“Thanks for inviting me up here.”
“No problem, we’re always excited to have new blood fresh off the field around here. Half the time I feel like it’s nothing but fossils who don’t remember what it was like to play.”
“I practically still have grass stains burned into my knees.”
He guffawed, swiping his badge to call the elevator. “Hunter didn’t say you were funny. Most of the guys barely talk and seem afraid of their own shadow. But you might do all right.” The elevator doors closed behind us.
For four hours, I bounced from office to office, studio to studio. After thirty uncomfortable minutes in hair and makeup, they put me in front of green screens, LED screens covering an entire wall, and sat me down with a few recent additions to the channel for a mock play-by-play.
Talking with guys who’d run the pro gauntlet, I should've felt right at home. But my mind kept drifting to who their craft services caterer was and how Zara would love to pick apart the green room design. The table blocked everyone’s access to the room and the food. And more than one person had run their shin into it.
I checked my phone. Two hours until my train. Plenty of time.
I sent off a quick message.
Me: How much actual work do you plan on getting done tonight?
Zara: All the work, but there will be a reward at the end of our long grueling night
Me: Tease
Zara: That’s only if I don’t uphold my end of the bargain. And yes, I plan on upholding it
“Leo.” Charles calling my name broke through the wild thoughts dancing through my mind of the torture Zara had in store for me. I couldn’t wait.
“Sorry.”
“Did you have somewhere to be?”
“No, checking the scores.”
“Those scores?” He pointed to the glowing screens in front of me, showing every score for every sport and every game being played across the country.
“Force of habit. Did you have someone else for me to meet?”
“Yeah, but we like to get to know people outside of this place to make sure they’re a good fit with the whole crew, so we’re going out for a drink.”
“Out.”
His smile slipped. “You’ve got a problem with going out?”
I slid my phone into my pocket. “No problem at all. Lead the way.”
Half the guys I’d met that day piled into four sleek black SUVs. Out wasn’t to a bar around the corner, but a “secret” speakeasy set up behind a laundromat. Apparently, expensing drinks as part of the interview process wasn’t something any employee wanted to miss out on.
One drink turned into three which turned into five. Leaving wasn’t an option. This was my break.
The third time I checked my phone one of the guys grabbed it from me and plunked it down inside a full glass of beer. “What the fuck, man?” I shot up from my seat, blood coursing through my veins, seconds from diving at him over the fucking table.
He laughed, letting a woman lead him away by his tie, wrapped around his head like a headband. “We’re here having fun. Once you leave we have to start paying, so get comfortable.”
Grabbing my phone and heading for the bathroom, I took one of the neatly folded towels on the counter and wiped down my phone. The screen was a mottled mess.
Charlie popped his head into the bathroom. “Hey, sorry about Drew. He gets a bit carried away sometimes. We’ll have a new phone shipped to your house tomorrow.”
The door closed behind him.
“Thanks...” Running it under the hand dryer didn’t do a thing, but seemed to lock in the full screen fritz. I spent the rest of the night, nursing a seltzer and plotting the deaths of everyone who ordered another round from the bar.
This was what I wanted right? My big break?
So why would I rather be anywhere but here?
My fist thundered against her door and I cringed at the volume and echo in the deserted hallway. There weren’t many people out at seven on a Saturday morning. Bracing my arm on the door, I leaned my head against the smooth wood.
“Zara, I know you’re in there. I’m sorry. I got here as soon as I could. I took the first train this morning.”
I banged on the door again. “If I—”
The door flew open and my hands shot out to the frame to stop myself from pitching forward into her apartment.
She stood in front of me with her arms crossed over her chest, looking gloriously furious with a hint of bedhead and a heaping helping of pissed off.
“I waited for you until midnight.” She bit out. “Not a phone call. Not a text. Not even a comment on social media.”
“I didn’t have my phone—”
“Were you shipwrecked off the coast of Madagascar?” Her gaze traveled up and down my wrinkled suit. “No, it looks—and smells—more like you had a ‘flirty’ night out.” She threw up air quotes. “Take your walk of shame to your own apartment.” Her lips clenched and she tried to slam the door closed in my face.
I shoved my foot into the rapidly shrinking opening. “It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like, Leo? You tell me you’re going to meet me and then you don’t show. I get one message that you’re running late and then nothing. You show up at my door at the hairy crack of dawn looking like you’ve had a wild night, reeking of booze. What am I supposed to think?”
This is what I got for coming straight here from the train. I should’ve gone home and taken a shower. Gone and gotten her half a dozen of the everything bagels she loved so much, and maybe something from B&B, before coming to plead my case. But from the second the train pulled into the station I’d had one goal. Let her know I was okay and explain.
Only I hadn’t gotten to the whole explanation part. “I had an interview.”
“An interview?” She looked back at me dazed and confused.
I took the opportunity to slip past her and close the door behind me. At least now if she started throwing things, innocent bystanders wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire.
“What kind of interview?” she enunciated.
“With a sports station.”
“Where?”
“In New York.” No backing out now.
Fury and brimstone flared in her eyes. “So when you texted and told me you’d be here soon, you were lying.”
“I wasn’t lying. It was a ten am interview. I figured I’d have loads of time.”
A flicker of realization sparked in her eyes. “The morning phone call. You said Hunter was inviting you to a party. He was telling you about the interview.”
Damn her insane level of recall, even before noon with a sex hangover.
“Yes.”
“Why’d you lie?”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
She re-crossed her arms, tighter than before. “If it wasn’t a big deal, then why didn’t you tell me?”
She wasn’t wrong, per se, but my aversion to explaining myself when I hadn’t fucking done anything wrong flared up anyway. “Since when are we sharing every aspect of our lives with each other?”
“Since we started fucking,” she screamed, throwing her hands in the air before resting them on top of her head. “I’d at least hope for a text or a call when you’re going to blow me off, so I know you’re not dead in a gutter.”