“Are you alone?”
“Yeah,” I say.
I could answer, “I always am”, but I don’t.I don’t explain that I never bring anyone here.Why would I?Why bother letting someone learn your habits, your mornings, your bad jokes, your favorite coffee order, if you’re going to disappear?
I’m too old for one-night stands.
Too jaded to pretend a relationship is possible when I can’t even promise the same zip code next month.
Also, I’m in love with a woman who can’t choose me.It’s not because she doesn’t love me.It’s because she loves too much.
Her heart is big enough to hold two men, and mine is selfish enough to want her anyway.
The entitled asshole.
Or me.
“Good.”A pause.Then: “I’m going to say it, and you’re going to let me finish before you speak.”
My jaw sets, the muscle ticking like it’s got its own pulse.
“That’s cute,” I tell him.“You think you control me.”
“Alberto Montoya Navarro Wade.”
My full name in his mouth is a leash tug.Something hot rises in me—an urge to laugh, to curse, to throw my phone hard enough to hear it crack, just so something breaks that isn’t inside me.
I want to yell I quit because I’m fucking done.Instead, “Just fucking say it,” I snap.
“They’re trading you.”He doesn’t hesitate.That’s what guts me.He doesn’t circle it.He doesn’t soften it.He doesn’t pretend I’m a person before he makes me a headline.
My body goes still.Not shock.Shock is for people who expect fairness.
This is the familiar slide of the floor shifting under my feet, the same sensation I’ve carried since I was six, and I learned nothing stays—parents, bedrooms, routines, promises.
“They’re what?”I say, because if I make him repeat it, maybe it won’t feel real.
“They’re trading you,” he repeats, like he’s reading the weather report.“It’s done.It’s going to be announced soon.”
I stare at my kitchen counter.The mail I haven’t opened.A jar of peanut butter and the butter knife in the sink.
Everything looks normal, which feels like the cruelest part.Like the universe is daring me to fall apart while my apartment keeps pretending it’s just another day in the life of Alberto Montoya Navarro Wade.
“Again,” I say, and the word comes out low.
He exhales.“Monty?—”
“Again,” I repeat, louder this time, and my voice sounds like someone else’s.Like the version of me that still believed hard work earned stability isn’t dead and gone.“I have the best save percentage in the league.I have the stats.I have the wins.I have the reputation.I have—” My voice scrapes.“Boston fucking needs me.”
They also need a defense that doesn’t treat me like a practice net, but that’s not the point.The point is I did my job.I did it well.I did it anyway.
“They do,” he says quickly.“This isn’t about performance.It’s about another team needing you more—and willing to pay a lot for you.”
“It never is,” I mutter, because that’s the truth no one puts in the press release.You can be excellent and still be disposable.You can be the reason they’re still winning and still be the first thing they move when the math demands it.
He starts talking.Explaining.Framing.Packaging me into something digestible.
“It’s a strong opportunity.Your cap hit works for them.Your contract structure?—”
