Chapter 15
The flight was easy, the ride here was great, the seats were excellent, the crowd was non-threatening.
Anara and I were both about to throw up.
“Do you think that I’m experiencing hyperosmia? Many pregnant women experience an enhanced sense of smell. I could be picking up on something unique to California, and that’s why I feel so nauseated,” she mused.
“You’re nervous because Demitrious and the Woodsmen are going to play their first postseason game,” I told her, and she agreed that I was probably correct.
It was intense. This was supposed to be a neutral location and there was a lot of orange in the stands but also a lot of green for the other guys, which was disconcerting.
It was also disconcerting for me to be back at this stadium, because it was the same one where Sage and I had come, so long ago, to attend the Pippy Polluelo concert.
This was where she had lost the new sunglasses that Damian had given to her.
Pippy himself was here today, to put on a halftime show.
All the weird coincidences were throwing me off.
“Are you guys hungry? Help yourselves,” our host urged.
Her name was Meredith, and she was Jory Morin’s wife.
They had rented a suite here and she and Jory had invited the O-line families to sit in it.
It was just as nice as the ones we had spied on at Woodsmen Stadium through Anara’s monocular, with comfortable chairs, big TVs to show Herb and Buzz doing their commentary for the home crowd, and plenty of snacks.
Anara had started to fill her purse like an acorn woodpecker before I’d stopped her.
“We’re great,” I answered Meredith. “Thank you so much for inviting us.”
“Try not to be nervous,” she said. “I was too, at the beginning. But hopefully, they’ll both be Woodsmen for a long time and you have to get used to it or you’ll pull out your hair.”
“Like cockatoos, among others,” Anara murmured. We went to sit down. After her remark about how I’d resembled a vicuna when I did my mask of calm, I didn’t bother with it.
The game started ok with the Woodsmen defense on the field and we were left to wait for three downs and then a punt until the offense took their place.
Callum was out there, because Jory Morin was on the bench for the first half and maybe longer.
It was impossible to stay calm, but it was ok.
Everyone in the box was screaming and jumping around, just like I was.
I expended enough energy that I had to get a large drink and also something to eat during halftime. “It’s ok, I’ll work this off,” I said out loud as I prepared a bowl of nachos. I would also be careful not to get cheese on my face in case the cameras turned to us, like they had before.
“You know what? That’s enough.” Anara grabbed my arm and marched me back to the seats.
“I’m going to call Heidi,” she announced.
She did, and held up her phone so we could all see each other.
Our other friend wanted to talk about the action in the first half but Anara cut to the chase.
“Rainey is worried about her weight again,” she announced. “She’s afraid of nachos.”
“Anara, are you talking too loud?” Heidi asked her.
She was. “I just want to get my body back to how it was before,” I explained.
“Like in that picture of you where it said your name was Roxy? That was terrible,” Heidi told me. “You didn’t look well.”
“Don’t you feel better now?” Anara asked. She was whispering.
“Yes, but that’s due to a lot of stuff,” I argued in a whisper of my own. “Like, I’m not taking pills and I’m sleeping regularly. I have friends, I have a safe place to live, I have Callum. Everything in my life is so much better, it doesn’t even feel like I’m the same person.”
“So why would you want to be that skinny, scary girl again, the one who was sad?” Heidi asked.
“I don’t want to be her.”
“Exactly.” She nodded. “Have the nachos and live your life. I wish that I had some nachos right now. Or, you know what? I wish I had some watermelon but I would put salt on it.”
“That’s disgusting.” Anara shook her head. “Rainey, I really don’t want you to worry. Now I consider you to be the second most attractive person I’ve ever met.”
“After Demitrious? Is he first?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course. I also don’t want you to worry about my wedding. I’m not going to fit into my dress, either,” she reminded me.
“Oh, my Lord. What are we going to do about the wedding gown?” Heidi asked.
That conversation occupied us as Pippy’s halftime show went on.
I wasn’t enjoying his songs very much—I wasn’t even paying attention, although when I’d seen him before, I’d thought he had put on a good concert.
Him performing at a game like this was going to make Damian so mad.
