Huddle With Me Tonight (4 page)

“Where is he?” she growled. She was dressed in a cotton bathrobe, her hair tied under a silk scarf, house slippers on her feet. For a second, Torrian was catapulted back to his teenage days. How many times had Deirdre been standing at the front door of their old house dressed the same way, waiting for him to come in after missing curfew?

“Keep her away from me,” Dante said through the door.

His sister plopped one hand on a thick hip and wagged a tennis shoe at Torrian with the other. “This is his fourth time missing curfew this month. He wasn’t supposed to be out in the first place. He’s on punishment.”

“Tell her I’m a man, Uncle T. She can’t be putting me on punishment.”

“Don’t get in the middle of this,” Deirdre warned.

“Get in the middle, Uncle T!” came the call from beyond the door.

Torrian laughed as he wrung the shoe from Deirdre’s hand. “Get out here, Dante,” he shouted at the door. “If you’re a man, then come out and face your Mom like one.”

His nephew poked his head out the crack he’d made in the door. “She put that shoe away?”

Torrian raised the tennis shoe. “She’s unarmed.”

Dante reluctantly came out of the office but stayed close to the door.

“Now, want to explain why you left the house when you were on punishment?” Torrian asked.

“Because I shouldn’t be on punishment,” was Dante’s dumb answer.

“That’s not your call to make,” Torrian replied.

Dante opened his mouth but shut it without saying a word. At least his nephew had caught a clue. On his way out the front door, Dante picked up the jersey from the foyer table.

Torrian heard Deirdre clear her throat. He looked over at her, took in her rigidly set jaw and the stern warning in her eyes.

“Uh, sorry, Dawg, but I’m gonna have to take the jersey back. I can’t let you have it after sneaking out.”

Dante looked from Torrian to his mother, his face mottled with anger. He left the apartment in full-pout mode, showing just how much of a little boy he still was. Torrian turned to Deirdre and hunched a shoulder. “He’s sixteen.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with him. He defies me at every turn.”

“That’s what boys do at that age. Remember me at sixteen?”

Deirdre shook her head. “You were never like this.” She bit her lower lip and looked away. When she turned, that lower lip was quivering. “I’m thinking of sending him to his father,” she said. “I just can’t handle him anymore.”

“You don’t have to do it alone. We’re a team,” he reminded her. “I’ll talk to Dante.” Torrian brought her in for another hug and kissed the top of the purple silk scarf covering her head. “Get some sleep,” he said. “You’ve got a tough week ahead of you.”

“You, too,” Deirdre said. “And Torrian,” she called, halting at the open door. “I heard about the book review. Don’t pay any attention to Paige Turner.”
Damn!
He’d forgotten about the blog.

Torrian slammed the door shut behind Deirdre and raced to his computer.

The italic message stating he could edit his post was gone, and his stupid, knee-jerk response had just been posted for electronic posterity.

“Damn,” Torrian whispered.

He lowered himself into the desk chair and rested his head against the soft leather. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

His cell phone rang.

“Why would you post a comment on Paige Turner’s blog?” Theo asked before Torrian could speak. “Especially one asking the woman if she even knows how to read?”

Torrian ran a hand down his face. “I didn’t say that, did I?”

“Basically, yeah,” Theo answered.

“I was supposed to erase it, but I got distracted,” Torrian explained. “What are you doing reading her blog anyway?”

“Same reason you were reading it. I wanted to see what people were saying.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Torrian murmured, reading over his comment and wincing even more at the offensive words he’d used. He would never talk to a woman this way in person. What made him think it was okay to say it over the Internet? “I feel like a jackass,” Torrian admitted.

“Yeah, well, that comment you posted there makes you look like one, too.”

Torrian sat up in the chair. “It’s not really permanent, is it?” His eyes roamed the Web page. “There’s got to be some nerdy tech guy who can go in and erase it.”

“I don’t know,” Theo said. “Maybe you can contact
Big Apple Weekly.
Or just e-mail Paige Turner.”

“Yeah, she would just jump at the chance to erase my comment so I don’t look like some bitter jerk who can’t take a little criticism,” Torrian snorted.

