He barks a laugh, head thrown back before he rolls his eyes. “If that’s your story.” Weaving through lobby couches and throngs of people checking out, he gives me another sideways glance. Nervous, almost, he shrugs. “If you’re ... into her ... you should ask her out. You deserve some ... good in your life. Especially after what happened.”
“She’s already something good in my life,” I mutter, rubbing my chest absentmindedly, probably right above the nails in the wall where she hung a picture of her smile.
Something knowing flashes behind his eyes, but he doesn’t say anything else when he pulls open the door to the café for me.
He asks about the text message, though, when we’re standing in line. Rolling out his throwing wrist and stretching out eachfinger in some sort of precise ritual, he turns to me. “So, what was the text message you regret sending her, then? Gotta tell you, if you were flirting with her, like you were apparently flirting with me earlier, you might need to work on your technique.”
“Probably right about that.” I snort, tossing my phone again, finally about to pocket it, but before I can, she responds, and her text message lights up the screen.
Ren: you can make sure you come back after you win in new york, i need victor for luck too!
I squint at the photo she sent. It’s of her computer, and I can clearly see the logo for the Maritime Museum in the upper left corner, and it’s not written anywhere on the screen, but I’m pretty sure underneath theYour job application has now been receivedmessage, there’s another one, just for me.
That one says: Miller Colson-Burke, he really is stupid! Can you believe he actually thought for a second someone like her might see something in someone like him?
My stupidity really does know no bounds, I guess.
Pascale tells me to report to Olson’s office the second I’m back home.
I do, trailing in behind him, hating past me with every step, tugging nervously at the hair curling underneath my hat at the back of my neck.
“Nice work this week,” Olson offers, sitting behind his desk, almost a mirror image of the last time I came in here to see him.
“Thanks,” I mumble through the sick feeling starting in my stomach, this weird constriction in my chest I don’t think has anything to do with Matty.
“You’re worth a lot,” Olson states simply, three fingers coming off his desk.
“Uh. Sure,” I say, but Pascale shoots me a look that has me clearing my throat and sitting up straight when I drop in the chair across from Olson. “Yeah.”
Olson cocks a brow. “And therefore, we pay you a lot.”
“Yeah.” I nod along, confused.
He exhales a measured sigh, all exasperated patience. Folding his hands, he taps his index fingers together before resting them against his mouth. “You’ve done well, under the pressure. Of Matt’s absence and the press speculation.”
“The speculation that it was my fault?” I mutter, cringing when I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose.
“That. But we both know that’s not what happened. What happened to Matt was, unfortunately, inevitable, and not what I’m talking about.” He says it with all this detached precision, how he’s compartmentalized losing his star player, and, maybe, his friend. “I’m talking about the speculation about whether you’d crumble. That the Miller Colson-Burke era of dominance would be over. That you’d be nothing more than a sad, messy story for the press to pick apart forevermore.” He lifts a lazy hand to the sweeping view of the field. “Despite the occasional bump in the road, you’re consistently proving it’s not.”
Rubbing my hand along the back of my neck now, I shrug. “Thanks. I, uh, my game’s important to me. The team is. Winning is, too. Still important, I mean.”
“Me too.” Olson gives an empty laugh. “Which is why what I’m about to say would probably be looked down on as stupid. Butthe game, preserving talent, and my players matter more.” His eyes find his desk when he clears his throat, but he looks back up at me when he says, “Matt mattered more. He was my player, but we had a longstanding friendship. And what was important to him is important to me. He wanted to win, of course. But off the field, the most important thing to him was you.”
A weird, strangled noise catches in my throat, and I wince, dropping my head into my hands. Some sort of mirror image of the last time I was here, begging for him to free me so I could run, half asleep, as far away as I could from Matt and his memory.
But that was before there was anything worth being awake for.
“And seeing as Matt can’t win anymore, that leaves you.” His voice cracks uncharacteristically, but I can’t look up and see the absence of Matty all over someone else, so he keeps going. “He’d be horrified by what’s happened with the media and the press. And he’d be ... devastated if he knew you were in here a few short weeks ago asking to leave because that was all too much. You have three years left on your contract, like you said. You’ve got an NTC. But things have been better with the press since you’ve ... found a friend.”
I almost laugh at that, but it sounds a bit more like a strangled choking noise.
Olson keeps talking. “It doesn’t look as messy anymore. If nothing’s changed for you, if you still feel the same after the all-star break before the deadline, waive your clause and I’ll work to trade you. Wherever you want. You can have a fresh start. I know he’ll never be ... gone. But it might help. To be where he wasn’t.”
I snort, and it catches on unshed tears. There’s nowhere I could go where Matt isn’t. And I’m not sure those are places I’d be interested in anyway, not now, no matter how much it hurts. I finally look up. “He was the most important thing to me, too. Off the field. On the field. Wherever.” I lift both hands, emptyof him, too. I press one to my chest, fingers digging into my sternum to the point of pain. “And now he’s gone. I don’t think there’s a single fucking place in the world I won’t feel that.”
“Maybe not.” He shrugs. “But believe it or not, I want what’s best for you. And I don’t want to look back in fifteen years and realize I contributed to the downfall of a once-in-a-generation kind of talent because I cared more about winning and dollar signs than I did a human being.” His eyes turn assessing, but I think the corners might crinkle in real sympathy, and maybe, concern. “Think about what’s important to you now, Miller.”
I don’t hear him say those words, though. I hear Ren, and I see her, sitting beside me on that bench with the beautiful knees and the beautiful eyes and the beautiful brain as she asks me the same questions.
