Page 36 of ClickBack

With Giselle, I take more time than the message requires.

Me: Flying to San Antonio tomorrow for the game. Finally answered my agent.

I almost add that I’ve asked about next season. I erase it. We had a morning together. I don’t need to turn it into a briefing.

Her answer comes while I am pulling the marked pages out for Sterling.

Giselle: I’m sure he’s resting comfortably after the shock.

Me: No sympathy at all?

Giselle: For Cam? Plenty.

I laugh. Graves looks over, but this time he keeps whatever he is thinking to himself.

Me: I needed today.

The sentence looks more exposed on the screen than it felt in my head. I leave it there.

Giselle: I’m glad I stayed.

I read that twice, remembering her glasses going on, the sudden certainty that she was about to walk out. I wanted her to stay before I knew there would be this morning. Now there are things I’d like to ask her and no reason they need to wait for another excuse to get her upstairs.

Me: I want another day when I get back.

Giselle: Ask me when you know which one.

That gives me something useful to do with my phone besides avoid it.

Sterling arrives with the revised numbers and the older proposal. I put both on the dining table. He sees the stain on one corner and lifts the page between two fingers.

“Reviewed over lunch?”

“Breakfast was late.”

“That explains everything.”

He takes the chair opposite me. We work through the voting rights, the decisions I would be able to stop, and the ones that would merely arrive in an email after they had been made. I ask about the woman in the storefront, whether the renovation plan assumes she stays.

Sterling turns to the rental projections. “You want that in the terms?”

“I want to know what I’m buying before somebody makes her move and puts my picture on the announcement.”

He marks the question. We keep going.

By the time he has a list to send back, I know which parts of the deal interest me and which parts interest the people selling it. He doesn’t congratulate me for paying attention. He hands me the endorsement renewal next, and I take the pen.

Tori joins us by video for the publicity commitments. Maya has the social schedule, the photographer needs a training block, and a sponsor wants more of my summer than the renewal is worth to me. I cut the shoot down and keep the ownership meeting. There will be enough days when somebody else tells me where to report. I’m keeping a few of these.

My phone lights while Sterling is closing his tablet. Von’s calling back.

“Take it,” Sterling says. “I’ll send you the changes.”

I answer as he lets himself out.

“You coming or sending a representative?” Von asks.

“I left you a message.”