Page 49 of Base Block

“I’m a Woodsmen player. That’s going to get people around here excited,” he said. But it wasn’t just that, because he was a very, very attractive guy. Just extremely attractive.

He was also extremely tired. This season was longer and harder than anything he’d done before, by a factor of what he thought was a million and I had calculated at about four. Luckily, the days after the games were always easy ones and although he had to go to the stadium, he was home soon enough.

“You’ve been busy. What are you working on?” he asked when he came back in.

There was a pile of stuff on the kitchen table, including the new laptop that my boss Beau had gotten for me (it belonged to the company, but I was the only one using it) and a stack of clothes that I’d thrifted but hadn’t had time to work on. My job had gotten even busier and if I counted out the hours, I was definitely full-time now. I still didn’t have a regular schedule, though, so it was harder for Beau to determine that.

“I have a lot to do,” I said, also feeling tired. “I’m working more with my two Woodsmen ladies and one of the clients that I found in Beau’s inbox is really demanding. And I need new clothes for myself, too. I want to fix this dress.” I picked it up from my stack of thrift store finds. “I thought it would fit me, but…” But I was too fat. I hadn’t lost any of the weight that I’d put on since leaving the entourage, despite how much I was working out and trying to keep tabs on my intake. As a kid, I’d dealt with food shortages, first when I’d lived with my adopted family and also after moving in with my grandma and aunt. There hadn’t been enough to go around, so it had been easy to stay slim. Then, when I’d lived with Damian, he and Millie had kept us under tight control with calorie and exercise logs and with body inspections, too.

My own control wasn’t working, and it was frustrating and embarrassing. Callum wasn’t interested in my looks, but people were already commenting on our videos and pointing out how my ass was bigger and that my face looked fuller. They had a lot to say about my appearance in general and I hadn’t ever cared much when I’d gotten criticized before, not even during Damian’s naked inspections. But the scrutiny now was getting a little relentless.

“This is nice,” he said, picking up the dress that didn’t fit. “Right?”

He looked at me expectantly, waiting for my judgement.

“It would be,” I agreed. “It will be, once I have time to work on it.”

He settled into a chair, moved around a little, and frowned. “Do you ever think about furniture?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

“I never did. But I stopped by Gabriel’s house today, and I was impressed by his stuff.”

That was another guy on the O-line, one who had been a Woodsmen for a few seasons—long enough to have nice furniture. “I don’t do much with the décor part of Beau Gowan’s business,” I said.

“It seems like you’re doing enough there. You just started and he already put you in charge of a lot,” Callum said, pointing at my laptop. “I had managers breathing down my neck when I worked in the lumber department and I was mostly moving stacks of wood. You’re doing major shit and he doesn’t pay much attention.”

“He’s not a hands-on boss,” I answered. I’d had this same conversation with Heidi and Anara, and their opinion had been that he also wasn’t a very good boss. Heidi had said that Beau was lucky that he’d hired me because I was working well without the supervision that Callum was talking about. She also thought that our set-up was a bad idea.

“I’m not saying that you’re going to make mistakes, but any new employee could easily get off track. He should be paying better attention,” she’d insisted. “If I were you, I’d be afraid of messing up.”

I definitely was, but I’d also been developing stories and strategies for how to get myself out of any trouble I got into. That had been what I’d done with Damian and I’d had varied results with it—but he was the type to get mad at everything, no matter if the lie was really good or not.

“Gabriel has three big dogs and four kids,” he said. “I wanted to see how they all got along.”

“Do they?”

He nodded. “They did a lot of work, training all of them. Gabe’s son told me that one dog is his best friend and he’s sad every day when he goes to school, because they have to be separated. He was sitting on the ground and hugging her as he said it.”

I smiled. “That’s nice. I would still be concerned about the kids, though.” That was why it was good that I didn’t have any, because now Maverick would be living with us.

“Why do you want us to take that dog?” Callum asked. “I heard what you said to the woman from the shelter, about how you always wanted a rescue and you feel the need to help animals. That was bullshit, though. You were scared of him before.”

Yes, I had lied to the woman who’d come over for our home visit. What was I supposed to say, that I was actually terrified? I was trying not to feel that way. “I thought it was unfair,” I answered. “It wasn’t right that his owner had left him like that and went to Central Asia.”

“No, it wasn’t. But why are you stepping in?”

“I just want to do something nice for someone else,” I said. “Heidi volunteers with kids, tutoring and stuff. Anara is really involved with the college she went to, reading admission essays and fundraising. I don’t do anything for anybody.”

“Can you come here? Come over here,” he told me and when I walked to the chair, he reached and took my hand. “You do lots of shit for me.”

“And you do shit for me, too,” I pointed out. “You’re still renting that car and—”

“I don’t mean buying stuff or renting it, either.” He pulled my hand so I came closer, and I ended up sitting in his lap. “You back me up. You believe in me,” he said. “You did right away, making those videos and getting my name out there. All of this football crap is so…what’s the word?”

“Anara says that it’s evanescent. It’s like mist, hard to hold on to and disappearing quickly.”

“That’s exactly right,” he said, nodding. “It also feels like I could have it jerked away, which is one of my first memories. Somebody nice had given me a treat, I think a brownie. A bigger kid came and grabbed it out of my hand and there was nothing I could do except wait to grow even bigger and then pound him. But my mom took me back a while later and I lost track of that asshole.”