“Yeah, that was totally all you.” Rolling my eyes, I grab my water and chug.
“How is our girl?”
“Our girl? She ain’touranything. She’s mine. Mine alone.”
“Touchy.” Miller holds his hands up in surrender. Sobering, he asks more seriously, “How is she, though? The media attention has to be a lot to take in. I saw they were waiting for her when she landed at LAX. Have they been following her?”
My teeth grind together at the reminder. There were live streams of her plane landing, for fuck’s sake. She had to be ushered off the plane by security and then was bombarded bypaparazzi as she tried to leave the terminal and make it to the car waiting for her.
Ivory was in tears by the time she was able to call me from the car. My protective instincts had half a mind to fly straight to L.A. and string every one of them up for attacking her. Those scums shouted the vilest things at her. The only reason I stayed in Tampa instead of flying to her immediately is because she put her foot down. Ivory wouldn’t let me sacrifice my place on the team for her. The hell with this game though if she was in danger.
“She says it's dying down now. The shutdown restrictions are stricter in L.A. which is the only saving grace. I hate the idea of her stuck in that lonely ass condo though because they are camped out waiting for her to go somewhere.”
“Why those people can’t see that she is a human being like everyone else really grinds my gears.” My best friend has become protective of my girl. “Does she have anyone there?”
“Tay was there when she arrived but I think she had to go back to New York to handle a few things. You should see the place, man. There is nothing in the space that feels like home. Nothing that speaks of her.” Don’t get me wrong, it's a very nice condo and the view of the Pacific Ocean is gorgeous, but it’s also cold and detached. I worry that she is going to revert back to the shell of herself in that environment. It scares me.
“Is she working? Can she go anywhere?”
“She has some meetings with the studio and network execs this week. There are some loose ends on the project she had wrapped filming for before Belize.”
“What about the new thing?” Ivory spent a lot of time deciding what was next for her career while we were in Belize. She finally decided to drop the canceled project for good. It no longer served her and I was so proud of her for recognizing that.
“She wrote something new between all our adventures, but she is keeping it very hush hush. I don’t really know what it’s about or what she is planning to do.”
“Dude, that doesn’t bother you?
“How so?” My hackles rise as his tone.
“I don’t know, dude. Here you are all in for this girl and you don’t even know her next move. I mean you spent three months together, every waking minute. And she didn’t share her intentions? You’re stuck here in your contract for however many years. There’s nothing you can do about that. I get that she has an important career too, and I wouldn’t want her to give that up. But I don’t want to see you get hurt, putting all your eggs in her basket.”
“I know you mean well and that you care, but I can’t do this right now. Especially not when I’m about to talk to Coach. We both agreed that we would make this work. That this wasn’t goodbye. I have to believe that.”
“Sorry, bro. I’m here for you.” Miller pulls me into a bro hug. “Sure you don’t want me to come with you? I can wait in the truck.”
“Nah, I’m good. I’ll meet you back at your house.”
“Sounds good.” Grabbing my keys, I head for the door, yelling over my shoulder.
“You’re cooking, I expect a five-star meal.” Opening the door, I step outside into the Florida humidity. “And lock up when you leave.”
“Fielder, nice of you to show up.” Coach quips from behind his desk when I walk into his office. It’s been my on-field nickname for as long as I can remember.
“Well, you know I would have been here sooner, but…” Shrugging, I leave the end of my sentence unfinished as I sit in the chair opposite his desk.
“Don’t get smart with me, son. That stunt you pulled has landed you in hot water. How irresponsible can you be?” Coach throws his hands up before starts counting off my offenses. “First, you take a trip when I explicitly told you to stay ready for when we got the call that the season was back on. Then, you get yourself stuck in a foreign country because of your harebrained idea.”
“Technically, I had nothing to do with getting stuck there.” Shit, Miller is rubbing off on me. I need to keep my mouth shut if Coach’s red face is any indication.
“You chose to go. At the start of a global pandemic knowing there was a possibility for things to go wrong. Did you not?”
“Coach, with all due respect. I didn’t think about it that much. I don’t think any of us did. The plan was to be gone for four days, five at most. Definitely not three months. And I, for sure, didn’t anticipate the entire world to shut down. You can’t sit there and pretend that anyone anticipated that.” His hard ass approach wasn’t going to work on me. No one could have prepared for this. “And need I remind you that had I not been there, your daughter would have been stranded alone.”
You know that moment when something comes out of your mouth and you wish you could stuff it back in? Yep, that’s me right now. That was the wrong thing to say.
Coach stands abruptly, slapping his hands on top of his desk. If it were possible, his red face deepens and his ears ting with his anger. He looks like he might literally explode.
“You will not bring Ivory into this. You are here for your own poor choices. They have nothing to do with her.” Consider me properly reprimanded.
