Page 19 of Base Block

“It’s no problem. I really like your T-shirt,” she said.

I looked down at it. My wardrobe had been an issue, since I’d only had the Woodsmen dress I’d made, the high school sweatshirt, and flip-flops. We had stopped at a thrift store before we’d left Indianapolis and I’d used the last of my money from Millie to buy a belt, two pairs of ugly jeans, and a few shirts. When we’d arrived here, I’d cut off a pair of the jeans into shorts and turned the other pair into a skirt, which I was currently wearing. I had altered the shirts, too. The one I had on now advertised an old sugar cereal brand, but I’d trimmed the neck and the sleeves and tailored the sides (Callum had sprung for needles and a spool of thread).

“Thank you,” I told her. “I personalized it.” My phone rang again and I said goodbye and hurried out of the building. My foot was much better, and I’d been working out to videos on my phone and taking walks on the roads around the motel where we were staying.

We didn’t have the funds for two rooms there, and I was telling myself that it was just the same as bunking with Sage and Millie. Not exactly, since Callum was a lot larger and frankly, our room smelled much worse. It wasn’t coming off him (since he showered at the Woodsmen practice facility) but off his clothes. I was spending a lot of time hauling stuff to the laundromat, but that also helped to build muscle.

An even smellier problem was his shoes. We had left them outside the door on the walkway until the manager told me that other guests were complaining about tripping hazards and terrible odors. I had gotten some garbage bags and containing them under two or three layers of plastic did help.

It was a little strange to go to bed right next to him. There were actually two mattresses, but the space between them was narrow. Actually, the whole room was narrow, including the bathroom and its door. He had to turn sideways to enter and I got the feeling that peeing was a problem due to the way he had to angle his big body inside there, but I hadn’t wanted to ask. He seemed to value his privacy, like, he never left the door open when he was showering, even though there wasn’t a fan for the steam (there was a switch that seemed like it should have operated one, but nothing happened when you flipped it). He was pretty private about nudity in general and I remembered how he hadn’t liked seeing my boob on the night we’d met, so I was careful, too.

I had answered his second call and told him that I was coming, so he wasn’t worried when I finally showed up at the place we’d designated to meet. “Hey,” he said when I rounded the side of the stadium and he spotted me. “What were you doing?”

His voice was naturally a lot louder than mine, so I waited until I was closer to give him my answer. “I was getting the per diem stuff fixed.” I jogged the last few steps between us. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He smiled back at me but that faded fast. “I got worried when I saw all the other girls but not you. Tell me again, what were you fixing?”

I explained how I’d been speaking Latin and also that he would need to call Victoria to pick up his checks on Monday.

“That’s great,” he said. “Thank you, Rainey.”

“No problem. I’m going to set up bank accounts and then they can put your money directly into yours. I have to look into it first, because you might need to come with me to do that.” I had also been wondering if I might need to start off mine with a deposit. That would have been a problem since I didn’t have any money.

“We should be able to straighten it out,” he answered.

We would definitely be able to figure it out together so I didn’t understand why he still looked concerned. “We’ll be ok. The per diem will be a big help and I applied for more jobs today,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried about the money. I mean, yeah, it’s always money but it’s more than that.” He grimaced. “We had a shitty meeting. They started talking about cuts and next week, guys are going home.”

“So you have the weekend to worry about it? That’s so mean!” First the tempting tour, and now this? I began to think that the Woodsmen officials were a little sadistic, like Millie had been. She’d liked to drip hot wax onto her partners during sex and Sage said it had really hurt—and that was another difference about sharing a space with Callum. Nobody was having sex in our room.

“They’re not making cuts until next Thursday,” he said. “Some of the guys are sure they’re on the list and they’re already making plans to leave. I learned that the Woodsmen will give you a plane ticket, information that could have been in another email that I didn’t read. Hell.” He sighed the word.

“Do you think that you’re on the cut list?”

“I don’t know how I could avoid it. Everyone here played in college and a lot of them went to serious football schools. Some of them have experience playing for serious teams, too. I don’t stack up.”

“Experience doesn’t mean anything. You can be bad but have done it for a long time.”

He looked over me and did his half-smile, the one he did for pictures when he wasn’t exactly sure if he was happy or not. “That’s true. I feel like they’ve had experience at being good, though.”

“I bet you’re just as good. I bet they’re thinking the same thing about you, that they know you’re going to make it but they’ll get cut themselves. And they’re right to worry.”

“If they were worried, they sure didn’t show it. Faces of stone,” he told me.

“How was yours?” I stopped and got on my tiptoes so I could be closer, to see him better.

“Like this.” He lowered his eyebrows and his nostrils flared slightly as he frowned.

“I would have cried if I’d been in the room with you.”

Callum laughed. “I’m not going to make that face at you, then,” he said. He put his hands on my hips as I wobbled. “Does this hurt your foot?”

“A little, but it feels like I need to stretch it,” I explained. “It’s tight somehow.”

“Want me to carry you to the car?”

No, I didn’t want to go over his shoulder again. The underwear I had on, a pair from the four-pack I’d gotten when we’d shopped in Indianapolis, were very ugly. The skirt I’d fashioned out of the blue jeans would definitely hike up and show them off. Plus, I wasn’t sure if the hand-stitching I’d done on the denim would even survive. “I can walk,” I said, but he went slowly to make it easier.