Chapter 15 #2
“Threats, of course. Damian had fired her because he found out that she’d pried a few diamonds out of one of his necklaces.
” She met my eyes without blinking, like she was daring me to contradict her.
“Sage went back to Sacramento,” she continued after a brief pause.
“I had heard that she was trying to make up with her baby daddy so she could see her son. I guess she forgot that I had pictures of her, too.”
“Oh, more blackmail,” Anara said, nodding. “Humans are so manipulative. Vervet monkeys—”
“You should leave Sage alone now,” I told Millie. “Just get on with your life and the rest of us will, too. Leave all this behind you.”
She looked at me and then she nodded. “I’ve been watching your channel. It all seems good.”
“It is,” I answered. “It’s great. I got really lucky when you guys left me at 20 Grand.”
“Indianapolis.” She frowned. “We had to get out of there fast because of the fight in the bathroom. One of those girls had a knife and club security was going to call the police, but Mat had a warrant out of Georgia hanging over him. I couldn’t find you right away and Damian got pissed and said to fuck you, he could get another blonde. We did and…” She paused again. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m glad. It was the best thing that could have happened to me.”
“It seems like it.” She looked over her shoulder. “I better go. I haven’t quit this job yet.” She nodded at me and swiveled to leave.
“Millie,” I called. “I’m sorry that I hid in the stall when you got in the fight at 20 Grand. I didn’t back you up.”
“What?” Now she was the one who seemed confused and then we both heard Damian yell her name. “Whatever,” she told me, and ran.
Anara and I watched her disappear again. “Friends back each other up,” I said. “I’d back you.”
“We’re like cows,” she agreed. “I’ve got you, too.”
We could hear the announcer booming about the kickoff so we forgot about the baby T-shirt for the moment and rushed back to our suite to watch the Woodsmen receive the ball.
Then our team in orange went out to start the second half on offense.
If was funny that the color didn’t seem as bright as it had before. It had really grown on me.
I held my breath a little as they ran out, but Jory did take the field again instead of Callum for the first series.
He seemed to feel ok and I watched his wife breathe out a sigh of her own.
Maybe she had talked about taking it easy, but she seemed to feel the nerves, too. It was impossible to avoid them.
For the rest of the half, the two guys traded places at their position and they both did so well, which I could see because Anara let me borrow her monocular.
The game ended with a lopsided Woodsmen win and we were enjoying ourselves by that point, sure that they were advancing to the next round.
I had an ice cream sandwich and we sat in the suite’s open windows, taking in the beautiful California weather and toasting to the victory.
“So good,” I texted to Callum. “It was stunning.”
He answered after a while. “You are. I’ll see you soon.”
Not soon enough. It was a long flight back to Michigan, although it was an easy one in the private plane.
Beau’s friends were all nice and he and I talked for quite a while as Anara slept in the seat next to me.
She didn’t seem to mind pregnancy, although I bet she was glad that it wouldn’t last as long as an elephant’s did.
I drove her home before heading to the condo.
Maverick wasn’t here tonight, because I hadn’t known what time I would get back and I hadn’t wanted him to be alone for too long.
He and I had gone to a session with the trainer that Beau had recommended, and that guy was taking care of Mav tonight.
He was ex-military and didn’t mess around, but the part I liked was that he didn’t care if Maverick listened to him.
It was only important that the dog listened to me, and he was doing it! Sometimes.
“I’m not afraid of him,” I had told the trainer and for the first time, I hadn’t been lying about that.
I wasn’t afraid that Mav would bite me or attack, or somehow get away and kill helpless animals.
He did still attack my purse but not when I hid it very well.
He hadn’t learned to open doors, which meant that as long as we were careful to keep things in the closets, our shoes were safe.
The chair had been another issue. Every time I looked at it, I got the urge to cry. “Rainey, it’s ok,” Callum had promised when he’d noticed that. “It’s just a chair. He didn’t mean to.”
But it wasn’t just a chair, it was our first piece of furniture.
It was just like how the flip-flop that Maverick had also chewed had been more than a shoe to me, because it was a symbol of a past that I wanted now.
They were like the pictures that had belonged to my grandma, the albums she’d kept of relatives that I hadn’t known but were important to her.
