6. Real Distance #2
The handler glanced between us but kept the tablet tucked against his side. For once, even he seemed to recognize that his schedule could wait.
Dad stepped farther into the kitchen. “Gone where?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That answer irritated me the second it left my mouth. I was standing in my own house with no idea where my wife was, while the man who managed nearly every public hour of my life looked at me like I had misplaced a reservation.
“Piper saw the TMZ photos from McGinnis’s. She left her ring on the table and she’s already heading south on I-95.”
Dad rubbed a hand over his face.
The reaction wasn’t what I expected.
No alarm. No question about whether she was safe. No demand that I call security or send someone after her.
Just annoyance.
“Jesus, Nolan. Don’t let her manipulate you with this classic WAG playbook nonsense. She is throwing a ridiculous tantrum to get your attention before the Seattle game.”
I stared at him.
“She drove out of the city in the middle of the night.”
“And?”
“And she left her wedding ring.”
Dad gave the ring another glance. “Yes, I can see that.”
The handler shifted his weight beside the doorway. “Do you want me to pause the travel confirmations?”
Dad turned his head. “No.”
“Hold on,” I said. “I didn’t say anything about Seattle yet.”
Dad looked back at me. “Because there is nothing to say. You have a game.”
“My wife is driving south without telling me where she’s going.”
“Your wife wants you to chase her.”
The certainty in his voice stopped me more than the words themselves.
Dad had always been good at stripping the emotion from a situation, leaving only the decision. Contract disputes. Sponsor problems. Coaching politics. I had spent years trusting him to look past whatever noise surrounded me and tell me which part mattered.
He nodded toward the ring.
“Think about it. If Piper wanted space for a few hours, she could have gone to a hotel. If she wanted to talk, she could have answered your call. She left that where you would find it because she wanted a reaction.”
I looked down at the band.
Dad’s logic fit too easily into the anger I’d already been carrying.
“She’s never done anything like this before. I understand that she’s angry I missed the dinner, but I didn’t expect her to bolt.”
Dad stepped closer to the island.
“Exactly. She knows normal disappointment doesn’t move you during the season, so she escalated.”
“That’s not how Piper operates.”
“Everyone has a breaking point.”
His tone stayed matter-of-fact, almost bored.
The handler finally lowered the tablet a little. “For what it’s worth, sir, if she used the card on the interstate, at least you know she’s mobile. She’s not stranded somewhere.”
I looked at him.
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, sir. I’m just saying the transaction confirms she has transportation.”
Dad cut in before the handler could dig himself deeper.
“Your mistake right now would be treating this like an emergency.”
I glanced back toward the hallway.
Piper still wasn’t there.
The empty house had been telling me something was wrong since I walked in, but Dad stood in the middle of the kitchen treating it like just another inconvenient piece of publicity to manage.
“She could be halfway to another state by now.”
“And she’ll stop when she’s tired.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
That landed harder than I wanted it to.
Dad pointed toward my phone. “You called her?”
“Yes.”
“She answer?”
“No.”
“Then she wants you wondering.”
I didn’t respond.
My grip tightened around the band while the handler returned his attention to his tablet.
Dad had already reduced the whole night to a pattern he recognized, treating the argument like it was already settled.
He looked at the ring in my hand as if Piper had left behind nothing more serious than a bad mood.
And some part of me wanted him to be right.
“What if she keeps driving?”
Dad gave me a flat look. “Then she keeps driving until she gets tired and checks into a hotel.”
“You don’t know Piper.”
“I know what chasing her tonight will teach her.”
I hated his logic because I understood exactly what he meant. If I got in a car and started following card charges down the interstate, Piper would know that leaving the ring had worked. She would know she could pull me away from anything by walking out.
That didn’t make the idea of leaving her alone sit any better.
“She’s on the road by herself.”
“She is an adult, Nolan.”
“She’s also my wife.”
Dad pointed at the ring. “And your wife knows you have a job.”
The handler glanced up from his screen. “The travel office needs your final confirmation before they close the manifest.”
I turned toward him. “And if I miss the charter?”
His fingers stopped over the tablet. “Then team operations has to explain why QB1 didn’t travel with the roster. The coaching staff will get dragged into it, and the press will start asking questions before breakfast.”
Dad spread one hand toward him. “There. That’s the reality.”
I looked back down at the ring.
Piper hated the press. She hated Reid’s cameras, the sponsor events, the constant speculation around Sloane. If I suddenly missed a team flight hours after the McGinnis photos hit every sports site in the country, somebody would start digging.
That was the last thing she wanted.
Dad must have read something in my expression because he pushed harder.
“You chase her down the interstate tonight, you turn a private argument into a story. Somebody at the airport sees you. Somebody on the team leaks that you missed travel. Then a reporter starts asking why.”
“She doesn’t want anyone knowing about us.”
“Exactly.”
That single word was impossible to argue with.
For three years, protecting Piper from the circus had been the reason behind almost every ugly compromise I made. Keeping her name out of press releases. Keeping photographers away from the house. Letting Reid manage the public version of my life so she could keep the private one.
Going after her now could expose the very thing we had spent years protecting.
The handler checked the time on the tablet.
“Mr. Callahan, the team charter is fueled and waiting on the tarmac. We need to leave for Seattle in exactly two hours.”
Two hours.
That was enough time to grab my bag, get to the airport, and reach the team plane without turning the night into another crisis for the organization. It was not enough time to chase an unknown car somewhere down I-95 and somehow fix my marriage beside a gas pump.
Dad stepped closer.
“You see, Nolan? We have eighty thousand fans waiting in Seattle and a hundred-million-dollar brand launch on the horizon. You cannot validate this dramatic exit by ruining the trip.”
“I don’t care about the campaign right now.”
“You will when the endorsement lawyers start asking why you blew up the launch over a domestic argument.”
“It’s not just an argument.”
“Then stop treating it like one you can solve tonight.”
I looked toward the hallway again. The house still offered nothing back.
Piper had made a decision without asking me what happened at the bar. She had seen a few seconds of footage, packed whatever she needed, and driven away. Maybe Dad was right about one thing: following her now wouldn’t force her to listen.