TIAGO
If there’s anything worth breaking our stalemate over, it’s this.
He’s a stubborn motherfucker so I’m not doing this lightly, but I’m stumped over Volare. I don’t know if the ball’s in my court or theirs, and every time I tried to clarify with Carmine, I got a more ambiguous answer than the last. I suck at this negotiation stuff. JC’s so much better at it. I could talk to Jules but she wasn’t here through all the contract termination bullshit. She’s a sick marketer, sure, but she’s not a sports manager.
I draw in the longest breath of my life and knock on his hotel room door.
‘It’s open!’ calls a weirdly female voice from the other side.
My mind spins at hyperspeed. MrYou’re Such a Man Whore, Tiago.MrThis is a Race Weekend, Not a Fuck Around Weekend.
Well. Well. Well.
I thump open the door and— ‘Oh.’
‘You could look pleased to see your sister,’ sneers Isa, sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite Nyla.
‘What are you doing in JC’s suite? Matter of fact, what are you doingperiod?’
‘I don’t have a living area, and we’re playing chess.’
‘Is that, like,’ I lower my voice, ‘code?’
Nyla’s brow furrows in confusion.
My sister gives me the tightest stare. ‘Code. For. What.’
To be fair, they are sitting around a chess board. ‘Never mind. Is JC here?’
If she’s surprised I’ve come to see him, it doesn’t show as she points to the stairs with her thumb and moves her knight.
Fuck, I hate being the one to fall on my sword but I have to snap out of it. My career’s more important than my pride. Probably.
‘JC?’ I give his bedroom door an uncharacteristic knock before shaking off this strange tension and barging in.
He gave me shit about not consulting him on major career decisions, so here it is.
JC looks up from his laptop from the desk in the corner. I can’t fathom what he’s working on because he’s missed all my engagements this weekend and I haven’t responded to his emails. It’s like a robot wrote them. They’re signed,Regards.
‘¿Qué?’It’s so sharp it spikes my eardrum.
‘I have news, alright, so can we just ditch our issues and deal with this?’
‘Oh, you mean the small matter of when you lied to me for months, made me look incapable of doing?—’
‘Volare want me back.’
He stills. ‘How do you know?’
‘Carmine Nocentini cornered me after the interview with Sportif+ and?—’
His eyes constrict and I know exactly what he’s picked up on. ‘Define “cornered you”?’
I feel guilty. I hate that I feel guilty. I did nothing wrong. ‘He stopped me and said, “Let’s go for a walk”.’
JC taps a pen against the table. It sounds like a metronome and it’s hiking my blood pressure even higher. ‘And you didn’t think when Volare’s Sporting Director asks to go for a walk that would be a good time to call me?’
‘There wasn’t ti?—’