“She’s a professional. She isn’t going to hold a grudge.”

Torrian wasn’t so sure. If the shoe was on the other foot, and she had posted some ugly comment about him, he would have told her to step off. But then again, he could be a jerk. Maybe Paige Turner would be more forgiving.

He clicked the E-mail Paige button and a blank e-mail popped up with [email protected] already in the recipient window.

Torrian let out a deep breath. “Look, man, I’ll talk to you later.” He disconnected from Theo and stared at the computer screen, cursing Dante for storming into the house before he had a chance to erase that stupid comment. Cursing himself for writing it in the first place.

Tail firmly between his legs, Torrian started his e-mail to Paige Turner.

Paige propped an elbow on the edge of Angela’s desk and flipped through the bride magazine spread out before her. At least a half dozen just like it were stacked atop the Web content manager’s desk.

As she flipped through the magazine, the serene smiles of the models in their wedding gowns reminded Paige of what had been missing from her life for far too long. She’d immersed herself in work after things had ended with Michael Weston, her last real boyfriend. But that had been two years ago! It felt like an eternity. She missed having someone to hold her at night.

An image of compelling hazel eyes and a delicious grin flashed through her brain. After the way she’d trashed the man’s book, Paige doubted she’d ever be on the receiving end of a sexy grin from him again.

“What about this one?” Paige pointed to a slim, fish-tailed designer gown with a plunging neckline and beaded trim.

Angela glanced at the magazine. “I don’t have big enough breasts to hold up that gown.”

“Hmm, you’re right,” Paige agreed, and flipped the page.

Angela sent her a mean look. “Bryce happens to be a leg man,” she said.

After a few seconds of trying to hold it in, Paige burst out laughing. Angela was five feet if she was an inch tall, and that was being generous.

“Fine, it’s my personality,” Angela said.

“Now that I’d believe.”

“Uh-oh.” Angela pointed at the screen. “Looks like you got under somebody’s skin with that little review of yours.”

Paige scooted her chair over so she could share the space in front of the computer with Angela. Posted under the name Torrian Smallwood was a response to her review of his book that left little of his feelings to the imagination.

All I see here is yet another person trying to gain their fifteen minutes of fame by blasting someone who is a thousand times more popular than they are. Can you even read, Paige Turner? If you could, then you would plainly see that the stories of my childhood are meant to be funny. It’s a cookbook and autobiography, not a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Lighten up.

“Ouch.” Paige forced herself to laugh, despite the sickening feeling swarming in her gut. The jab about her ability to read hit a little too close to home. And for some reason it hurt even more coming from Torrian. What happened to the charming guy who’d rescued her tomato in the produce section at Mancini’s?

“Do you think it’s really him?” Paige asked.

“New Yorkers are pretty bold, but I don’t know if anyone has the guts to impersonate Torrian Smallwood. I told you it was a risky review before you posted it,” Angela reminded her. “The man is a god in this city.”

“Maybe on the football field, but that godliness doesn’t transfer to his writing. He’s putting out a mediocre book, so he received a mediocre review.”

“He probably didn’t write a word of that book,” Angela surmised.

“I doubt he did,” Paige agreed. “But he’s allowed it to be published under his name. Therefore,
he
got the bad review.”

“Was the book that dreadful? I haven’t had a chance to read it.”

Paige sat back in the chair and let out a sigh. “The memoir portion lacked originality to me. The writing was shoddy.” She shrugged.

“And the recipes?”

“Okay, honestly, the few recipes I tried came out pretty good.”

“So what was the problem?”

“The names he gave the recipes were hokey.”

“Again, probably was not Torrian Smallwood to make that decision,” Angela said.

“Again, his name is on it.” Paige emphasized her rejoinder with a flick of the pen she was holding.

Angela conceded, giving Paige a nod and sitting back at her desk. “Well, the question now is, are you going to respond to him?”

Paige leveled her with a sardonic lift of her eyebrows. “Uh, excuse me, but did you not read the part where that man questioned my ability to read?”

Angela held up her hands as she pushed away from the desk. “I don’t want to get burned by the sparks.”

