Cal nodded. “Yeah, he asked for us to come to his house. He said urgently. Like, ‘don’t even bother putting on actual clothes, come in pajamas’ urgent,” Cal said, his composure slipping as his mind started to do the same spiral mine was.
Anxiety sank into the bottoms of my feet, feeling like lead pulling me down into the depths of nothing. My gut was telling me this wasn’t a good thing, that we’d fucked up, and I knew Cal was feeling the same way.
“You don’t think—” I started.
“I think Tate Martin wouldn’t be inviting two guys he hasn’t seen in years to his house before nine in the morning for no fucking reason,” Cal said as he scrubbed a hand over his face and threw the blanket off of him, standing and going toward the bathroom without even waiting for me to catch up.
Cal and I got ready in record time, both of us fearing the worst, but neither having the balls to say it. We were downstairs in the rental car within fifteen minutes of that phone call. I hadn’t even dared to open the messages left from Tate. I couldn’t, because I knew if I did, the panic would ensue, and right now I really did not have the time to break down, not for my own sake, not for Cal’s.
Wedrove down the highway with the windows down, like we were begging the air whipping through the car to release the tension we were feeling. This wasn’t good. We knew it wasn’t going to be.
Cal’s grip on the wheel looked painful. He was anxious, I could see it, his jaw clenched, his grip tight, the way he was chewing his bottom lip. He felt it too. Fuck, this was bad. Bad, bad.
I finally broke the silence. “How the fuck does he know…” I mumbled.
Cal’s eyes shot to me quickly. “I have no fucking clue. There weren’t ever cameras in that facility on the inside—”
We looked at each other.
Oh. Fuck.
There had to be cameras we didn’t see.
“There were cameras…” I said like a confession.
“There’s no fucking way. I looked. I always look for that shit,” Cal said, raking fingers through his loose strands of hair that he didn’t bother to try and slick back this morning.
“Well, apparently there fucking were because there’s no other reason Martin would want to ‘urgently see us’ at his fucking house,” I said with a stressed out laugh.
“Fucking Christ,” Cal said as he smacked the wheel.
The realization of our stupidity hit us both. We let our guard down. We thought we were safe. We didn’t think ahead like we always did. We were consumed by the moment, and we fucked it up. We probably just fucked everything up, and there was no going back now.
Weentered into a large neighborhood just outside of the city soon after. The houses were massive and sat close to the water. Luxury cars lined the driveways. These were houses I didn’t see around where I was from unless we drove into the nearest city which was still forty-five minutes away. This felt alien, and fuck, it wasn’t making that all-consuming sense of wanting to freak the fuck out any better.
We pulled into the driveway of a large two-story home. It was luxurious, Spanish style, and in the driveway sat three different kinds of BMWs.
This was it. We knew it.
We didn’t speak as we got out of the car, and we didn’t speak as we rang the doorbell. Too torn up to really say anything else, because we knew the most likely outcome of this situation. We were going to lose every fucking thing we’d busted our asses for.
A woman answered the door. She was older, not as old as Tate, but not as young as us either. She had light, clearly dyed blonde hair and wore a full set of Lululemon with a massive diamond ring on her finger you couldn’t ignore.
“You guys must be here for Tate,” she said with a smile.
We nodded. Before we could answer, Tate appeared behind the woman. He wasn’t dressed in his typical suit; he was in sweats and a T shirt, and looked like he hadn’t slept all night.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “Come in.” He and the woman stepped aside so we could enter the home. “This is my wife, Shelly. Shelly, this is Silas Reed and Callum Kincaid.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you guys,” she said, shaking our hands.
“Let’s go into my office,” Tate said, motioning for us to follow him through the home.
It was decorated like the perfect beach getaway. It looked staged, like it wasn’t even lived in. But I guess that’s the glory of not being stuck on generational land, in generational homes. They didn’t have walls that told stories of the other lives they’d witnessed before.
Wewalked into an in-home office down a long hallway. It had a small desk in the center and a small grey loveseat. Plastering the walls were old wrestling promo posters, images of Tate when he was an active wrestler in the eighties and nineties, and title belts in clear glass cabinets. This place didn’t feel like an office; it felt like a shrine to a life Tate Martin once lived.
“I’m sure you guys are wondering why I called you here so early,” Tate said as he leaned against the desk.
