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“No, honey,” Ted said. “He’syourcoach.”

Honey.

The last person to call me that had been our former coach, downstairs in what was now Ryan Morrissey’s office, right before I fired him.

“Our coach.”

“You two have been setting me up for a fall since you signed that junkie,” Ted said. “Or maybe it was your brother—he always had a soft spot for junkies.”

“For your own good, Ted, don’t say another word about Thomas. Not another goddamn word. And by the way? Are you under the impression that those interceptions threw themselves today?”

“They weren’t my fault.”

“In your mind, they never are.”

“Nobody blocks on this team.”

I didn’t want to be in my office now. I didn’t want to be having this conversation. I didn’t want to be at the stadium any longer, not today. Mostly I didn’t want to be just down the hall from Thomas’s suite.

“They seem to block well enough for Billy McGee,” I said quietly.

“You rotten bitch.”

And there it was.

“What happened to ‘honey’?”

He walked over and put his bruised hands on my desk and leaned as far across it as he could.

At least he finally lowered his voice.

“I know a lot about you, Jen. Stuff that you wouldn’t want the people voting for you to know in a million years.”

“Are you threatening me, Ted?”

“Think of this as more of a warning.”

“Are we done here? Because I’m so hoping we’re done here.”

“Just for now.”

He slammed the door behind him when he left. I sat where I was for a few moments before I called down to Ryan’s office and told him what had just happened in mine.

“What are we going to do?” he said.

“Cut him.”

Sixty-Three

IT HAD TAKEN ONE DECISION,the Wolves releasing my ex-husband, to turn me back into Front Page Jenny—as Bobby Erlich had referred to me—all over again. Even as I couldn’t help wishing that the end of my marriage to Ted Skyler had been as easy.

The next day Wolf.com led with:

WHO’S AFRAID OF JENNY WOLF?

(Spoiler Alert: Her Ex-Hubby)

I wasn’t treated all that much better in theTribune,where they went withBIG BAD WOLFabove an old photograph of Ted and me, from better times, made to look as if it had been torn in two.