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“What do you have against Dan?” she asked.
“I’m a Packers fan.”
“So am I.”
“You’re a football girlfriend.”
“I was a football girlfriend. I’ve been a Packers fan since birth. Plus, I worked for the team even before I met Dan, so don’t question my loyalty.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
He said it so smug, though.
“It’s not fair to hate the quarterback for taking a better deal,” May pointed out. “It’s a career decision. This is his job. He couldn’t afford to play favorites, even if he wanted to stay in Green Bay.”
Another quirk of his lips. “What he’s getting paid now, though, he can afford whatever the fuck he wants.”
Her opinion of this statement must have shown on her face, because he lifted his hands, palms out. “Hey, I never said I’m fair. I’m loyal, though.”
“Not to Dan.”
“To the team.”
May took a drink. She liked the way the whiskey warmed her in slow increments, sip by sip.
She liked how it felt to argue with this stranger.
She didn’t argue, normally. It wasn’t polite. But Ben obviously liked being argued with a lot more than he liked being asked what he was reading.
“You’ve had a rough time of it.” He spoke the words gently. Too gently. Perversely, she wanted more sniping. More testing.
“Oh, but there’s more,” she said.
“Do tell.”
“I was supposed to be staying in the apartment and not attracting any undue attention until Dan came back from a meeting. We’d planned to fly to Wisconsin tomorrow and then drive up to Michigan to stay at my family’s cabin for Labor Day, only Dan and his agent put that on hold until after they talked to the PR people for the Jets. But instead I waited for them to leave for a meeting and then snuck out.”
“Nice.”
“I left a note on the fridge breaking up with him.”
“Ouch. After he proposed?”
“I know.”
“How long were you two a thing?”
“Four years.”
He winced.
“But this whole last year was long-distance. And even before that, we never lived together because he was in Green Bay and I was in Manitowoc.”
“Isn’t Manitowoc, like, thirty minutes from Green Bay?”
“Yeah. We saw each other a lot.”
“But you couldn’t rent a place together or something?”
