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“The production company?” I say slowly, my skin prickling. “What production company?”
“I, ah, they’re interested in making a documentary. About me and your mom and the family business.” He gives a little high-pitched laugh. “Skating, I mean.”
“It’s going to be filmed?” Alarm washes through me. There’s no way this team or this stadium is fit for public consumption. “Is that a good idea?”
“It’ll mean all the profits we make go straight to Gramps’ IRS bill.”
I let out a long breath. I hate to admit that staging an exhibition match is a good idea. But it is. Better than any I’ve had. It could actually come close to paying the government off in one lump sum, especially if filming rights are involved.
But somewhere along the line I’ve become a little protective of this team. I don’t want them to be used for publicity. I’ve had too much experience of how it can go wrong.
“Let me talk to Gramps when I see him today.”
“Sure.” He doesn’t sound at all perturbed. “He’ll be fine with it.”
Yeah, he will. But I still need to get my head around it. It’s one thing having my parents be famous while they’re over in L.A. But to have them where I work? That’s something different.
Especially since the team has no idea I’m related to them.
So now I have two things to think about. Eli’s offer of a date and my dad’s plan to invade Morgantown. And somehow they feel linked in my brain.
* * *
ELI
“You haven’t charmed this woman into bed yet?” Liam asks. “You’re losing your touch.”
“I don’t have a touch,” I tell him, placing my golf ball on the tee. Myles – my eldest brother – has decided the three of us need to spend some time together now that I’m living closer to him and Liam. So we’re playing a round of golf at Liam’s club just outside of Charleston.
Myles is already in a bad mood. He’s currently trying – and failing – to hit his ball out of a sand trap. I don’t know why he decided playing golf with us was a good idea, because he’s spectacularly bad at it.
I’ve got a pretty good handicap. Golf was one of the few pastimes we were insured to play during the NHL season, so I’d have a round most weeks when I was living in Boston. And Liam’s spent half his life on one course or another making business deals.
Myles, on the other hand, has spent way too much time staring at a computer screen.
“Yeah you do,” Liam says. “There was a time when I never saw you without a woman.”
“In my twenties,” I tell him. “And you were no better.”
“Who was no better?” Myles asks. He’s finally hit his ball onto the fairway. We all climb into the golf cart and head toward it.
“Liam,” I tell him. “Remember his little black book?”
“I remember you asked if you could have it after I started dating Sophie,” Liam retorts.
“I was joking.” I really was. I never have and never will be interested in my brother’s ex-girlfriends.
“Yeah, well it wasn’t a book, anyway. I just had a lot of friends.” Liam’s jaw is tight. He taps his fingers on the wheel as he drives. We drew straws to see who would drive, and I’m still kind of annoyed that Liam won.
That’s the problem with being one of six brothers. The competition is intense. As kids we’d fight about anything. It used to drive our mom crazy. And our dad, when he actually had time to spend with us.
Myles ended up inventing the Salinger Olympics so we could compete against each other for real every summer at our dad’s estate in Virginia. An organized way for us all to beat the hell out of each other.
“Anyway, stop changing the subject. Why haven’t you gotten this woman to fall for you yet?”
“What woman?” Myles frowns.
“If you’d hit your ball onto the green occasionally you’d know,” Liam tells him. “Eli’s falling for a woman.”
