Tremaine snatched up his glass and wiped the end table with the sleeve of his designer sweater. “Sorry, Annabelle.”

Annabelle caught Heath’s grin and marched forward, pinning her wrath on him. “This is all your fault. You have at least four clients here, none of whom I knew personally a year ago. If it weren’t for you, I’d be just another fan watching them destroy each other from a safe distance.”

Her hissy fit was getting everybody’s attention, and someone turned the music down so they could all listen in. She jerked her head toward the kitchen. “They’ve drunk everything in the house, including a pitcher of African violet plant food I’d just mixed up and was stupid enough to leave on the counter.”

Tremaine punched Eddie in the shoulder. “I told you it tasted weird.”

Eddie shrugged. “Tasted okay to me.”

“They’ve also ordered hundreds of dollars’ worth of Chinese food, which I do not intend to see all over this rug, so everybody is going to…eat in the kitchen.”

“And pizza.” Jason Kent, a Stars second stringer, called out from someplace near the refrigerator. “Don’t forget we ordered pizzas, too.”

“When did my house turn into a hangout for every grossly overpaid, terminally pampered professional football player in northern Illinois?”

“We like it here,” Jason said. “It reminds us of home.”

“Plus, no women around.” Leandro Collins, the Bears’ first-string tight end emerged from the office munching on a bag of chips. “There’s times when you need a rest from the ladies.”

Annabelle shot out her arm and smacked him in the side of the head. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to.”

Leandro had a short fuse, and he’d been known to take out a ref here and there when he didn’t like a call, but the tight end merely rubbed the side of his head and grimaced. “Just like my mama.”

“Mine, too,” Tremaine said with happy nod.

Annabelle spun on Heath. “Their mother! I’m thirty-one years old, and I remind them of their mothers.”

“You act like my mother,” Sean pointed out, unwisely as it transpired, because he got a swat in the head next.

Heath exchanged sympathetic looks with the boys, then gave Annabelle his full attention, speaking softly and patiently. “Tell me how this happened, sweetheart.”

Annabelle threw up her hands. “I have no idea. In the summer it was just Dean dropping in. Then he brought Jason and Dewitt with him. Then Arté asked me to keep my eye on Sean, so I invited him over—just once, mind you—and he showed up with Leandro and Matt. A Star here, a Bear there …One thing led to another. And now I have a potentially deadly riot on my hands, right in the middle of my living room.”

“I told you not to worry about that,” Jason said. “This is neutral territory.”

“Yeah, right.” Her nostrils flared. “Neutral territory until somebody gets mad, and then you guys’ll be all, ‘We’re sorry, Annabelle, but you seem to be missing your front windows and half the second floor.’”