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“Thank you, Jason. And I’m truly sorry things didn’t work out between us.”
“Yeah. Whatever,” he replied before hanging up.
Compiling everything I had on Claude, I emailed them to Jason. It took a few days, but eventually he replied, ‘Not bad. I’ll see what I can do.’
That was step one. Step two was going to be far harder. I was going to have to convince Claude to stop hating me long enough to consider another offer.
Chapter 12
Claude
Titus had been right. Practice did make things easier. I wasn’t yet up to the compliment phase, but I was at the accepting invitations phase. So when Cage invited me to his and Quin’s next game night, I said yes. More than that, I went.
Almost everyone was there. It was a good time. My team even won a game.
Apparently, that was a near miracle because no one ever beat whatever team Quin was on. I don’t know what the big deal was, but according to Nero, that earned me a lifetime membership to the club. I felt bad for Quin, though. Everyone was making such a big deal that my team won that it couldn’t have felt good for him.
Anyway, driving home still feeling the alcohol, I felt pleased with myself. I was making progress. I was opening up, even if just a little. And already my life was better for it. Now, the only thing I had to worry about was,
“Merri!” I yelped, opening my front door to find him at the kitchen table talking to Momma. “What are you doing here?”
He winced. “Screwing things up?”
“Your ‘friend’ here was just telling me how you ‘helped’ him. You worked out for an NFL team?” Momma asked, shocked.
“Sorry,” Merri offered mournfully. “I should have realized she wouldn’t know. I just thought…”
“No, Merri, this is not your fault. It’s mine. Yes, Momma, he’s the friend I went to visit. He was in town a few weeks ago to ask me to workout for the NFL team he’s the assistant coach on. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you.”
Momma stared at me blankly. “So, let me get this straight, you had a friend in college? This whole time I thought I had raised a pariah. How many more friends have you had? Is Claude even your real name?”
I chuckled.
“That’s the name my momma gave me.”
“Is it? Because I don’t even know anymore.”
“Momma, can I talk to Merri alone?”
“So, you admit that your friend has a name. And you didn’t think to mention it all this time.”
“Please, Momma.”
She got up. Approaching me, she said, “Remember what I said about the bedroom window,” and then headed upstairs.
Alone with Merri, I turned to him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying not to sound harsh.
“I needed to talk to you.”
“You know, they’ve invented this thing called a phone.”
“I thought you deserved to hear this in person.”
I considered what he said, nodded, and then replied, “You look nice, by the way.”
It took a second for him to respond. When he did, it was as a deer would staring into the headlights of a truck.
