Dalton groans then shakes his head. “No. You know Becca: as stubborn as she is beautiful.”
A chuckle vibrates in my chest. I’ve known both Dalton and Becca for over a decade, but their friendship was proven without a doubt after I was injured. They were the only couple who stuck by me through thick and thin. Becca even went as far as offering me a job with her design firm when I was released from my contract. I’m not exactly sure what she wanted me to do, but just the fact she offered reveals what a standup woman she is. Dalton got lucky when he stumbled upon Becca. All I got was hives from my college relationship.
Noticing Dalton has an Uber app open on his phone, I ask, “Do you want a lift? I’m about to head out anyway.”
He raises his eyes from his phone to me. “Don’t you have an endorsement meeting tonight?”
“Nah,” I lie. “They need proof I’m sitting at a zero body fat percentage before they’ll let me sell their sugar-loaded drinks—as if they won’t have their customers shitting out of the eye of a needle within a minute of drinking them.”
Dalton’s face screws up. “Thanks for the mental image.”
I slap him on the back, accepting the praise he never meant to give before directing him to the parking garage under the stadium. “Car is this way.”
While leading him away from the throng of reporters who’d give their left nut to capture the quarterback aspiring to return to his glory days, and the captain of a three-time state championship team on the same reel of tape, I send Danny a message.
Me:Family emergency. Cancel appointment with pharmacy rep.
Danny either anticipated my text or he’s sitting on his phone. I’d say it is a combination of them both. He’s rarely seen without an electronic device attached to his hand, but being my friend more than my agent means he felt my unease during our talk with a pharmaceutical company last month. They want me to endorse a diet shake they’ve created. I’ve always been a firm proponent of fueling your body with a good nutritious diet, not gunk that makes you so sick you can’t eat.
As Dalton and I push through a set of double doors, I answer my ringing phone. Danny breaks into a conversation without issuing a greeting. “We discussed this. Until you’ve proven yourself, the amount on your contract will be disbursed in minimum scheduled payments. By minimal payments, they mean not even enough to cover my salary. That’s where endorsements come in. No true sports star makes all his money on the field, Elvis. . .”
His words waver at my growl, but his scorn doesn’t lessen in the slightest. “You need this deal. Let an attack of the conscience eat you alive once you’re back on your feet.”
I sit on my reply for a couple of seconds to contemplate. I know the right thing to do, but I also understand Danny’s viewpoint. In this town, you’re nothing without money. If you have it, you’re expected to flaunt it. If you don’t, you fake it until you do. My $200,000 leased ride proves this more than anything.
Needing more time to deliberate, I reply, “I do have a family emergency.”
“Okay. That’s fine. We can reschedule.” Danny’s hurried words expose his relief that I’m not pulling out of the deal entirely. “What about tomorrow morning before you fly out? Say 8 AM?”
After pressing the lock button on my 2017 Aston Martin v12 Vantage S, I nudge my head to the passenger seat, suggesting for Dalton to begin the awkward maneuver it takes for men our size to squeeze inside. It’s no easy feat. We’re both over six-foot-two with shoulders wider than the Aston’s leather seats. Its cramped insides are smaller when Dalton’s shoulder squashes mine as I slam my door shut.
Giving up in defeat, I hum, “Reschedule the meeting, but don’t give the reps any indication I’m interested in their offer.” Dalton chokes on his spit when I say, “A little bit of disinterest may see their five million dollar offer climb to ten.”
“Just turn up and leave the rest to me. I’ll get you more than ten.”
In his eagerness to get negotiations started, Danny disconnects our call.
“Agents,” Dalton grumbles. “Can’t live without them, but it’d be a whole lot easier if we could.”
I laugh. It will be a long time before he goes down the “I love my agent” route. Only eight months ago, he fired his “ball-crusher” agent for using work events to place strain on his relationship with Becca. Amy thought the more she distanced Dalton and Becca with endorsement meetings, contract talks, and any other bullshit she could find, the more fragile the relationship would become.
She underestimated the love Dalton has for his wife, and in some ways, she helped their relationship blossom. If she hadn’t scheduled Dalton on the latest flight possible to attend the wedding of a mutual friend of both his and Becca’s, he would have discovered he was becoming a father the old-fashioned way—by being handed a pee-loaded stick.
Thank fuck his schmoozing wrangled him a flight an hour earlier—because no man shouldeverbe handed something a woman peed on. I get you’re excited, truly I do, but if it requires a toilet at any stage during usage, I don’t want to see it nor touch it. You can keep that shit to yourself.
Our trip from the stadium to the home Dalton shares with Becca reveals how different my life could have been if I had taken better care of myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not poor by any means. I just don’t have an eight-bedroom house with no mortgage and a paid-for-in-cash Maserati and top-of-the-line Range Rover in the driveway.
My crash pad is a few blocks from here. It’s one of those housing developments techies hide out in while waiting for their app to hit the big time. It has two full-sized tennis courts, three pools, and I was lucky enough to snag one of only two condos with a hot tub in the courtyard. It’s modest but not in a way its two million dollar price tag can hide.
Dalton flings off his seatbelt then locks his eyes with mine. “Coming up?”
A “no” sits on my lips, but a niggle in my gut shuts it down before my mouth can deliver it. Only once has my stomach cautioned me like this. It was when I told my physical therapist to head to my apartment instead of her office. It was two miles closer than our arranged meet-up point, and she wouldn’t need to go through an accident scene that had traffic backed up for miles.
If I hadn’t listened to my gut that day, I wouldn’t have discovered the extra-curricular activity Lillian was participating in every afternoon between two and three.
“I won’t stay long. Just long enough to check if Becca is okay.”
Dalton slaps my shoulder, wordlessly advising me he appreciates my support before clambering out of my car. It takes even more effort for us to peel out of my sardine can than it does for us to enter it.
