Jayson set down his glass.
“You are doing so well.”
He said it almost tenderly. The tone was, Piper had long since understood, a trained tone, the tone of a man who had learned early in his life that tenderness was a register that reduced resistance.
“You can clean up. Car in twenty,” Jayson said.
Piper stood. His legs held. One of the calibrations. He walked to the guest bath. He cleaned himself up. Cum was running out of him still. He wiped it away with a Frette washcloth that matched the hand towels that matched the bath mat. He redressed. He was doing his best to avoid his reflection in the mirror. He had stopped looking in the mirror at Atherton nine years ago.
***
In the entryway, Piper pressed his back against the cool plaster wall and breathed. He had spent a decade becomingexcellent at a great many things. This, unfortunately, had turned out to be one of them.
***
Seven Years Earlier
The revised papers had come six weeks after the accident, his father gone, his mother already in her second round of rehab, the estate unsettled, grief making everything feel like paperwork to deal with later. Jayson had managed all of it. Jayson had managed, too, the arrangements for his mother, who by that point had been through one treatment center in Malibu and another in Arizona, neither of which had held.
Real Moms of Pro Footballhad wrapped its second season. The studio had let her go after the reunion, on which Donna Ashton, visibly drunk at eleven in the morning, had called her cast mate a cunt on camera, thrown a glass of chardonnay at another cast member, broken the table, and spent the next hour explaining to the producer, in increasing volume, why she would not befuckingapologizing.
The clip had moved faster than the network could pull it. The studio had announced her exit as a departure for treatment. She had entered treatment and left treatment eleven days later. She had entered a different treatment and had left that one too. Jayson had told Piper, very quietly, that he would handle it.
A facility outside Santa Barbara with a glowing recommendation by one of Jayson’s friends who ran a foundation. His mother was on her fourth round now. Piper hadn’t seen her in nearly three years, but was reminded of her via withdrawal notices from his bank account for her living expenses in the tens of thousands of dollars.
***
Present Day
Piper walked through the house, his face doing what it had learned to do. Nothing at all.
Outside, the air was cool and dry. A car was waiting at the end of the driveway to take him back to the airport so he wouldn’t miss practice the following day. The car moved through the gates, then the second set of gates, then out onto the road that ran between the oaks. Piper watched the motion-sensor lights come on and go off at the edges of properties he couldn’t see.
Focusing on the lights felt right.
Chapter Thirteen: Los Angeles
Piper headed to practice on time as usual.
In the locker room,Hypnotizeby The Notorious B.I.G. blasted at a volume that could burst an eardrum.
Tank Jefferson sat at his locker, lacing his cleats. He looked up as Piper entered.
“Sup, my guy.”
Tank studied him.
“You look tired as fuck.”
“Didn’t sleep much.”
Tank nodded. “How was the party? Sorry I couldn’t go, my brother is in town, you know the drill.”
“It’s all good, you know I hate parties and all the bottom feeding influencers sucking the joy from my fucking soul,” Piper replied as he rolled his eyes.
Tank didn’t ask anything else. Tank didn’t pry unless Piper was in a sharing mood, which was after a bottle of wine during off season when they would head to Vegas to gamble, drink, and see whatever was the hot new residency. He said what mattered and left the rest alone. He was the ideal best friend to Piper and the teammate he depended on to win the most. Piper never spoke of Atherton to Tank, Never spoke of it to anyone, even Joan was left out of the loop.
“Bro, your little underwear campaign blew the fuck up this week.” Tank pulled out his phone.
