“Half a dozen times,” Archer said. “I got over it.”
“Ah yes, the stoic, laconic jock,” Miller said. “If I wrote you in a book, you’d be too much of a stereotype and my editor would complain.” He gave a gusty sigh. “Since we agree that women are nothing but trouble, maybe we should play cards. It would distract us from our problems.”
“Cards? Where the hell did you get that idea?” Nathan asked. Miller’s conversational zigzags were beginning to irritate him.
The writer smiled crookedly. “Don’t they say, ‘Unlucky at love, lucky at cards’? Although it’s hard to predict who will get the good luck in this group.”
“I don’t buy it,” Archer said, leaning forward. “Everyone at this table knows you make your own luck. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
Nathan nodded. “Luck is the residue of design.”
“We’re all big on quotations tonight,” Miller needled.
Archer made a sharp gesture to silence them. “How important is finding a woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?”
Neither Nathan nor Miller spoke, so Archer continued, “Pretty damned important. How much effort has any of us put into the search?” He gave them each a hard look. “I’m guessing not a lot. We see the same women at every event. Friends or colleagues fix us up. Maybe we even get a napkin slipped into our pocket and call that number.”
“Speak for yourself on that last one,” Miller said. That surprised a huff of laughter out of Nathan.
Archer acknowledged the interjection with a tight smile. “Our problem is lack of focus. We aren’t making this a primary objective in our lives, so we’re failing.”
Nathan grunted in disagreement. “So we should be wife hunting instead of running a business or winning football games or writing the next bestseller? If you’re that desperate, hire one of those executive matchmakers.”
“That’s like using a ghostwriter,” Archer said.
Miller barked out a laugh.
“At least the transaction would be honest,” Nathan said.
Archer sat forward. “How badly do you want a wife and family?”
Nathan considered the unhappy dynamics of his own family. Maybe there was a reason he had a hard time finding love. Maybe he couldn’t recognize it. But yes, he wanted it, if only to do it better than his father had. “I’m listening. Miller?”
For a moment the writer looked downright sober. “Hell, yes, I’m still looking. What’s the point of all this if you’ve got no one to share it with?” He waved a hand around at the expensive liquor, the ornate paneling, and the antique bronze chandeliers before he turned back to Archer. “And of course, you need a passel of sons to toss footballs with in your white-picket-fenced yard.”
“I’m hoping for daughters,” Archer said. “But yeah, I want kids. So what I’m saying is, we need a game plan.”
The writer held up his hand. “I have a better idea.” His eyes glittered with sly intent. “Gentlemen, I propose a challenge.”
Nathan and Archer waited.
“We go in search of true love. We keep looking until we find it.”
“This challenge is a load of garbage,” Archer said. “How do you prove you’ve found true love?”
“A ring on her finger. Sorry, Archer,” Miller said.
“A ring doesn’t prove anything,” Nathan pointed out.
“I’ve spent—what?—a half an hour with you gentlemen. And I’m confident you would not put a ring on a woman’s finger unless you believed you would spend the rest of your life with her.” Miller sat back and shifted his gaze between the two of them.
Nathan shook his head. “You’ve had too much to drink. And so have I.”
“I say we make it a bet,” Archer said, his pale-blue eyes intense. “We need to stake something valuable on the outcome.”
The writer gave him a bleak smile. “The stakes are our hearts.”
“We need to bet something more valuable than that,” Nathan said, sucked back into the discussion in spite of himself.
A gleam of malevolent excitement showed in Miller’s eyes. “All right, a donation to charity.”
“Too easy,” Archer said.
Miller lifted a hand to indicate he wasn’t finished. “Not money: an item to be auctioned off. It must have intrinsic value, but it must also be something irreplaceable, something that would cause each of us pain to lose.”
“Who chooses this irreplaceable artifact?” Nathan asked. The alcohol fumes must have been clouding his brain, because he found himself intrigued.
“You do,” Miller said.
“So this is an honor system,” Archer said.
Miller laid his hand over his heart. “A wager is always a matter of honor between gentlemen.”
“A secret wager,” Nathan said, his competitive spirit aroused. “We write down our stakes and seal them in envelopes. Only losers have to reveal their forfeits.”
“I think we require Frankie for this,” Miller said, twisting in his seat to address the bartender. “Donal, is the boss lady still awake?”