20. Reid
TWENTY
REID
“Did you really have to wear all black?” I look Maverick up and down and sigh. “You look fucking ridiculous.”
“Of course I had to wear all black. This is a special operation. I couldn’t show up in fucking blue.” He switches the bag he’s holding to his left hand and smiles at the Thunderhawks intern walking us through the stadium. “So, Barry. You like football?”
“Yes, Mr. Miller, sir. I do. I also really like hockey. And basketball too. All sports, I guess. I want to work for a team full-time one day.” Barry holds the jersey Dallas signed close to his chest. “My brothers are going to be so jealous I met you. We’re diehard DC sports fans. I’ve been going to Titans games since before I could walk. They didn’t have any positions open when I wanted to apply, so I came to the Thunderhawks.”
“We really appreciate your help,” I say. “Avery is a good friend, and we wanted to celebrate her anniversary with the team by decorating her office before the game.”
“I wish I had an office. I clock in and stand in a corner until halftime.” Barry leads us down a hallway and turns left. “I still make it fun.”
“I bet you do, Bar.” Maverick messes up his hair, and Barry beams. “Now, look. This is a surprise, so can you do us a favor and not mention it to anyone that we were here? It would ruin the dramatic effect, and if there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I love drama.”
“Of course, Mr. Miller.” He stops us in front of a door and taps his keycard on the reader against the wall. “Take as long as you need. When you’re ready to head out, you’ll go the same way we came in.”
“Do you have a card with your information on it?” I ask. “If you email me your résumé, I can pass it along to HR.”
“Wow.” Barry pulls a wrinkled piece of paper from his pocket. He jots down his name, number, and email, and hands it to me. “Thank you so much. You two are so nice. Avery is lucky to have such great friends.”
“Yeah.” Maverick throws an arm over my shoulder. “She really is. Especially Reidy Boy here. He knows how to treat her right.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I say out of the corner of my mouth, shrugging him off. “Thanks, Barry. We appreciate it.”
I open the door and step inside Avery’s office. It’s small, about the size of my office at FedEx Field, and overlooks the twenty-yard line. There’s a desk in the middle. Pictures on the wall and a stack of personal development books on a small bookshelf.
I see her everywhere; the cardigan draped over the back of her chair. The vase of sunflowers and lilies. There are fifteen different pens spread out across a planner, and a whiteboard shows all the content she has planned for the next month.
For half a second, I wonder if I’m making a mistake by invading her personal space. I wonder if I’m violating some unspoken boundary in our game by storming into her safe haven and causing chaos.
“What’s wrong?” Maverick takes a seat on the leather couch under the window. A groan slips out of him, and he drops his head against the wall. “Fuck, this is comfy. And she has a blanket too? I wonder if she sleeps here.”
My chest pinches tight.
I don’t like the thought of her being here alone. Late at night and curled up on a piece of furniture that’s too small, even for her. I don’t like the idea of her working herself to the bone. I don’t like imagining a world where she doesn’t take care of herself when the season starts, putting others first instead.
“Nothing.” I shake my head and clear the cobwebs. “Okay. We have two hundred ducks, but the goal isn’t to hide them all. I’ve numbered them, and we’re going to put a random number in random places. The idea is that she’ll think she’s found them all, but then the next duck will have an even higher number than the last one. She’ll have no clue how many she’s searching for, and it’s going to piss her off.”
“This is a good prank,” he says. “How many do you want to put out?”
“Sixty-five. It won’t be so obvious at first that she’s going to find a ton.”
“Are you scared about how she might retaliate?”
I sit in her chair and open a drawer, setting one of the ducks on top of a stack of sticky notes. “I’m absolutely terrified of the stuffed animals she could fill my office with.”
Maverick and I work in silence. We freeze every time we hear voices outside the door, wondering if it could be her. She could walk in at any moment, and knowing we could get caught makes me hide the last dozen ducks quick as hell.
“Done.” Maverick dusts off his hands and fixes his black baseball cap. “It’s too bad we don’t have a camera set up to see her reaction. What other ideas do you have?”
I arrange her pens and planner back in their original position. “I can’t tell you everything. What if she interrogates you?”
“Yeah, because Avery and I hang out all the time,” he says dryly. “I would do damn well in an interrogation. I?—”
A laugh travels down the hall and interrupts him.
