Page 13 of Over Time Advantage

He lets out a laugh. “Don’t ever use that word again, bruh.”

“How about you never again call me bruh, and I’ll promise never to use the word dope?” I grumble.

He chuckles. “Deal. I’m gonna change and then bolt for the lit func at Kopple’s house. Can you hit up my Venmo? I need some bank.”

I exhale a long breath as I attempt to translate what he just asked of me. I think he needs money to go to a party, but I can’t be sure. Sometimes I have no clue what comes out of his mouth. Kids these days speak a different language.

Making a bit of a show of opening the window blinds and looking at our yard, I say, “The grass doesn’t look like it was cut this week.”

He harumphs. “Bru…Dad, this is a bougie hood. Everyone else has a grass pimp. Can’t we just hire one? We’ve got mad bank.”

I look at him in question. “What is mad bank?”

He rolls his eyes in obvious annoyance. “We’re rich. Hire a lawn service.”

I cross my arms at my spoiled brat of a son. I’ve failed him in so many ways, but this way bothers me more than the rest. “I’m rich. We’re not rich. You don’t have a penny to your name. Be happy I purchased a tractor for you to mow the lawn. When I was a kid, I had to cut the grass with a small push mower that was practically a death trap waiting to happen. It’s a miracle I didn’t lose a limb. It took every ounce of strength I had to move that thing around, and it ate up an entire day because it was the least efficient piece of machinery you could imagine. You can sit on your ass, listen to your music, ride around the lawn, and be done in thirty minutes, yet you still can’t manage to get it done. So no, I will not be hitting up your Venmo with mad bank until your one damn chore is done.”

He shrugs without a care in the world and calmly says, “Fine, I’ll ask Mom. She’ll send it.” He then carelessly makes his way upstairs while I remind him to clean his room before he goes, not garnering any response.

If I had treated my father like that, my ass would have been red and sore for two weeks. Pierce would be a tougher kid if he had a belt to the ass from time to time, but that’s a big no-no these days.

Unfortunately, he’s not wrong. Ginny will send the money without giving it a second thought. Here’s how economics work in my family. I pay all of Ginny’s expenses, including a house, alimony, child support, and her overly excessive plastic surgery. I pay all of Pierce’s expenses regardless of said child support payments. Neither of them considers earning any money on their own, happily holding out their palms for my hard-earned money. That’s it. The economic flow chart of the Jeffries’s family.

They’re basically the opposite of Kennedy, who has refused to accept a dime from me since the day she left for college. She earned a full basketball scholarship to college that also covered her living expenses. I tried to give her money, but she wouldn’t take any. She may hate us, but at least she’s hard-working and principled. I can’t help but respect that.

Thirty minutes later, Pierce is off to his party, and I’m sitting out back alone with a glass of good wine. It’s my favorite part of the day. My days are full of football practices, the weight room, and watching football film to strategize for upcoming games. But at the end of each day, I sit in my little backyard oasis and indulge in a glass or two of wine. Expensive wine has been my form of escapism for two decades.

After I married Ginny, I started to hit the whiskey a little too hard. I drowned myself in my misery. It always made me a bit of an asshole, but I didn’t care. I needed to numb myself to having married a stranger I didn’t even like, let alone love.

When Leo became my agent, he barged into my house and poured it all down the drain, telling me it was going to ruin my career and my life. He introduced me to the world of fine wine, and for some reason, it intrigued me. Instead of spending my evenings drinking hard liquor to numb the pain, I buried myself in all things wine. Not in overindulging, but in the process and learning about the subtle differences in each bottle. I built a wine cellar and started collecting bottles. It made me feel good to have something to think and talk about other than football. My whole life before that, the only thing people talked to me about was football. Everything in my universe centered around that. I finally found something else to make me a more well-rounded person. Something interesting and totally different from the sport I played. I can happily talk about wine for hours.

I now have a wine cellar full of over ten thousand bottles that it’s taken me over twenty years to build. Aside from sports memorabilia, it was the only personal property I asked for in the divorce, and Ginny barely put up a fight. It was leverage for her. She never understood my passion or cared for it. She’s a martini girl, usually three deep by lunchtime.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and perk up immediately when I notice a reply on the dating app. After Kennedy’s crash course today, I set up my profile and immediately sent Fallon a message under my fake name. It took me hours to figure out how to do it, but the message finally went through right before I left for Pierce’s game.

Everything about my account is designed to attract her. I used what I found out when we set up her account to my advantage.

Does it feel deceitful? A little. But is Lloyd Dobler as obvious a fake, pop culture name as Diane Court? Yes. She’ll know right away that it’s not my real name, just as I would know Diane Court isn’t hers. Say Anything was a late-eighties movie that my mother watched at least a thousand times. Diane and Lloyd were the main characters, and the movie was a huge cult hit. It’s one of the best-known and most quoted movies of my generation. The big scene with him holding a boombox outside her window will forever live on in pop culture infamy.

In fairness to me, I did try calling Fallon multiple times since the party to ask her out—she has no idea what a big deal that was for me—but she only reiterated what she mentioned at the party. That while she, too, felt a spark, the demands of my job aren’t what she’s looking for in a partner. There’s something so endearing to me about her directness and authenticity. It’s the thing I’ve come to value most in a potential partner. Most women either want the social prestige of being on the arm of a Hall of Fame quarterback or love the lifestyle my money can afford them. Her rejecting me for something so honest is…attractive to me. That, and she’s a bombshell. My physical reaction to her was unexpected but extremely welcome. It reminded me that I’m still a man with needs.

Opening the app, I see her return message. It was sent a few hours ago when I was at Pierce’s game. Damn. Is it bad that I didn’t reply right away? I’m the kind of man who is very responsive to emails, and I’m committed to learning how to text, something I’ve avoided for a long time.

Diane: Color me intrigued, Lloyd. You didn’t upload photos. Are you a real person or are you catfishing me?

I immediately google the word catfished. Having Google right here on my phone may be my favorite thing about this iPhone. Normally, I have to wait until I get home and use it on my computer.

Oh. Hmm, how should I respond?

Lloyd: No photos for you either. You can be assured I didn’t lie about my age being over forty because I had to google the term catfishing.

The message immediately turns from red to green. I don’t know what that means, but I see three dots appear before a reply comes in.

Diane: There you are. I thought you disappeared.

Lloyd: I’m sorry. My son had a game. I just saw your message.

Diane: Fair enough on the photos, but I’m going to need some proof you’re a man and that you actually live in Philadelphia.