4. The Third-Down Lie #3
The others joined in, and I took a drink. Cheap draft beer had never changed much at McGinnis’s. It still carried the same bitter finish it had back when Piper and I shared pitchers because ordering cocktails meant spending money we didn’t have.
Then Reid started discussing regional rollout numbers, and the moment was gone.
I set the glass down.
The executive beside him checked his watch. “We’ve got five minutes before we need to talk distribution.”
“Five minutes sounds generous,” I said.
Reid leaned back in his chair. “Try enjoying yourself.”
“I’m checking the time.”
I checked my phone beneath the edge of the table. The screen lit up in my palm.
I saw the time first.
Then the date beneath it.
I stopped moving.
October.
I stared at the date long enough that the conversation around the table became useless noise.
I knew that date. I had signed it on a marriage license.
I had ordered flowers for it the first year, booked a weekend away the second, and somehow walked into the third believing Piper had asked me for nothing more important than dinner at home.
Our anniversary.
“Damn it,” I muttered.
Sloane turned toward me. “What?”
I lowered the phone. “Nothing.”
Except it wasn’t nothing.
Piper hadn’t wanted some random Friday evening. She had asked for our anniversary, and I had promised I would be there. Then I had texted her from Reid’s car and told her the offensive coordinator had trapped me in the film room.
Meanwhile, I was sitting at McGinnis’s.
With Sloane.
The same bar Piper and I had treated like our own before my life became press schedules and sponsor decks.
For the first time that night, I seriously considered standing up and walking out. I could tell the executives I had somewhere to be, call Piper from the car, and admit Reid had dragged me into another campaign dinner.
My thumb hovered over her name.
Then Reid spoke across the table.
“We ready to finish this?”
The CEO was already opening another document on his tablet. Sloane had turned toward the windows again. Outside, the photographers remained in place, waiting for whatever came next.
I locked the phone instead.
Piper was going to be furious, but furious wasn’t the same as gone. We had survived road games, training camps, playoff runs, sponsor trips, and three years of my schedule changing without warning. I had missed a dinner. A meaningful dinner, yes, but still a dinner.
The right apology could fix that.
There was the diamond bracelet she had stopped to look at last month. Reid knew enough jewelers to have one delivered before the flight if I told him what I needed.
Sloane tilted her head. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I forgot something at home.”
Reid barely glanced up. “Handle it tomorrow.”
“That’s the plan.”
I put the phone away and reached for my beer again.
“Good,” I said. “If I have to deal with an angry wife tomorrow morning, this campaign better sell a hell of a lot of shoes.”
The executive laughed. Reid smiled like the problem had already been solved.
I let him.
A bracelet, an apology, and one quiet morning with Piper after Seattle would fix it.
By the time we reached the front door, I wanted nothing more than the inside of Reid’s car and ten minutes without anybody asking me to smile.
The sidewalk outside McGinnis’s had filled while we were eating. Photographers crowded the curb, shoulder to shoulder, cameras already raised before the door swung open.
“Where’s the car?” I asked.
Sloane pointed past the first row of people. “Right at the curb.”
“Then keep moving.”
A flash went off in my face.
“QB1! Right here!”
“Nolan, look left!”
“Sloane, get closer!”
I kept walking.
The crowd tightened around us, leaving a narrow path toward the car. I had to turn sideways to avoid running into a photographer who backed directly in front of me.
“Can you give us room?” I said.
Nobody listened.
Sloane moved closer instead.
She slid her hand down my arm and grabbed mine.
I looked down as she laced her fingers through mine.
“Sloane.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m trying to get to the car.”
“So am I.”
Another round of flashes erupted across the sidewalk.
I could have pulled my hand away. There was nothing stopping me except the cameras and the knowledge that every movement would become part of the story by morning.
If I jerked away, somebody would run a headline about tension between campaign partners. Reid would spend half the night calling editors. The CEO would ask whether the launch was in trouble. Sloane would complain that I had humiliated her in front of the press.
All of that over a handhold that meant nothing.
So I kept walking.
Sloane pressed against my side as we crossed the last stretch to the curb. She leaned her weight into me, refusing to let go of my hand while photographers moved beside us.
“Just smile,” she said.
“I’m getting in the car.”
“You can do both.”
A stringer stepped in front of us and raised his camera.
“QB1, look right here! Sloane, give the MVP a kiss for the fans!”
I turned toward him long enough to make sure I wasn’t about to walk into the lens.
That was enough.
Sloane shifted closer.
Before I could ask what she was doing, she rose onto her toes and planted a kiss on my cheek.
The cameras erupted.
For a moment, I stayed still.
Not because I wanted the kiss.
Not because I liked it.
Because every photographer on that sidewalk already had the shot, and shoving Sloane away after the fact would only turn one campaign photo into ten stories about a public fight.
“Just smile, Nolan,” she said into my ear. “Reid is going to love this shot.”
I looked toward the car.
Piper was going to hate it.
She had hated the rehab-room photo, and this one was worse. But a cheek kiss for cameras was still a cheek kiss for cameras. It wasn’t real. Sloane and I both knew that.
Piper knew who I came home to.
That had to matter more than whatever strangers decided the picture meant.
Sloane finally stepped back, and I dropped her hand.
“Get in the car, Sloane. We gave them enough for tonight.”
She smiled toward the photographers one last time before opening the rear door.
I got in behind her and closed the door.
The shouting dropped to a muffled roar. Flashes still burst against the tinted glass, but the crowd could no longer reach us.
I leaned back against the seat and looked toward the windshield, already thinking about the bracelet, the apology, and getting home.
The light vanished behind the window, and I told myself I had handled the night.