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“Oh my God, you’re adorable. What happened?”
“I am? Oh.Yeah. Pfft. I’m still adorable.”
He was too surprised. Clearly, he’d been worried I’d watch a different commercial, so I clicked the next link down.
My lips parted in shock. Here, he wore a three piece tuxedo, slid around in the same fancy car to clubs, and was surrounded by a bevy of longhaired women with very short dresses. He looked very, very good. “This is disgusting!”
He slumped in defeat. “You sound like my grandmother.”
“Your grandmother saw this?”
“I know!” Ryan sat up straighter and sounded as shocked as I was. Then smugness took over his voice. “She was appalled they made me work with such reckless young ladies.”
I started laughing, and clicked replay. “What did they do to your hair? It’s so...wavy.”
“I know,” he said sadly, leaning in closer to see. “I’m pretty sure there’s enough gel in it that pieces could have been snapped off.”
I snickered despite myself. “And look at the face this girl’s making. Ah! Look at your face!”
“What’s wrong with my face?” Ryan tried to snatch the phone away. I held on tightly.
“What did they tell you to do, glare smolderingly? You look like you’re trying to set something on fire with your mind, Mr. Jedi.”
“The director thought it was a good face!”
The laughter kept bubbling up. “You look like you’re trying to think, and it’s not going too well.”
“You think I look bad?”
I propped my head up, elbow on the table, giggling. “Ryan, we all know you’re beautiful. But next time don’t make it look like it takes you so much effort to use your brain.”
“You’re mean.”
“Someone has to tell you the truth, Golden Boy. What else is on here?” I kept scrolling through the videos. “Someone made a tribute reel about you? Wait, there’s more than one? There’s a highlight reel?”
“Give me my phone back!”
I clicked on one of the links. It started with a full stadium cheering Ryan on. He ran through the stadium—again—then again—and then he started making touchdown passes and rushing the end zone set to loud, triumphant music. And then there were clips of fans. And at the very end, a small clip, maybe from that commercial, with the little boy sitting on the ground, playing with a football.
I looked up at Ryan, my mouth slightly open. He looked at me warily, and when he spoke, his tone was guarded. “Are you going to make fun of that, too?”
“Make fun of it?” I repeated, my voice slightly high-pitched. “Ryan, I think that’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen. People do that for you? That’s amazing.” The video struck a chord in me—the way Ryan must strike chords with the people who made it, the way he mattered to so many.
“Really?”
“Yeah. People love you.” I dragged the video backwards, freezing on the small boy. It was complete and utter hero worship. These thousands of people, completely obsessed with the stars of sports. It really was modern-day gladiatorial games. People had cheered just like this for their favorites in the ring. Right up until they cheered their bloody deaths. “You’re really lucky you weren’t born two-thousand years ago.”
“What?”
“Well, because you’d probably be dead. Because you’d be a gladiator, of course,” I said absent-mindedly.
Ryan started laughing. “Rachael, I have no idea how your mind works.”
Thinking about gladiators made me think of the manuscript in my office, the one on Alexander. I sighed. “You know, by the time Alexander the Great was twenty-five, he had conquered half his known world. He had just taken Babylon. Babylon.”
Ryan laughed even harder, pillowing his head on his arms against the table. “I can’t even tell anymore. Am I being insulted because I haven’t conquered Babylon?”
“No, I haven’t. Alexander
