Page 20 of Base Block

“I’m starving. I’m a bottomless pit of hunger,” he said. “I’m—there they come.”

I turned to see what he meant. A number of large men had walked out of the stadium, some alone and others in pairs or small groups, talking together. Most of them wore sunglasses and carried bags, and just like the big building they had exited, they seemed to have an aura of cool. “Who are they?” I asked.

“The returning offensive line. Two of the starters retired after last season and one guy got traded.”

“So, there’s space for new people, like you,” I said.

“My position is still filled, but I wouldn’t be a starter even if I do make it. Hell, look at their cars.”

They were nice, but having hung around with the LA crowd, I knew that cars didn’t mean much. “One guy who kept showing up to Damian’s parties in Calabasas got a lot of attention for what he drove. It seemed like he had a new ride every week and they were all really, really expensive. Sage was after him for a while until Millie figured out that he was actually a valet, driving the cars that he was supposed to have parked at a restaurant.”

“He was a thief.”

“He was a borrower,” I corrected, “and he sure wasn’t the rich guy he pretended to be.”

“I’m pretty sure those Woodsmen players can actually afford their cars and they aren’t just ‘borrowing’ them.”

“But what I’m saying is that you never know. Maybe they drive those but they have thousands of dollars of gambling debt. Or maybe they’re also afraid of getting cut from the team,” I said, but then wasn’t sure about that. “Are they allowed to cut those guys, too?”

“Sure,” he said. “The roster isn’t set in stone. They could get dropped or traded, but it’s not likely.” We watched a Bentley exit the parking lot and then kept walking.

I watched him rubbing his shoulder as we went. “Does that hurt?” I asked.

“Some. I saw the trainer today before the meeting.”

Another thing I had recently learned was that football trainers didn’t only develop exercise programs and watch you work out, like they had at the gym where Millie and I had gone. The staff here could diagnose and treat problems and if they needed help with that, there were Woodsmen doctors, too. They also had X-rays and all kinds of other machines, so it was kind of like a private sports hospital for the players.

“What did that trainer say?” I questioned him. “Are you hurt somehow?”

“No, it’s just sore. I was thinking that we should go out tonight and see some of the sights around here, but I’m so tired. I’m sorry.”

“That’s ok,” I said immediately. “Let’s go to the motel and you can rest.”

“You didn’t get to see things when you went to those other cities, though. I figured you’d want to make some videos or have me pose.”

Our social media enterprise hadn’t taken off like I’d wanted, but I hadn’t quit trying. “I’ll force you into that another day,” I answered. “For right now, we can head home. I’ll drive.” That meant moving the seat forward and then adjusting the mirrors down, quite a bit. Callum’s green car was just fine and he didn’t need a fancier one. As long as it kept running, we were ok—it did make that strange, metal-scraping noise when I started it, but he didn’t seem concerned. In fact, he reclined the passenger seat, put his wrist over his eyes, and relaxed.

Because this was a really busy time of year in northern Michigan, we hadn’t had a lot of luck with accommodations. The place we were eventually able to rent was quite a ways from both the stadium and the practice facility. I proceeded there cautiously because I was out of practice behind the wheel. Damian hadn’t let us use his car so the last time I’d been a regular driver was when I had lived in Washington.

“We used to have such a funny car,” I said out loud. “My grandma didn’t like to drive, so it had, like, five thousand miles on it even though it was thirty years old.”

“She lived with you?”

“Um, no, I lived with her,” I corrected.

“Why? What happened to your parents?”

“They died. When Grandma passed away, my aunt Simone said the car was hers. I don’t know if she actually inherited it, though, if it was legal or not.” Everything had become hers, including the house, but I had kept living there too. “I miss that car,” I continued. “I think that my grandma had paid someone to modify the engine so that you couldn’t get it to go above forty. We had to take back roads everywhere.” She had been worried about how Aunt Simone drove, like she worried about everything else that my aunt had done. Simone had been sneaky, and she had certainly fooled me.

“Where’s your aunt now?” he asked.

“Dead. You lived with your grandparents too, right?”

“No, I didn’t know them,” he told me.

“What? You had their house.”

“It was also an inheritance, but a real one,” Callum explained. “I got a certified letter that said I had to go see a lawyer, and then I got a big surprise. They had left me that property even though I’d never met them.”