It’s followed by footsteps and two people talking, and I panic.
“Shit. Fuck . That’s her,” I hiss.
We hear a muffled, “I’m going to get my water bottle and planner and I’ll be right there, Marjorie.”
I look around the room, frantic. There’s a door to the left of her desk, and I grab Maverick by the collar. I shove him inside the closet and slip in after him, cracking the door just as she walks inside.
It’s so dark in here, I can’t see a damn thing.
It’s small, too, and Maverick and I are practically on top of each other. He pulls out his phone and holds up his screen, looking at me.
Oh my god, he mouths. What do we do?
Wait, I mouth back. She said she’s going somewhere else .
I have to pee .
I narrow my eyes and run my hand across my neck, telling him to cut it the fuck out. He flips me off and I ignore him, peering out the small sliver of space between the door and the door jamb.
I spy Avery on her computer. She clicks into a folder, humming a tune under her breath that sounds reminiscent of “Heroes” by David Bowie. When she closes out of the document, her background comes to life, and it’s a punch to the gut.
It’s her sitting next to a hospital bed occupied by a man who’s the spitting image of her; the same cheekbones. The same wrinkles around their eyes. The same dimple, and I can hear their laughter through their matching smiles.
It must be her dad, and suddenly, this all seems stupid as hell.
She powers down her computer and grabs her phone. I watch her pull up a text thread, and she drums her finger along the curve of the screen, deep in thought. She types out a handful of sentences before she deletes them, stares at the ceiling, then starts again.
Maverick taps my shoulder and points at the door. I shake my head and hold up a finger, letting him know it’s going to be another minute.
What is she doing? he mouths.
Texting someone.
Tell her to hurry up .
Avery finally finishes her text and stands. My phone buzzes in my pocket and my heart jumps in my chest. I check to make sure she hasn’t heard us and open the message.
Avery
Does your stadium have headphones available to fans?
I frown and type out a response.
Me
What?
Her fingers fly across the screen, and my phone buzzes again.
Avery
I have someone asking if you all provide headphones for fans who might be overstimulated, or if they need to bring their own.
Me
Why are they asking you?
Avery
Because I posted about our game against the Titans next Sunday, and they were curious.
I look out at her again, and she’s staring at her phone, waiting for me to answer.
Me
Oh. Yeah, we do. We also have a sensory room available for use during games.
Avery
Really?
Me
It was installed a few years ago. A step in making sporting events more inclusive.
I’ve checked it out a few times. It’s quieter than my office at halftime, and there’re always people in there. Wish it was the norm.
I wait for her to lob a witty one-liner back at me. Something sarcastic and full of sass like she usually does. Her mouth curves into a soft smile, the hint of her dimple popping on her cheek as she bites her bottom lip.
Avery
Thanks.
Me
Yep.
She holds her planner to her chest. When she walks around her desk, she stops in her tracks and stares at the rubber duck hiding behind a mason jar that’s being used to hold pencils.
“What the hell?” she mumbles, turning the duck upside down. She snaps a photo of it and sets it back down. “Weird.”
I sigh in relief when she leaves the office and shuts the door firmly behind her.
“Oh my god.” Maverick collapses to the floor. “That’s the longest I’ve ever gone without talking.”
“How did you survive?” I ask.
He pushes the door open and gulps down a breath of air. “It was tough.”
“She found the first duck. The plan is in motion.”
“I wonder how long it’s going to take before she realizes it was you.”
“Probably not long,” I say. “Who else would do this?”
“A secret admirer?” Maverick shrugs and stands. “We can blame the intern. We can say he’s obsessed with her.”
“You’re so fucking weird. I think you’re missing a few screws.”
“That’s fucking rich coming from the guy who spent the last few minutes hiding in a closet for a prank . Maybe you’re the secret admirer. You’re halfway to being obsessed.”
“Fuck you. This was stupid, wasn’t it? What thirty-four-year-old goes around planting plastic ducks in someone’s office?”
“I don’t know, man. Probably the same guy who smiled when she found them,” he says.
“I did not smile,” I challenge.
“Sure you didn’t.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Don’t worry, Plant Daddy.” He winks. “Your secret is safe with me.”