It was funny that none of them had crossed my mind in a while. I hadn’t even thought about Sage, and she hadn’t messaged or posted in a long time. I didn’t really care if she showed the world all the worst things she could find. I didn’t care about any of them.
Before the football action started again, Anara wanted a T-shirt to commemorate the occasion—not for herself, but for the baby.
“It’s his or her first postseason game. It’s something to celebrate,” she said.
That meant leaving the safety of the suite, but I wasn’t too concerned about running into trouble here.
I should have been. We hadn’t walked far before I heard a voice that sounded so familiar…but there was no way that I could have been hearing it again. It was wrong to hear it now, in the new life that I had.
“Fucking Pippy,” it said. “He’s nothing. Why the fuck were they all cheering like that?”
No. No, it couldn’t have been.
“His lyrics are crap and he looks like a jack-in-the box when he dances. Fucking Pippy! How is his single doing?”
Another voice soothed him. She had the same whine that I remembered, but she sounded even more bored. “No one likes it because he’s terrible. I know you don’t want to watch this sports shit so let’s go home. The car is waiting to take you back to the mansion.”
I knew them. I knew both of them. I stopped and grabbed Anara’s arm, and then we saw Damian with Millie and the rest of his entourage, including the new girl I’d noticed in his social media posts, Matheus, and the other bodyguards.
My mouth fell open as they walked past us.
Damian looked me over, his eyes sweeping from my neck to my crotch, but he never met my eyes and he didn’t seem to know me.
Matheus clearly recognized me, because he smiled before he kept moving, and Millie actually stopped for a moment.
Her mouth opened as if she was about to say something, but then she hurried to keep up with them.
“Rainey, what are you doing? You’re frozen like a wood frog,” Anara said.
“That was Damian,” I told her. “He was the guy I used to work for. And that was Millie, his assistant, and Matheus, the team leader of his bodyguards.” I stared at where they’d disappeared around the curve of the stadium corridor. “I didn’t see Sage.”
“That little guy was your boss? The one who was abusive to you?” She started to go after them and I grabbed her arm. “I can take him. He’s the size of a naked mole rat and just as attractive.”
“No, I don’t want you to fight. Think of the baby.” But then I hugged her. “Thanks, though.”
She permitted the hug for a moment. “Why didn’t they talk to you?” she wondered, and as she spoke, I heard my name—what it had been, once.
“Roxy!” Millie called. She rounded the corner fast, almost running. “I almost didn’t know you.” She stopped in front of us and eyed me like Damian had done, except more extensively (she also looked at my face, which he’d only ever noticed in order to complain that my eyes weren’t blue).
I waited for her to comment on my size. She had been the one keeping such close track of it, with her weigh-ins and calorie logs to prepare us for his inspections.
“You look…nice,” she said, after hesitating for a moment. “You look happy.”
“I am. What—” I had so many questions for her that I didn’t know where to start, but she was already talking instead.
“I made Sage stop,” she told me. “That dumb bitch. I should have known better than to hire her, but Damian always liked her ass. It was better than yours.”
“What are you talking about?” I repeated and she started to point to my butt area. “No, not that. Stop what?”
“I know that she was reaching out to you. She posted a picture I had taken when you were looking high as a damn kite. I had to work so hard to keep you in line—”
“Why did you care about that post? What difference did it make to you?”
“That little bitch was going to blackmail both of us!” she hissed.
“She got into my laptop and found all kids of shit. I don’t want it getting around, not on top of everything else people say about me, so I put a stop to all of it.
Mat helped because we’re a couple now.” She blushed, red blotches that spread across her cheeks.
“Oh. Congratulations.” And good luck to him, I thought.
She almost looked happy, which I didn’t think I’d ever seen before. “We’re both quitting next month but Damian doesn’t know. I, uh, cleaned up. Mat helped me with that, too. So I really didn’t need Sage getting into my business.”
“How did you stop her?”
“First I offered…” She glanced at the crowd of fans passing us. “I offered incentives but she told me that she wanted more.”
“What does that mean?” Anara questioned. “Money? Drugs?” She wasn’t whispering.
“Who is this?” Millie asked me.
I didn’t feel like answering. “If incentives didn’t work, what did?”