The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(63)

We both laughed and drank. I was facing the entrance. As I was putting my glass down, I saw the commissioner come walking into the Polo Lounge, followed by A. J. Frost, the Patriots’ owner.

The third member of the party was my ex-husband.





Seventy



TED SKYLER SPOTTED ME at almost the same moment as I spotted him and led his party directly to our table. Happily, from the look on his face.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Ted said.

“Fancy is one word beginning with f I can think of. But not the one I would have chosen.”

“You know the commissioner,” he said. “Have you met A.J.?”

“At the reception.”

We all looked as if we wanted to be somewhere else, with the exception of Clay Rosen, who suddenly looked as if he were at his own birthday party. He’d stood up as soon as they got to the table and shaken their hands. I’d stayed seated, wishing a trapdoor would open up underneath me.

“You and Clay know each other?” I said to Ted.

“We Zoomed after you cut me,” Ted Skyler said. “He said the Chargers might be looking for another quarterback before the season is over.”

Clay grinned at me. “Did I forget to mention that?”

“Are you still job-hunting?” I said to Ted. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Not anymore.”

A. J. Frost slapped Ted on the back and said, “The Patriots just signed the big guy, as a matter of fact. And are damn happy to have him.”

“Mr. Frost is flying me back to Boston in his plane tonight,” Ted said. “I get my physical tomorrow and plan to be at practice on Wednesday.”

“Ted never should have been out of work in the first place,” Commissioner Joel Abrams said.

Ted smiled at me.

“Is Boston far enough away to suit you?”

“Only until the commissioner puts a franchise on the moon.”

The ma?tre d’ came over and told them their table was ready. But before Joel Abrams left, he said to me, “It’s still not too late for you to change your mind.”

“Funny. A.J. told me the same thing at the reception.”

“We’re just both looking out for the shield,” A. J. Frost said solemnly.

It was what they called the NFL logo, without any sense of irony. The shield. Like it was the family coat of arms. Or something that gave them all superpowers.

“This whole thing has become too much of a circus,” Frost said. “Now we’ve got Oprah up in our business. How does that help anybody?”

Clay Rosen, smiling, said, “I mean, good Lord, man, imagine what she did to the fourth-quarter ratings for Monday Night Football!”

“Let’s go sit down,” Ted Skyler said to Abrams and Frost. “We’ve got a lot to talk about before I head for the airport.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like your big week, of course,” Ted said.

He turned and started to follow the commissioner and A. J. Frost to their table. I stood and put a hand on his arm to stop him. He looked down at it and said, “You’re not going to slug me, too, are you?”

“Of course not. I just want to give you a hug and wish you luck with the Patriots. I really don’t hate you, you know.”

It was too late for him to do anything but let me put my arms around him.

As I did, I whispered something in his ear.





Seventy-One



MY FIRST CALL WHEN I got back to the suite was from Bobby Erlich.

“You never showed.”

“Just ran into a potential client,” he said.

“Anybody interesting?”

“When they’re willing to pay, they’re all interesting.”

Then he told me that the response to my sit-down with Oprah was positive across the board and on all platforms, even better than he had expected. He said he hoped as many of the other owners as possible had watched.

I told him I doubted it, because the general vibe I’d gotten was that if it was good for me, it was bad for them.

“Trust me,” Bobby Erlich said. “By the time they go to bed, they’re going to feel as if they saw it whether they did or not.”

Then he said we should meet downstairs for breakfast before I addressed the owners, and he promised not to stand me up this time.

“Who loves you?” he said before telling me he had another call coming in.

I had taken a long bath and was about to go to bed when Ben Cantor called and told me about his visit with Jack.

“So he lied to you,” I said.

“By omission. But still a lie.”

“One he managed to leave out of his tearful eulogy, when he was so regretful about all the fighting he and Thomas had done.”

I paused then, looking at the flowers next to where my feet were perched on the coffee table.

“Did the two of them have one more fight that night?” I said to Cantor.

“He says no. He says that Thomas only went there to ask Jack and Danny to back off. And that he even took one more shot at the family maybe working together.”

“That wasn’t the feeling I got from Thomas. Did you believe Jack?”

“I did not. Because if the whole thing was so innocent, why did he hide it from me in the first place?”