Page 57 of Omega’s Forward

Instagram: nothing. The account has been dead for years. Still nothing new.

The fund’s website: “Mr. Rourke is based in London.”

It’s still present tense.

The club statements don’t mention him at all. He’s not on Facebook. He’s not on X, or at least not that I’ve been able to find.

Which leaves LinkedIn.

God, I hate LinkedIn. It’s a website where smug jerks pat each other on the back for being smug jerks. Everybody is humbled, everybody is honored, everybody is thrilled to announce.

It’s also the only place on the entire internet where Everett Rourke is demonstrably alive.

So I go there every week, same as church.

His profile photo is the gray suit and a polite smile. Still, I stare at it from the fake account that I set up purely to stalk him because apparently LinkedIn lets you know when someone views your profile.

His activity is links. That’s the entire show. No posts, no announcements, nothing humbled or honored. Every week or two he shares an article — bond yields, fund structures, some regulator circling some other regulator — with no comment attached. I could not possibly care less about any of it, and I have read every single one to the end.

Tonight there’s nothing new. Same link at the top as last week. Same photo. I scroll down through the older ones anyway, as if something might have grown in the gaps since last week. Nothing has.

I refresh it anyway. Why can’t the guy get into arguments on social media like other people? He’s making this really hard for me.

The bell over the door goes, and I don’t look up until somebody pulls out the chair across from me and sits down in it.

I flinch hard enough to knock the cup, and then I’m looking at JP. He’s showered and dressed for McNally’s, a to-go cup already in his hand, which means he ordered, paid, and crossed the whole shop while I was nose-down stalking Everett Rourke. For a big man, he has always been quiet when he wants to be.

“Cap,” he says.

I turn my phone face-down on the table. There is no guiltier gesture known to man, and we both watch me do it.

“So this is the place.” He has a look around — the syrup shelf, the chalk menu, the chairs up on the tables. “Cozy.”

“How did you—”

“Brody. Everybody knows.” He says it kindly, which is worse. “You do this after every home game. Ozzy calls it your decompression stop. There was a whole thing in the group chat about whether somebody should come check on you, and Marchetti said give him space. So we give you space, but that was months ago.”

“Decompression,” I say.

“You want the working theory?” He tips his cup at me. “Theory is it’s the suspension. You come here, you chew on the hearing and ownership hanging you out to dry, and then you drive home and you’re fit to live with for about a day and a half.” He looks at my cup. “It’s a decent theory. Explains the mood. Explains the schedule.” A pause. “Doesn’t explain the drink.”

I don’t say anything.

“That’s his drink, right? I’ve never known you to drink anything like that.” JP’s voice stays level, friendly. “I watched you not look at him on that last day. Takes work, not looking at somebody like that.”

“It’s a latte, JP.”

He lets that sit for a moment. Outside, a bus goes by and rattles the window in its frame.

“Go get him,” he says finally. “If it’s like this — and it’s been like this for months, I’ve watched it — then get on a plane. London has airports. Worst thing he can say is no, and then at least you’d have a no instead of—” he nods at my phone, face-down between us, “—whatever that is.”

“You don’t know what he did.”

“So tell me.”

So I tell him.

“And I asked him,” I say. “Straight out. Did you even try? He looked me in the eye and said no. Said the league was right. Said it was long past time an example got made. His exact words.” The seam on the cup lid has come loose under my thumb. I press it flat.