thought he was his brother. He didn’t even know what topic, much less what brilliant advice, she was talking about. “Why don’t you give me a play-by-play of how things went.”

“Well, last night, Joe wanted to play with my shoes again.”

Her shoes? Holy Moses, but his brother had some clients. He started to ask if Joe were her husband, but he was supposed to already know that. Moving across the floor on his hands and knees, Chase snatched up another folder, glanced at the name, and discarded it.

“I handled it just as you suggested,” Sammi continued. “Instead of just telling him no, I put on a pair of shoes that I didn’t mind him drooling all over.”

Drooling?
Ye gads.

“They were spike-heeled sandals,” she continued, “and he just went nuts.”

Chase had to admit, this was a lot more interesting than anything he’d discussed with Horace. He grabbed and rejected another folder. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. He started nibbling my toes and licking my instep.”

Chase ran into some weirdos in his line of work, but they were usually just ordinary, run-of-the-mill serial-killer weirdos. This was a whole new world. “No kidding.”

“Yeah. He particularly liked my toes.”

Chase had nothing against feet—in fact, he’d been known to give a mean foot rub a time or two—but he couldn’t understand why a man would focus on a woman’s feet when she had so many other, more interesting body parts. All the same, there was something oddly erotic about Sammi’s description.

It was probably her voice. With a voice like that, she could make skinning a snake sound sexy.

“He went crazy when I shook my foot in his face,” she said.

“No kidding. How about you? Did you like it, too?”

“Well, not so much at first, but after a while, it was okay. I got a little worried when he started huffing and panting and breathing really hard.”

Chase was breathing a little hard himself. Of course, he was on his belly, reaching for a folder at the back of his sofa, but still, her story probably had a lot to do with it. “How long did this go on?”

“Oh, ten minutes or so. I kinda lost track of time. And then he curled up beside me on the couch and fell asleep.” She let out a blissful sigh. “That was the best part.”

Chase frowned. He’d always thought women didn’t like it when guys zonked out right after sex.

“And you were right,” she continued. “Just a few minutes of playtime seemed to satisfy him.”

I bet it did. But what about you?

“Ever since we started playing footsie,” she continued, “he’s left my other shoes alone. I’m so glad I no longer have to worry about stepping into a wet shoe in the morning.”

Chase froze, his hand wrapped around a clutch of papers and dust bunnies. “Well, that’s got to go in the plus column,” he said carefully.

“Yeah. And I love it when he snuggles up and I get to stroke his pointy ears.”

Chase sat up. “His ears are pointy?”

“Sure. He’s a boxer.”

Images of Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield flitted through his mind. “I thought boxers had cauliflower ears.”

She laughed as if he’d said something witty. “Good one.”

Chase frowned. Something wasn’t right here. Maybe this Joe was someone he was supposed to have heard of.

And then it hit. Joe the boxer. Joe boxer. Pointy ears.

She was talking about a
dog.

Oh, man—he
had
to find that file.

He speed-crawled across the floor to the recliner against the other wall. “So, um, how is the rest of your life going?”

She sighed. “No real change from the last time we talked. But I’m not dating anyone, so at least no one’s gotten injured.”

He was at an impasse. He was going to have to confess he had no idea what she was talking about. “Look—I, uh, apparently grabbed the wrong file, and I don’t have my notes, so if you could just refresh my memory… ”

“Oh, great.” A despondent sigh hissed through the receiver. “My life is so boring that even my life coach can’t remember it.”

“No, no, it’s not that. I don’t think you’re boring—not in the least. I just have a lot of clients, and I have trouble keeping people’s stories straight, and… ” Chase thought fast. How the hell was he going to explain such an incredible lapse of memory? “To tell you the truth, I’d just been to the dentist the last time we talked, and he gave me some kind of medication that messed with my memory. I’d really appreciate it if you’d give me a replay of your issues.”

“I just have one issue.”

Chase knelt down and peered under the chair. “Which is…?”

“Murphy’s law.
Everything
goes wrong for me.”

“It can’t be that bad.” His belly on the floor, Chase stretched his arm under the chair and grabbed some papers against the wall.

“Yeah, well, it can, and it is. I moved to Tulsa six months ago because I was supposed to replace my boss at the Phelps Art Deco Museum and Mansion when she retired, but she just won’t quit. I’ve adopted an oversized boxer with a leather fetish. The home I’m renting and hoped to buy needs a new roof, foundation leveling, electrical rewiring, and termite repairs before the bank will give me a mortgage, and my landlord won’t fork out the money to fix it, so I can’t buy it. And I can’t seem to find a man who’s not married, seriously weird, or a commitment-phobe—and if I
do
find a man with potential, I somehow end up injuring him.”

“Injuring him… how?”

“Well, let’s see—I cracked a date’s rib, I broke a man’s leg, and then I gave another guy a black eye with my elbow.”

Yikes. “How long has this been going on?”

A soft sigh sounded through the receiver. “I’ve never been what you’d call lucky in love, but I didn’t start injuring men until about a year and a half ago.”

“What made you decide to seek help?” Chase’s fingers curled around a folder.

“Well, two weekends ago, I went back to Dallas for a friend’s wedding. I looked at everyone at the reception, and it hit me. They all have their lives together—well, except for my sister, and she’s so weird she
thinks
she’s together, even though she has blue hair and works as a tattoo artist. But everyone else has careers and husbands and houses and babies or prospects of babies—not to mention twenty-first-century wardrobes.”

Twenty-first-century wardrobes? What the hell century did
she
wear?

Chase pulled out the folder and glanced at the label. Eureka—it said Samantha Matthews. He yanked it open and read his brother’s notes scrawled on the inside of the folder.

Has had one free session. Explain I had to go out of town for a month, and suggest that she get another counselor.

“So here I am,” she continued in that soft, sexy voice, “thirty-one years old and basically no further along than when I was just out of college. And I thought, there’s
got
to be something that I’m doing wrong or not doing at all or just am not
getting
. At the very least, I’ve got to figure out a way to go on a date without sending the guy to the emergency room. So when I saw your ad in the
Tulsa Tribune
offering a free introductory session, I decided to give you a call.” She paused. “Is any of this sounding familiar?”

“Uh, yes,” Chase lied.

“Your ad said you help people score in the game of life, and I don’t think I’m even on the right playing field. You really helped me with Joe—that dog-training book you suggested is working really well, and the shoe issue is under control—so I was wondering… can you help me with the rest of it? Especially the injuring-men-I-date part.”