Those had disappeared when I’d gotten robbed in Los Angeles, about an hour after I’d stepped off the bus there.
Now, I wanted keepsakes and memories. I wanted the flip-flops, the chair, and the orange juice bottle. I was saving the note that Callum had written before he’d gotten a phone to text me on, back when we were staying at the motel. “Have a great day. I’ll be thinking about you,” he’d said.
I was thinking about him in the orange Woodsmen plane on its way to Michigan. I was also considering guinea pigs and horses and how they responded to threats and fear. I waited in the ripped chair (I’d covered the sad part with a blanket) for him to get home, thinking.
I heard him coming from the parking lot. He was light on his feet when he played, so agile and quick. But in the echoing pathways of these condos, I could identify him from at least a tenth of a mile away. He walked up the steps, coughed, sang a little, then mumbled something as he opened the door.
Then he walked in, still coughing, and yelled, “Hell!” He rubbed his face and shook his head. “Why are you awake?” he demanded. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“I was waiting to tell you what a good job you did and how proud I am.”
“Were you?” A huge smile lit his face. “I love coming home.” He kicked off his big shoes and walked to the chair. “Scoot over.”
I got up instead, so that I could sit back down on his lap. “That was a great game.”
“I thought it went well and it could have been all that mind-melding that we’ve been doing. Whatever works.” He sighed, though. “It was a tough flight home.”
“Why? Turbulence?”
“No, because we started hearing rumors about next season.”
I didn’t do the mask of calm, but I did force my body to stay relaxed. “Yes? What about it?”
If the whispers were correct, several players were already on the chopping block. He didn’t mention himself or Demitrious, so I actually did relax. But one of the guys was Jenae’s boyfriend, the wide receiver at the bottom of the Woodsmen depth chart.
“Jenae had her own box at that stadium for the game today,” I noted. She’d held a big party there but Anara and I hadn’t been invited. “It must have been so expensive.”
“Hopefully, she has a good job herself and he’ll get picked up by another team.”
“Beau and I talked about my job,” I mentioned. “We were trapped together on the plane for several hours and he couldn’t get away, so we went over a lot. One thing was that I work full-time hours and I think that I should be an official full-time employee. He agreed.”
“That’s great. He should have done it before.”
“He has a hard time with management,” I said. “It’s lucky that I can self-manage.”
“It’s not luck. You’re smart and you’re a hard worker.”
“Thank you. The other good news is that we decided that I definitely could do my job remotely, like, fully remote. So if you want to move away when the season ends, I could do that. If you still want me to come.”
“I didn’t think that you wanted to.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s because I was trying to figure out if I could do it. I didn’t want to go like a horse or a guinea pig.”
“Are you talking about being prey-able?”
I nodded. “But then I was thinking that those guys are doing ok. Everybody loves horses and lots of people have guinea pigs. They live in the wild, too, and they get by. Anara says that it’s a different species but you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, you don’t need to be the king of the jungle,” he agreed. “You only need to survive it, like everybody else is trying to do. I’ll help you just like you help me.”
“Good. That’s what I want,” I said. “Maybe I would want to get some college classes in, too. We could go back together.”
“We could do that here,” Callum mentioned.
I sat up. “Why here?”
“Jory and I talked for a while. He’s going to retire after this season,” he said.
“He feels like it was a great career, but he wants to spend more time with his family and he doesn’t want to risk getting hurt more.
But he said if I stay up here, he’ll train with me.
He thinks that I can take his place next year as the starter. ”
“Really?”
He nodded. “I want to do that. I was also thinking that it would be better for you.”
“Your important decisions shouldn’t depend on me.”
“Why not? Why wouldn’t I have you in mind? You’re always on my mind,” he told me. “I think about weird things, sometimes. You stand on one foot when you brush your teeth, like a stork. I may be spending too much time with Anara,” he admitted.
“I didn’t know I did that.”
He nodded. “I think about what you might want for dinner, and if I should stop on the way home to get more of that gum that you like. I think about you with Maverick and I hope he’s treating you well.
I think about your hair up in a bun, because I like it that way.
I think about missing you. I think about loving you.
I love you, so you’re on my mind all the time. ”
It took me a moment to accept what he’d just said. “You love me?”