I have to shrug, because it doesn’t seem mean to me. I’d love to be invited in fifty years when I’m old and obviously no longer playing, and that has me remembering.
I know the QB who got LA its first two rings a long-ass time ago, though I can’t remember right now exactly how many years, but Clive is eighty and still going strong.
He lives right next door to Derek, actually, and he’s always at the games, cheering us on—except when we play against his grandson which I don’t blame him for—so we’ve all gotten to know him.
“I’m gonna invite Clive, then. To every ring ceremony I ever go to, he’s gonna be my plus one. I bet he wouldn’t be as ungrateful as you.” I tilt my head back and away as if gravely offended.
“I’ll show you ungrateful,” Appletlon mutters. “Let’s see how you do in the bench press today, AJ.” He snaps his towel at my leg and I jump out of the way just fast enough to avoid the sting.
“Oh, man.” I can’t help the whine.
They’re gonna beat my ass.
They do whip my ass,but no one expected anything different, so it doesn’t really matter.
When we’re done with our workout, Appleton declares he’s skipping dinner because he has an early flight tomorrow.
He’s going back to Wisconsin for most of the next two months, and since he now lives a life of leisure, he can afford to. I wish him happy holidays, and we agree to hang out in a couple of weeks when we’ll play against his home team.
Then it’s just Derek, Tara, and me going to a steakhouse twenty minutes away.
Brent, Tara’s husband, never joins us since, as she put it a few years back,she’sour friend andheisn’t. She also said she needs some time away from him because they live and work together, and none of us dared contradict her—not that Brent ever would, he worships his wife accordingly.
She’s for sure one of the best people I’ve met in LA, and though Brent is right up there with her, it’s different. She reminds me a lot of my sisters, Sandy and Julie, not in attitude or anything, not really, but she teases me a lot and doesn’t make me feel like the great AJ Quick, which is nice.
Derek and Appleton, as well as some of the other guys on the team, have never treated me any differently than anyone else at the Warriors organization, but most of theplayers and even some of the staff are a bit too... in awe of me.
That doesn’t feel real nice for me, because I’m still human and I don’t like anyone thinking I’m not.
But that’s part of the job—people putting the highest of expectations on you and you barely meeting them some of the time—and so I only ever complain in my head.
“So, why were you late?” Tara asks once our drinks have been delivered—a glass of wine for her and sodas for Derek and me. He doesn’t drink during the season and I stopped drinking altogether about five years ago.
Not for any specific reason either, I just realized I don’t like the way alcohol makes me feel.
“I was at my agent’s office, and our meeting ran a little long. Then I had to go home and eat something before driving over here.”
She knows Cam, has met him a handful of times I think at the “family” barbecues I throw at my place during the off season, and I’m pretty sure I’ve brought him over to the gym two times as well.
He didn’t love it.
I do, but I know it’s not for everyone.
“Is everything okay?” Derek asks, a dark frown marring his face.
When I look in his eyes and find honest worry there, I realize he might think our meeting had something to do with the team—more specifically, my contract.
“Yeah, nothing about the team,” I assure him. “He justwanted to touch base on the ESoothe campaign I did last month?—”
“Oh, I liked that one,” Tara says and snorts to herself.
“It was funny, right?” I ask her but turn back to Derek right away. “And then we just chatted about a few... things,” I hedge, and mentally curse myself when his eyes narrow on me.
Fuck, why couldn’t I think of anything else to say?
Even leaving out “things” would’ve been better, because now he knows I’m not telling him something.
“What aren’t you saying?” he presses.