“There will be no sparks,” Paige informed her. “For one thing, I refuse to sink to his level. But you’re right; I don’t want to run the risk of alienating any of his die-hard fans. I have my own following, but I’m not delusional enough to think it’s even close to the Sabers fanatics in this town.”

“I don’t envy you here, Paige. Coming out negatively against someone as popular as Torrian Smallwood can blow up in your face, but I know it won’t stop you,” Angie said. She opened a desk drawer and withdrew her purse. “I’ll get us some coffee while you give him a piece of your mind.”

“Make mine a double shot,” Paige called. She held her fingers poised over the keyboard, trying to think of a tactful, yet stern, reply to Torrian’s comment.

“Let’s see,” she said, her bottom lip between her teeth. Even as Paige concocted a response, a part of her let out a mournful cry.

She hadn’t left Mancini’s with illusions of falling into Torrian’s arms and living happily ever after, but it wasn’t totally out of the realm of possibility. Maybe if their paths had crossed at another time; if they had encountered each other under different circumstances. Just maybe…

But that wasn’t the case. Her acquaintance with Torrian was professional. Period. She’d had to make tough choices for the sake of her career before. She couldn’t allow fantasies of happily ever after to derail her from reaching her goals.

Still, she didn’t want to be Torrian’s enemy.

His reaction didn’t surprise her. At this point in her career, she was used to hostile authors. But she’d never shared a…a
something
with those other authors. However small that something was, it had been there with Torrian. She’d felt it.

Paige took a deep breath and steeled herself against the warring emotions rioting within her brain. Her professional integrity was on the line, and it was everything to her. She wasn’t about to lose credibility with her readers by recanting her review, especially since she meant every word.

“You done?” Angela came back into the office with two skinny vanilla lattes, a Monday morning ritual.

“I am,” Paige said. “And I, unlike Mr. Smallwood, was very professional.” She accepted the paper cup from Angela, removed the plastic cover and blew at the foam topping the cup of steaming milk and coffee. “Of course, I had to take a few gibes,” Paige added. “The man did, after all, question my ability to read.”

Angela paused with her cup halfway to her mouth. “What kind of gibes did you take?” she asked, her voice full of caution.

Paige twirled around in the swivel chair, “Nothing too bad. I just asked if his book writing has possibly gotten in the way of his game on the field. And suggested that if he were more focused on playing ball instead of opening a restaurant, maybe the Sabers would have made it to the Super Bowl last year.”

Angela choked on the coffee she’d just sipped. “Are you suicidal? Do you know the kind of heat you’re going to take for bringing up last year’s NFC Championship game?”

“He intimated that I don’t know how to read,” Paige repeated. “Excuse me for taking offense, but because I make a living reading and writing, I’m not inclined to show Torrian Smallwood mercy.”

Angela shook her head. “I don’t know about this. I think you’re playing with fire.”

Paige eyed her coworker over the rim of her coffee cup. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle the heat.”

“At the risk of sounding cliché, be careful what you ask for,” Angela warned. “You just might get it.”

Chapter 4

T
orrian hissed through his teeth. His arms quivered under the strain of the weight bar. He should have stopped twenty minutes ago, but each time he attempted to place the metal bar back into its resting place, he thought about the team doctor waiting for him just down the hall. He knew he should man up and face the music, but he wasn’t ready to hear the words. He couldn’t stomach the doctor telling him he could no longer play ball because of his eyes.

Guilt lodged in his throat. The internal debate had been a constant companion; his questioning of his worth to the team. In his heart, Torrian knew he was on the verge of becoming more of a liability than an asset.

Memories of last year’s conference championship game ran through his mind. He’d been so close. Moving at lightning speed toward the end zone. Passed the thirty-yard line. The twenty-five. The twenty.

The hit had come out of nowhere.

Torrian’s gut clinched as he recalled the force of three hundred pounds of determined linebacker plowing into him. Because of his deteriorating vision he hadn’t seen the guy approaching.

He could still hear the raucous cheers of the crowd resonating through his brain. They’d had reason to cheer. Their team was headed to the Super Bowl, while his teammates were headed home.