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He laughs a maniacal laugh. Like Jake is driving him crazy. Or has been for some time. Maybe he has. “You want me to tell him you need a mental health weekend.” It’s not a question.
The steering wheel creaks as Jake squeezes it. “I don’t care what you tell him. Or the sponsors or the media. Tell them I’m sick. I’ve got a case of the shits. I’m in the hospital. Whatever. But I’m taking the weekend off. When was the last goddam time I took a weekend off?”
He takes a breath. “Never.”
“Never.”
A long, awkward minute passes before Curtiss speaks again. “Can you at least tell me what’s going on?”
Jake looks to me, but not for a lifeline. He’s thinking again, then decides. “Not yet.”
“Will I at least know eventually?”
“Yeah.”
Well, he’s not lying. Everyone with a phone and a TV will know eventually.
“Okay fine. Fine. I’ll handle everything. Check in with me at least?”
“Will do.”
“I’m serious.”
“Okay bye, Curtiss. You’re the best!” he says it with a heaping dose of smartass.
Curtiss hangs up.
When the car settles into quiet, he shifts down a gear and I relax a little. “Love-hate relationship with the manager, huh?”
He grunts his assent. “You could say that.”
I leave it alone and look through the passenger window at the cars he’s blowing past. Something that struck me funny about that conversation...well, a lot of things. But one thing in particular—he didn’t want his manager to know what was going on. Just like with ditching the shoot and taking a last-minute ‘vacation’, he’s putting him in a bad spot. Jake is at the height of his career. Is poised to win the championship this year. Curtiss should be one of the first people he tells of the coming media shitstorm. Like he said, though, he’ll know soon enough.
None of my business. “So, what’s the plan, then? I’ll be down at your parents through tomorrow night, and then you’ll tell them about the article when I leave?”
“Haven’t decided on that yet.”
“As in…how long we’re staying tomorrow? Or telling them?”
“Either.”
I leave that alone too. How he handles all of this with his family and the people who work for him is his deal. I’m just the ‘visiting friend’.
The thought makes me tug nervously on my boatneck tee. I had no idea what to wear to a rich friend’s southern estate on a Saturday night, so I settled for winter white jeans and a navy shirt. I sigh through my nose with regret. I look like I’m getting on a schooner.
“You look nice,” he says, shifting his attention to me and off the road for the briefest of seconds. I think I see a wink behind his sunglasses.
My heart jumps, but I swallow hard, my lips parting. Nothing comes out. I can’t decide if I want to thank him and return the compliment or go ahead and set the tone for the rest of the trip—flattery won’t get him anywhere. This is a business thing. Nothing more.
Though he did stick up for me, so part of me also can’t seem to muster the sternness I’m needing to pull that off.
He doesn’t give me time to figure out which way I fall, just punches another button on his steering wheel and music flares around us. Randy Travis.
I don’t object.
Randy can fill the silence for the rest of the car ride to his mom’s…who he apparently never misses.
We both have a lot of thinking to do.
