Chapter 2
AJ QUICK
South Los Angeles isn’t the most luxurious of places, and it’s definitely one of the parts of the city that make me feel much more like an outsider, but the second I step into Nelson Jones Gym I feel like I’m back home.
Not because of the layout or the building exactly, Lincoln Nebraska sure as hell doesn’t smell like exhaust and heat in December, but the atmosphere of hard work and grit is all over this place, and that’s what my home is at its core.
Owning and running a cattle ranch isn’t for the faint of heart, or for the lazy, and my Dad and Momma didn’t raise me to be either of those things.
“You’re late,” Tara shouts from the ring in the far right corner where she’s coaching a dude who’s almost three times her size. “You’re buying dinner.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I wave her off because I know.
I’m the one who came up with the damn rule, so I gotta bite the bullet.
On Mondays—our only day off most weeks during the season—Derek, Appleton, and I come to Tara and her husband’s gym. We work out lightly for an hour or so and then we go get dinner. It’s the way things have been for the past three years.
I can’t regret being late, though, not when I could tell Cam was struggling with something, so I have my normal smile on when I walk over to where they’re warming up on the treadmills.
“All good?” Appleton asks me as soon as I walk up to the treadmill next to his.
“Yeah, was just at Cam’s and we had some shit to talk about.”
Derek Johnson, the star safety for the LA Warriors and a man of few words, grunts in response—grunting is his language of preference and we let him be. That’s the main reason he allowed us to become his friends, I think, and I can’t say I blame him.
People are always trying to get him to talk more, but the only one who succeeds is his husband.
I dump my duffel right there on the floor since I’m next to the wall, then I drop in my cap and my watch—don’t need either of those—then hop on the treadmill and get to work. Maybe moving my body will help me think. At least, that’s what Dad used to say while I was growing up.
I still don’t know if he said it just so I’d go out with him to herd some heads around, or if it was his genuine attempt at helping me figure out math in middle school, but it almost always works.
And I’ve got some problems to figure out.
Cam is a good guy, one of the best in my opinion, and he’s been helping me my whole career. He deserves the celebration of his peers, and he deserves one weekend where he can reminisce about the good ol’ days and talk shit with his buddies.
I know my suggestion wasn’t . . . normal, like at all, I know, but I couldn’t have stopped it from bursting out of my lips if my life depended on it.
I just feel it’s all kinds of unfair for him to skip his high school reunion because of some douchebag, who as far as I can tell didn’t deserve him then and for sure doesn’t deserve him now.
It was fucking jarring, the way he turned so insecure all of a sudden, when the Cam I know is confident, poised, always with his game face on.
He’s a great fucking agent, and I regret to say that most days I forget to be grateful for following my gut when it came time for me to sign with someone.
I didn’t know much about the world of business at twenty-two—hell, I barely know anything right now—but he seemed so excited for me back then, and yeah, my gut told me he was a good, smart guy.
Even when he told me he was opening up his own agency and would be leaving the one he’d worked for all his career, then asked if I’d move with him, he didn’t look as doubtful and hesitant as he did today, and even I know that was a fucking gamble.
I already had one Super Bowl ring five years ago, and like I’ve always been, I was his biggest client then, so I know that invitation and the possibility of this reunion really rattled him.
Can he blame me for wanting to help him out when he’s been taking care of me and my business for more than a decade?
Who cares about can, I don’t think he should.
With that, my resolve to help him no matter what strengthens, and suddenly I’m aware that I’m running and in the gym.
“The season’s looking good,” Appleton bumbles. He just retired this past Spring, but he’s my best bud and I threatened him to keep him coming to our workouts every Monday, and he’s never let me down.
He was an Edge, played defense with Johnson, and he’s as ripped as he was a year ago, so he clearly doesn’t need to come here for his workouts.
I’ve seen his home gym and know he uses it.
But he’s also the first friend I made in LA.
He was the first guy to welcome me to the Warriors as a rookie—even the guy who played QB before me wasn’t as welcoming—and I haven’t let him out of my sight since . . . metaphorically, of course.
“Yeah, it’s going pretty well,” I agree.
“We’re for sure making the playoffs,” Derek says, the strength of his determination behind every word.
“God, it would be just like you to win a Super Bowl this season after I retired,” Appleton complains.
