And then the door opened again, and a giant man entered. Then another.
“Remember these guys? We saw them a while ago when we were out to eat,” Everett said, and I did remember the Woodsmen offensive line. “They were talking about going out after the game, and I said the first round at Jannie’s was on me. You told me some things before about making friends, how buying drinks for people was the way to go in elementary school.”
A big blonde man offered his hand to me. “Ma’am,” he said, and we shook. He nearly took my arm off. “I’ll try an orange beer.” He looked puzzled by the color but finished it in less than a second.
But it wasn’t just the Woodsmen who showed up—their fans tracked them, and they also came. Suddenly, the bar was packed. I had never seen such a crowd in Jannie’s place before, not even when my parents had held their wedding reception here. I had been old enough to remember the occasion (but not old enough to be in a bar). My mother and Jannie had gotten into a screaming match and had tried to take it into the parking lot, but in the darkness out there, my mom had tripped in her heels and broken her wrist. Both the fight and the party had ended.
Tonight, there was no fighting. We were run-off-our-feet busy, racing to tables and back to the bar to fill orders, putting on gloves to unplug two of the toilets (they always clogged), and hurrying to get a mop and towels after several of the fans poured their “orange” beers out on the floor.
“That wasn’t very nice,” I said, but they had paid for those and it was hard to blame them for being disgusted by the color.
After a few rounds, most of the Woodsmen offense moved to another bar and their fans/hangers-on went with them, until only Jannie and I were left with the sticky puddle we’d been unable to totally clean. And also, Everett had stayed.
He hadn’t strayed from the can of tonic water, but the other people had really drunk a lot and Jannie was practically dancing with happiness. But all of us were also yawning. “I’m going to close up early,” she told us. “This is going in the books as my best night ever.”
“It has to go in the books for real,” I warned her. “We’re going to work on your accounting next week.”
“I’m leaving too,” he said to me, and stood. “You drive in front and I’ll follow in the truck.”
But I had to clean up the bar, and I sent him on his way without me. It had been the best night ever for Jannie but it was also great for me. I’d gotten to go to the Woodsmen game, and I’d loved it. Everett had been happy that I was there—he’d said that it made a difference to him. He’d played amazingly well, proving once and for all that he was the superior QB. Then he’d gotten so many guys to come here and they’d brought a crowd with them. I didn’t even mind cleaning up the puddle, although I now suspected that it wasn’t just beer that looked like urine. There actually might have been urine in it, too.
There were lights on at the house when I finally made it back but when I went in, Everett was asleep on the couch. I debatedwhether or not to wake him, but he’d slept there last winter after he’d gotten the concussion and I’d already decided that it was more comfortable than the mattress I’d bought for Willow and me to use in our former studio apartment. I stood, smiling down at him, and then I got a blanket even though this house had great temperature control. I could already tell that I wouldn’t be able to see my breath here in the winter…of course, I would move out by the time that winter came around and when the football season was over, he would go back to Arizona to his grandma’s house.
The next morning, I slept in very late for me. When I got up and dressed, the couch was empty in the living room but I heard noise in the gym. Everett was walking slowly on the treadmill and he waved when I entered.
“I thought this was your day off,” I commented.
“I’m trying to loosen up a little.” He swung his arms. “It’s a long season and if I go down, Dallas is going to take the spot. I made you a smoothie, if you want it.” He pointed to the mini fridge.
“Thank you.” I got it and took a sip. It tasted a little like lawn clippings, but I was sure it was good for me. “Dallas Laforet wouldn’t ever get the starting job for keeps, because you’re better.” I thought about how I’d wished harm on that guy. Just a little harm, but it still hadn’t been nice. “Maybe he could go be the starter somewhere else,” I suggested.
“Probably not.” He hit a button and the treadmill slid to a stop. “It’s hard enough to get into this league. I always said that Iwould play pro football like it was a given, but I had no idea how hard it was going to be. I didn’t know how lucky I was.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
He stepped off the machine and sat on one of the benches he used for lifting. “You think I was humble and grateful?”
“No, but I don’t think it was lucky. I think you got here because of talent but you must have worked at it, too. You couldn’t have spent all your time gluing doors closed.”
“And in the emergency room, getting my fingers separated,” he added.
“You didn’t throw any of those emergency room balls last night. Did anyone apologize to you?”
“Like my former teammate? The coaches?” He shook his head. “Jarron was right to be angry at me but he said that we were all good, and I think we are. The QBs coach and I are going to talk today about things I can improve.”
“What things? There aren’t any.”
“I’ll tell him you said so. What do you want to do today? What do you usually do on weekends?”
I was trying to collect my thoughts. I believed that I must have misunderstood him, that I’d misinterpreted things just as I had in high school, when my invitation to the senior prom had only been a social media prank but I’d believed it.
“I have to go in this morning for that meeting and then to see the trainer, but I’m off all afternoon,” he continued. “Are you busy?”
There were things I could have done, like continuing my salvage work on the boxes piled in his garage, but I shook my head. That could wait. “One thing we could do is have a picnic.”
“A picnic? Like with a basket?”
“We could sit on the beach and eat. You only get a little sand in your food,” I assured him.
