Page 30 of Base Block

Eventually, we decided to move toward our seats. They were pretty high up and it was a little hard for me to climb to them, since I was stiff in the legs. But you could see everything happening on the field where the Woodsmen were warming up. I spotted Callum and stayed serene, instead of screaming or waving my arms over my head. I had done the same thing when Damian’s friends had bugged me (if Matheus the bodyguard wasn’t there to make them keep their hands off): I kept alert but pretended utter calmness, as if I didn’t care at all that they were trying to rub against my breasts or that one of their hands had landed on my butt and was squeezing.

“Is there an animal that is good at hiding its emotions? Like, it won’t show that it’s scared?” I asked Anara.

She had a few species in mind, but she wasn’t hiding her own emotions at all. Her boyfriend was stretching on the sidelines and in between discussing guinea pigs (they were apparently experts at disguising fear), she was shrieking his name.

“Demitrious! De-mi-tri-ous!” She boomed out every syllable and although we were high up in the stands, she was loud enough that he might have been able to hear her. Unfortunately, there were a lot of other fans yelling and cheering, too, and they drowned her out. She sat back down, disappointed. “I may as well tell you about horses and how they don’t demonstrate pain in obvious ways. Prey animals,” she said, sighing.

But we weren’t brought down for long by her discussion of horrific horse injuries. There was so much going on here, from the players stretching and doing drills, to the Wonderwomen cheerleaders, to the anthem sung by a really excellent barbershop quartet, to the announcers Herb and Buzz appearing on the jumbotron (to deafening cheers), and so much more.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” I asked Heidi. Having been around football so much, I assumed that she would say yes.

“No!” she answered, her eyes huge. “This is amazing.”

It got better. The game started and it turned out that Anara’s encyclopedic knowledge wasn’t limited to animals, because she also knew everything about football. She answered every question I had about rules and she shared a lot about strategy, leading me to ask even more. At one point, she stopped mid-sentence and stared at me.

“You’re getting all this really fast. I kind of thought you would be dumb.”

Heidi, seated between us, gasped, “Anara! That was rude.” But I didn’t particularly care, since most people had thought that about me for my entire life.

“I’m saying that she’s so pretty, it’s hard to believe that she’s also intelligent. You’re in the top five of the most attractive people I’ve ever come across, both male and female,” Anara explained. “But you’re also smart, like an African gray parrot or a dolphin. Or a rat,” she added. “I happen to believe that they’re extremely cute.”

“Still, you shouldn’t say something like that,” Heidi admonished, and then quietly explained why. I could see what would make her a good teacher when she got to start that career.

But mostly, we were watching the game and it was so good. Even without Callum out on the field—

Then he did get out on the field, and he was incredible. I could hardly breathe. Anara stopped talking for a moment because she was busy watching Demitrious and yelling like a sperm whale (which I had already learned was the loudest creature in the animal kingdom). Anyway, she left me alone for a while to stand with my hands clasped, thinking that this was the best thing I had ever seen. Sometimes the quarterback threw the ball and sometimes the other guys had it and ran, but my eyes stayed on Callum, watching how hard he worked and how strong he was, how quickly he moved and how he reached out to help one of the guys on the defense back to his feet.

Both of the other girls had told me that the preseason wasn’t important and that the wins and losses were meaningless, since the starters mostly didn’t play. But it meant a lot to me to see Callum out there and it seemed to mean a lot to the fans in the stadium, because they all went nutso cheering at the end when the Woodsmen won. Anara and Heidi were going hoarse, so it seemed like they actually did care, too.

We sat in the stands, soaking it up, before we went down, down, deep into the stadium to the lounge where friends and families (the people with passes) got to wait for the players to come out. I sat with my hands over my knees to hide the bandages because I was tired of answering questions about them, and also, I didn’t want Callum to notice right away and wonder why I was covered in road rash. When I’d been with Damian, I’d always used a lot of body makeup to cover stuff but I didn’t have any of that now. I hadn’t thought I’d need it anymore.

We had taken our time as we came down here but it took even longer for the players to come out. There were a few kids asleep on the various couches and one woman held a baby cuddled to her chest, safely sleeping there. I wished I could have asked to hold it, but maybe Heidi and I would stay friendly. Then I could hold her baby in six months or so, if she trusted me.

Finally, the members of the offensive line started walking out, huge guys that came single file through the door that led to the locker room and media area. The woman with the baby met one of them and I watched them leave, but I was mostly keeping my eye out for—

There he was. I jumped up and he came right over, grinning. “One down,” he said as he reached for my hands. “My first game as a pro.”

“It was so good,” I told him. “I think you played perfectly.”

“I would rate your footwork as an eight out of ten,” Anara told him.

“Eight? That’s not too bad,” he answered and I introduced him as she explained that she rarely gave anyone a number higher than six, and also showed him the monocular that she used to get a good view.

“To be honest, I’m not sure if your rating is fair. I only watched you when Demitrious wasn’t out there—Demitrious!” She flew across the room and into her boyfriend’s arms as he also stepped through the door.

“She’s crazy about him,” I noted.

“I can see that. He talks about her non-stop, too,” Callum told me. “You ready?”

We walked out of the stadium and towards the parking lot. There were a ton of Woodsmen fans outside, all wearing the same orange that I was, but waist-high barriers held them back. He stopped and let go of my hand in order to sign autographs and then the funniest thing happened.

“Rainey! Could you sign my shirt?”

I stared at the woman. “Me? Really?”

“I love your channel,” she said. “I watched you make those earrings and I tried to do some, too.” She touched her ear and I told her that they had come out great, and I did sign her shirt with just my first name. I didn’t use “Desjardins” or anything else in the videos, either.

Callum was waiting behind me, smiling. “You’re famous,” he said as we walked away.