Page 28 of Base Block

Right, they didn’t need that money. Neither did Callum now, because his new agent and lawyer had negotiated a salary beyond the rookie minimum, more than 28.7 times what he had made in a year in the lumber department.

It was enough to afford the place where we now stood, which had two bedrooms, a washer and dryer hook-up, a dishwasher that the complex manager was going to have repaired, and a lot of windows. There was permanent fog in some of the glass but that was ok, because many of our views seemed to be into other condos. The manager kept apologizing and saying that there just wasn’t much inventory right now, but I thought he was nutso. This place was great, even with our neighbor that liked to play a trumpet kind of early, and Callum loved it, too. There was space for everything—too much space, in fact, since neither of us owned a lot.

Right now, he looked through some of his belongings one more time before he left. He had packed his bag very carefully and had included the outfit that I’d picked for him when we’d gone shopping. The Woodsmen players were on camera on game days when they left their hotel and walked to their luxury coach, and they also got filmed when they went into the stadium. He was going to look great in his new clothes. He’d also made me pick something for myself, something besides the tennis shoes. Victoria had warned me that the night games here got chilly, even in the summer, so I had bought a black sweater that would go with orange and could have been cashmere unless you looked very closely.

“I think I’m ready,” he said. He looked down at me.

“You are,” I agreed.

“You’re ok here? Call me if you need me.”

“I will, but I’ll be fine,” I promised. I had stuff to do, too. I had jobs to apply for, videos to edit, old Herb and Buzz podcasts to listen to, comments to answer on previous posts—those were getting more reactions and views than before, a lot more. I would exercise, I would…

I would miss him, even if it was only for the night. “You’ll have to get used to being alone,” Heidi had told me. She had invited me over to their rented house on the day after the roster got released. “The season feels really long and they’re gone a lot. It’s better if you have something for yourself, like a job or kids. Or both.”

I was working on that first one and I really would be fine…but I was still going to miss him. We had spent so much time together that now, even being in separate bedrooms felt strange. But this condo was very nice, and it was better to have a larger bathroom and a little balcony where we could put his shoes outside.

“You’re going to be great and I can’t wait to watch you,” I said.

“Don’t limit yourself to calling only if you need me. Just call whenever you want,” Callum said. “Ok?”

I nodded, but I didn’t plan to bother him.

“I’ll see you after the game.” Then he walked off toward the parking lot and he was gone.

Ok. I could do all those things that I had thought about, especially the part about finding a job. Heidi had gotten hired already, but she had a college degree and a résumé with good experience described on it. She had shown me when I’d asked to see it and I was impressed.

I looked at the door through which he’d just left. Damian had tracked us on our phones, wanting to know where we were at all times. He had gotten very pissed off when the location didn’t work right because of a weak signal or when Sage had turned hers off. I had found that surveillance to be annoying but now I wished that I could see Callum’s location, just because it felt like some kind of connection…

Heidi was correct: I needed to find more stuff to do with my time. For right now, I would go for a walk and then I’d do some ab work and a yoga video. I had noticed that my jean shorts, which I had bought in Indianapolis, were feeling a little tight and I didn’t like that. It reminded me again of Damian and how he’d had Sage and me stand in front of him for inspections. Once, he had asked Millie to get our measurements and she’d had to pretend that she was doing something with string because she didn’t actually have a measuring tape or even a ruler.

I put on my new shoes and went out the door, still thinking about all of them. Once I’d gotten the chip for my phone, I had looked them up. They had been posting basically the same videos and the same pictures, saying almost exactly the same stuff. “I love [insert city]!” “Come party with us at [name of club]!” “VIPs at [hotel].” Millie didn’t appear in any of that, because Damian didn’t think that she was pretty enough, but I could tell that she was there. She was still directing how they posed and she was so great with lighting.

When I checked now, I saw that they were back in Los Angeles. As I walked, I also saw that they had added a new girl to the entourage. She looked a lot like me, with similar golden blonde hair but with blue eyes instead of dark brown ones. Damian had always said that my eyes should have been a better color, so that choice made sense. He had posted that he was back in the studio but I recognized the room where they’d taken the picture, and it was the lower level at the house in Calabasas. They’d tried to fake it by adding some audio equipment.

“Maverick. Mav! Stop! Stop!”

I turned toward the voice and I saw the dog running at me. It was huge, black and brown, and its mouth hung open so I could also see its teeth. I started running, too, but I had gone faster when I was barefoot or maybe that last dog had been slower…I heard its nails clicking, just like I’d heard that night I had been left at 20 Grand.

“Stop running!” the woman yelled. I didn’t know if she meant me or her dog, but I didn’t listen and neither did the animal. It caught me as I tried to run up the steps into another condo.

“Maverick! Are you ok? Poor baby!”

This time, I was aware that she was speaking to the dog. It hadn’t bitten me but it had planted its paws on my back and knocked me down.

She hugged her pet and glared at me. “You scared him,” she accused. “Why did you run like that? He just wanted to say hello.”

I was trying to stand by pushing myself off the steps and hanging onto a scraggly tree planted next to the pathway. “I thought that dogs in this complex were supposed to be on a leash,” I said.

“I use flexible voice control! If you’re so fearful of animals, maybe you shouldn’t go outside!” But she did yank a leash from a loop in her belt and clicked it onto the dog’s collar before they hurried away. She stomped angrily but it wagged its tail a lot, as if it really was friendly.

I limped home instead of continuing on my walk and I did other stuff instead of yoga. Callum and I talked for a minute, but the team had a device ban the night before games. They gave out a number to contact in case there was a real emergency, but other than that, the players were supposed to focus on each other and the upcoming action on the field.

“You doing ok?” he asked me, but almost immediately, I heard him respond to someone else. “I like my phone. What the hell do you care?”

“Are they teasing you?” I asked.

“I don’t mind if they—yeah, I’m talking to Rainey,” he answered another voice. “You think so? Come a little closer and say that again.” There was a pause. “Chicken shit halfback just ran away,” he reported to me.