Page 9 of Base Block

He laughed, a deep “heh-heh-heh” that also made me smile. “It is fun. I missed it a lot in the years that I wasn’t playing. I didn’t go back to football for the money, although that would be good to have. I went back for the love of it.”

“That’s nice.” It really was lucky for him to have that chance in Michigan.

“Do you love styling?”

“Huh?” I questioned.

“You said that you were a stylist,” he reminded me.

“Oh.” That career was more aspirational right now. “I mostly did it with Millie and Sage,” I explained. “Sometimes Damian, too. Sage was part of the entourage with me and she was extremely difficult to dress. They let me pick their clothes and jewelry, and do their makeup.”

That made me wonder how long it had been since I’d checked my own makeup…I did remember that the fight in the bathroom at 20 Grand had kicked off around mirror access, but I didn’t have a clear picture in my mind of how I’d looked when I’d seen my reflection there. And since that time, it had been hours and hours. I flipped down the visor to see myself now.

Oh. Shoot.

“You’re a little worse for wear,” Callum commented.

“I am,” I agreed. My eye makeup had smudged, but not with a cute, deliberate, morning-after effect. The iris parts of my eyes were very dark, and the black gunk smeared in the hollows around them made me look like a demon. That was even worse because the white parts of my eyes were so bloodshot, probably from a lack of sleep but also due to Sage’s pills. Those had made me very thirsty, which also showed in my face. My lips were cracked to the point that they’d bled and my skin looked pale and papery.

My hair wasn’t good, either. It was golden color—usually. Right now, it was a lot darker, probably from sweat and oil. I had dirt on my arms and legs, black marks and generalized gray grime, and I also had cuts and a few bruises. Some of those were old but my body makeup had worn off, and some were new from the night before. My dress was crumpled and had that black streak on it from the ATV, and of course, I only had the hotel slippers to wear on my feet. One of the slippers was bloody because the cut must have opened up.

It had been a rough twenty-four hours.

“Do you have a shower at your house?” I wondered, and he said that he did and I could use it. That would feel good and I could also drink some of the water as I bathed. I wondered if he had food to share but decided that I couldn’t ask right now, not when I looked so awful—except, my stomach had lurched at the thought of eating. I would tackle that problem when I had cleaned up and was wearing…that was another problem, because he hadn’t seemed to like seeing my boob when I’d accidentally exposed myself before. He might have been gay, so my tits held no power over him. He also could have been religious or super moral, so he wouldn’t like me to walk around naked in his house. That was a bummer, because being naked was a great way to win friends. But there were other things I could try to get him on my side, techniques I’d used on Damian that had worked for me.

We’d driven in a lot of traffic when we had first left the downtown area, but it thinned out as we got back to the neighborhood where he lived. It looked even scruffier here than it had in the soft light of morning and I did see a couple of dogs lurking around. One was in a yard, barking as we went by, but the other was standing in front of an abandoned building and sniffing. It stared at the car as we passed and I avoided eye contact.

Unfortunately, we didn’t pass my shoes and when we got out in his driveway, I didn’t see them anywhere in the street. I couldn’t think of how far I had run last night when I was being chased—it had felt like miles and then Callum had shoved me into the back of his car.

“I can clean the blood out of here,” I mentioned, glancing at that area. “I bet that I can.”

“Later,” he answered. “Let’s eat first.”

That suggestion seemed to include me and my stomach lurched again. I stepped carefully, so I wouldn’t get any more blood on the driveway. You could see red smears there from when I had first arrived. I also stepped carefully because each time I put weight on my foot, it hurt.

He went around to his side door and a moment later, he popped back out. “Are you coming?”

I nodded, but he was already walking towards me.

“Here,” he said. “I’ll get you.” Then he swung me into the air, lifting me high and dropping me onto his shoulder. His big hand grasped my thigh but it didn’t seem like he was trying to grope me, just that he was holding me in place. He didn’t hit my head on the door when we went into the garage or on any of the ATVs, either.

“I have to get rid of all these,” he commented as he avoided one. “My neighbor flips them. I don’t mean he has accidents when he rides. He buys ‘em, fixes ‘em, and sells ‘em. But his wife was about to kill him over having so much junk in their house, because he also refurbishes cell phones and other shit, so he rented out my garage. I don’t want him to keep using it when I’m not here. Ready?”

He lifted me off his shoulder and set me on the floor inside. I stood on one foot, catching my breath, and checked out his kitchen. It was similar to my grandma’s old house, with yellow countertops that looked like plastic and wallpaper with large yellow blooms. I liked it, because it was cute in a retro way and also because it reminded me of her. I had liked her, too.

“I’ll make dinner,” he said. My stomach flipped and I tightened my grip on the OJ bottle. “You want to, uh, bathe?”

I did. I really did. He showed me the way to the bathroom, walking slowly so that I could hop along behind him, and it wasn’t very far since this was a small house. It was about the same size as Damian’s condo—not the mansion he’d rented in Calabasas, where we’d celebrated the release of his new album, but the actual place he’d lived with his parents in El Monte. I had only been there once, when Millie had sent me over to pick up a bracelet that he’d left behind by mistake. She’d told me not to talk about it, not to anyone.

This bathroom also reminded me of my grandma’s house, with its almond-colored tile, bright blue sink, and flowered wallpaper (this one featured turquoise and brown daisies). It had running water—kind of trickling, but hot when it came out of the showerhead. I fit under that perfectly, but I wondered how Callum could have used it. His shoulders must have stretched from the almond tile out past the plastic curtain. He also must have had to bend at the waist to wash his hair because he was quite a bit taller than I was, especially if I only wore my hotel slippers. I didn’t usually wear very high heels because Damian didn’t like us to look too big next to him since he was a little guy (except Millie had said not to call him little because he didn’t like that, either).

I guessed that Callum was six-five or -six and again, that was probably great for football. But it would have been a real pain in the ass when he was trying to shower in this bathroom. It was perfect for me, though. I stood under the water, enjoying it greatly, until I realized that I shouldn’t have been using so much. He didn’t have a lot in terms of products, just a generic shampoo (no conditioner) and a bar of soap that had seen better days. I scrubbed my body and washed my hair twice before I stepped out onto the carpet floor.

After a moment, I heard his footsteps. “Rainey?” he asked me through the door.

“Yes?”

“I got a towel for you. I don’t have too many and this this one is…it should be ok. I put a shirt out here, too,” he said. I heard him walk away and I heard some noise in the yellow kitchen, and then I opened the door to see what he’d left. There was a brown rag hanging on the doorknob on the opposite side of the hall, and there was an orange T-shirt on the floor. I grabbed both of them, dried off, and rebandaged my foot as best as I could. It had bled more in the shower and the wraps he’d given me that morning weren’t in the best shape anymore, but they still had some use left in them.