Nick huffs, at least partially—it gets stuck in his throat and comes out as a strangled laugh, followed by another. “Fuck. Man, that wasgood. Jesus.”
Was it?I mean, he found it funny, and I’m not gonna take that from him.
“Alright, enough,” I say, steering us back toward something a little more serious, like his place on the team that’s at risk if he fails this class. “Let’s do this.”
We get on with it, and in around fifteen minutes, he has a smooth, correct, and appropriate little essay, all ready to turn in.
CHAPTER FIVE
NICK
I might have finished my Chinese assignment yesterday, but this is college, and I have another fifty things due today, too. At least my sleep schedule is fucked enough for me to stay up late and get stuff done without suffering too much the next day, provided?—
Ugh.
Provided nobody wakes me up before I have to.
Groaning, I reach for my nightstand and grab my buzzing phone. Right as I’m about to hang up and go back to sleep, my eyes catch on the caller ID.
It’s Brad. Myagent.
I accept the call.
“Did you see the news?” Brad asks, not giving me a chance to speak.
I try and fail to shake the sleep out of my brain. “Huh? What?”
“Nick, it’s past noon where you are. Did you just wake up?”
“Yeah, I had a super late night. I was balls-deep?—”
He groans. “Don’tfinish that sentence.”
“—in a mountain of deadlines,” I continue, which makes him scoff.
“Don’t scare me! God.” Those are tough words for someone who had to hold back a snicker at the end of his sentence. “Anyway, you didn’t hear this from me, but Jack Nowak is in some hot water with the league.”
Just hearing that guy’s name makes me roll my eyes. Nowak is the guy who scraped ahead of me in the draft last July, and he got a spot with Detroit’s minor league affiliate, the Lansing Lemurs. Onethat should have gone to me, since running quickly shouldn’t make up for his slightly worse batting average?—
“What happened?” I ask, to not seem like a total self-centered douche. Hot water could mean anything, from getting into a bar fight to?—
“Arrested for aggravated assault. The police also found a stash of unlicensed guns at his place.”
The hell?
“This is absolutely an unprecedented situation,” Brad continues. “I haven’t seen anything like it in my career so far.”
I bite my tongue to avoid reminding Brad that he’s less than five years older than me and that I’m one of his first clients. What he lacks in experience, he makes up for in results, so I sure as hell want to stay on his good side. Besides, he isn’t wrong about this being unheard of.
“Right,” I say. Even though I’m not one to relish in anyone’s downfall, I’m an undrafted free agent—openings are scarce, and anything helps. “What’s going to happen now?”
He huffs through the phone. “Now? Detroit’s shitting their pants, and I’m gonna be busting my ass off trying to get you back on their radar in case this goes nuclear.”
I stay silent. If there’s a chance at going pro, I sure as hell am gonna take it. Unlike my friends who are also studying Kinesiology, I have exactly zero ideas about how to turn my degree into something useful job-wise, so if there’s no way for me to go pro, I’ll have to come up with something before I graduate.
It isn’t like I have a home to go back to, but I thrive under pressure. If I make going pro my only option, maybe I’ll have a better chance at making it.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
