Page 36 of Base Block

“It’s ours,” he corrected. “How would somebody in Los Angles have seen it?”

“Well, the internet goes everywhere…”

“Ok, smarty. I mean, are we getting famous with that?”

“Mildly,” I said. “We have a lot more followers than before but when I look at who they are, it seems like mostly Woodsmen fans and sports people. Sage was interested in videos about fashion, makeup, travel, and bullshit. Like people pranking strangers on the street,” I explained. “I know she doesn’t care about football. Why would she have bothered me? Why can’t she leave me alone?”

“Why are you so mad about her reaching out?”

“Because that’s done,” I said. “I don’t want her to intrude on what’s happening now. I’m going to block her like you do to the defensive line guys, and then they fall down and cry.”

“Our TV screen is pretty small. How well could you see their tears last night?” I saw that he was smiling as I glanced over and that made me relax even more. We were ok.

At the stadium, he had meetings, film work, and recovery that might have included some time on a stationary bike. Maybe he’d do that, but I’d seen the way he was walking and it was still slow. While he was there, I was busy, too. I had a long phone conversation with Beau Gowan but it was totally appropriate and very business-like. Then Anara texted a bunch of pictures—at first I couldn’t tell what they were, but then I was able to see that she had sent close-ups of fabric and she wanted my opinion on whether it would look nice on her. I said that I wanted to see the whole outfit in person, and I invited her and her boyfriend, as well as Heidi and George, over on Friday night. The Woodsmen wouldn’t have a weekend game since they’d already had one yesterday.

And because they’d played midweek, today was Thursday, a normal day for everyone else in the world. When Callum walked back to the car (still slowly), he said that he wanted us to run an errand before we went home. “Are you hungry?” I asked. I already had a large dinner planned for later.

“No, I need to buy something. Not a car, not today.” He tapped my knee. “What if we rented one for you?”

“Maybe I’ll buy one for myself,” I said. “I got a call from Beau Gowan, that stylist guy. He wants to hire me, starting part-time but the job could expand. Like, if I’m able to bring in new clients, then we’ll be busier and I’ll get more hours.”

He didn’t get as happy as I expected. “Is he giving you a contract? I have that lawyer now. She could take a look. How do we know anything about this Gowan?”

“Why are you so worried about it?” I wondered. “I met him and I could tell if he was pervy or not. He’s not. He’s a dad and he has a girlfriend, and his business is a real thing—I saw a list of clients and some of them are like you, on the O-line.” That was a new football term, referring to the guys who stood in front of the quarterback.

“Ok.”

But he didn’t sound convinced. “What’s the problem? Don’t you think it’s a good thing for me to have a job?”

“Yeah, I do,” he answered. “I thought it would be a more normal business, though.”

“It is normal, just not something that you had heard of before.”

“Yeah,” he said again.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I told him. “You think that I had a crazy job before, working for a boss who was an asshole. I wouldn’t do that again.”

“Why’d you do it before?”

“Because I didn’t have a lot of choice. I didn’t have options—where are we going?” I broke off to ask, because we were turning into a little shopping plaza and stopping.

“I’m getting a phone. A real one with a screen,” he said.

“Oh, you are?” I got excited. “Now we can video call when you’re away so I can see you!”

Callum smiled. “That’s sure a perk for you.”

“Did you get tired of the guys all teasing you for being a…what did they say?”

“Kellen Karma called me a Denisovan. I looked up a picture of one of those guys and that was very insulting.”

“He just meant because your phone comes from that era,” I consoled. “I get why you wouldn’t want to hear it, though.”

“I don’t care if he calls me a caveman. I want a new phone because I was thinking about how you said that you wanted to see my location. I could see yours, too, and then I would know you were safe.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” I said, but he answered that it was time to move into the modern era anyway, and we got out of the car.

I was seeing a pattern, though. He had a lot of concerns about my job and he was also thinking that I needed to be watched. It gave me unhappy memories of Damian. And there was Sage sliding into my DMs, and I’d had another dream last night about the baby…