Page 3 of Sportsball is for Lovers

two

. . .

Sadie

six months later: boston

My eyes hurt,my mouth is dry, and my head is pounding. I’m hungover.

But I haven’t been drinking: I’ve been staring at my computer screen, pouring out the words all night long.

And now, after six weeks and ninety thousand words, I’ve got it: my book is finished.

Whew.

This one was rough.

“Shit, girl,” Yoni says when he sees me. “You need a break.”

“I’m fine,” I tell my assistant—and, more importantly, my friend. “I can sleep when I’m dead.”

With a snort, he opens the curtains, and I’m immediately assaulted by the bright winter sunlight reflecting off the snow-topped cars at street level.

“If you’re not careful, that’ll be sooner than you like,” he warns.

Blinking my sore, red eyes a few times, I try to throw him a glare. “Why do you care?”

This time, Yoni laughs outright. “You sign my paychecks.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Stretching, I reach upward, and my back cracks in several satisfying clicks.

“When’s the last time you went outside?” he asks.

“Um… Sunday?” I had a shift at the bookstore, then took a few days off work to finish the book.

He rolls his eyes. “Great. Lovely. So you’re getting up, taking a shower, and we’re going for a walk.”

“But—”

“You’ll send the draft to Lu and then it will be out of your hands,” he says firmly. “No sense in obsessing endlessly over something you can’t physically do at the moment.”

I make an unhappy face at him. “I don’t obsess.”

“Bullshit,” he coughs.

“You’re a poopy-face.”

Yoni shrugs. “If that’s what you tell yourself.”

Turning to my computer, I save the file again, back it up, and email it to my critique partner without a comment. She’s been expecting the book for a few days already. I promised it to her last week, which means I’m basically on time. Five days late is still on time, right?

“Okay.” I yawn. “I’m going to take a shower, then we can go out.”

“I’ll start working on today’s tackle list,” he says, finally sitting down at his desk on the other side of the room.

Every day, Yoni makes a tackle list. He thinks a to-do list is so passé. It’s things that absolutely have to happen today, the administration that goes along with being a semi-full-time author.