“We’ll do it as a revenge for you leaving us,” Derek snipes with a surprising hint of humor in his voice.
“Don’t listen to him,” I pipe up. “You didn’t leave us, and we’ll do it to make you proud. You can even be my date to the ring ceremony.” That’s always a fun night.
Appleton snorts and shakes his head.
“I know you think that sounds nice, but that would just be rubbing it in, AJ.”
I have to shrug, because it doesn’t seem mean to me. I’d love to be invited in fifty years when I’m old and obviously no longer playing, and that has me remembering.
I know the QB who got LA its first two rings a long-ass time ago, though I can’t remember right now exactly how many years, but Clive is eighty and still going strong.
He lives right next door to Derek, actually, and he’s always at the games, cheering us on—except when we play against his grandson which I don’t blame him for—so we’ve all gotten to know him.
“I’m gonna invite Clive, then. To every ring ceremony I ever go to, he’s gonna be my plus one. I bet he wouldn’t be as ungrateful as you.” I tilt my head back and away as if gravely offended.
“I’ll show you ungrateful,” Appletlon mutters. “Let’s see how you do in the bench press today, AJ.” He snaps his towel at my leg and I jump out of the way just fast enough to avoid the sting.
“Oh, man.” I can’t help the whine.
They’re gonna beat my ass.
They do whip my ass, but no one expected anything different, so it doesn’t really matter.
When we’re done with our workout, Appleton declares he’s skipping dinner because he has an early flight tomorrow.
He’s going back to Wisconsin for most of the next two months, and since he now lives a life of leisure, he can afford to. I wish him happy holidays, and we agree to hang out in a couple of weeks when we’ll play against his home team.
Then it’s just Derek, Tara, and me going to a steakhouse twenty minutes away.
Brent, Tara’s husband, never joins us since, as she put it a few years back, she’s our friend and he isn’t. She also said she needs some time away from him because they live and work together, and none of us dared contradict her—not that Brent ever would, he worships his wife accordingly.
She’s for sure one of the best people I’ve met in LA, and though Brent is right up there with her, it’s different. She reminds me a lot of my sisters, Sandy and Julie, not in attitude or anything, not really, but she teases me a lot and doesn’t make me feel like the great AJ Quick, which is nice.
Derek and Appleton, as well as some of the other guys on the team, have never treated me any differently than anyone else at the Warriors organization, but most of the players and even some of the staff are a bit too . . . in awe of me.
That doesn’t feel real nice for me, because I’m still human and I don’t like anyone thinking I’m not.
But that’s part of the job—people putting the highest of expectations on you and you barely meeting them some of the time—and so I only ever complain in my head.
“So, why were you late?” Tara asks once our drinks have been delivered—a glass of wine for her and sodas for Derek and me. He doesn’t drink during the season and I stopped drinking altogether about five years ago.
Not for any specific reason either, I just realized I don’t like the way alcohol makes me feel.
“I was at my agent’s office, and our meeting ran a little long. Then I had to go home and eat something before driving over here.”
She knows Cam, has met him a handful of times I think at the “family” barbecues I throw at my place during the off season, and I’m pretty sure I’ve brought him over to the gym two times as well.
He didn’t love it.
I do, but I know it’s not for everyone.
“Is everything okay?” Derek asks, a dark frown marring his face.
When I look in his eyes and find honest worry there, I realize he might think our meeting had something to do with the team—more specifically, my contract.
“Yeah, nothing about the team,” I assure him. “He just wanted to touch base on the ESoothe campaign I did last month—”
“Oh, I liked that one,” Tara says and snorts to herself.
“It was funny, right?” I ask her but turn back to Derek right away. “And then we just chatted about a few . . . things,” I hedge, and mentally curse myself when his eyes narrow on me.
Fuck, why couldn’t I think of anything else to say?
Even leaving out “things” would’ve been better, because now he knows I’m not telling him something.
“What aren’t you saying?” he presses.
“It’s nothing about me.” I try that out, hoping it’s enough to soothe him, but it seems it isn’t, and then Tara butts in too.
“Yeah, you’re definitely hiding something.”
She flips her long blonde hair back and mimics Derek’s intense stare. Then, like they planned it or something, they both lean in on their seats.
I instinctively press my back to my chair and shake my head.