Page 55 of Hell Bent

“Then what do you suggest? You need a strategy, and right now, I don’t see one.”

“I know,” he said. “I know. You said once that we could talk it over. With tea. I don’t have tea. You also said wine, and I don’t have wine, either.”

“Good thing,” I said, “because the only thing that stoppedBen from actual alcohol poisoning last night was that he hated your Scotch.”

“Wait. He got sick?”

“Oh, yeah. When you look at that bottle, I’m guessing you’ll notice that he drank a fair amount. Enough to have him throwing up and mightily hung over this morning, anyway.” Sebastian looked appalled, and I said, “He was in a pretty bad place last night, I think.”

“Right,” he said. “I need a better plan. If I pour you a glass of …” He seemed to be doing a mental inventory. “Gatorade. Water. Milk. Coffee. If I pour you one of those, maybe you’ll do some of that brainstorming with me. This can’t be impossible. Kristiansen did the same exact thing with his sister, so I know it’s not impossible.”

“We could sit on the floor, I guess,” I said.

He grinned. “Some date, eh?”

That was how we ended up side by side, our backs against the wall, in the condo’s corridor while I told him about Ben’s day and he told me about his sister. At the end of all that, I said, “So as I see it, you have a few issues.”

“Definitely a few,” he agreed.

“You work too much,” I said, “and Ben needs to do remote schooling for right now. That’s number one. Number two, he’s fourteen, not seventeen like Annabelle was, and a fourteen-year-old boy is a whole different story. Number three, he’s frantic with missing his mom, and I don’t blame him. I understand why she can’t handle him living there, but this is too much. It sounds like she could go fast, and here you are, with … how many more games?”

Some more harassed expression. “One, and possibly the wild card game, depending on what happens next week. After that? Depends how far we get.”

“And how far could that be?” I asked. “When’s it all over for good?”

He looked at me. “You really don’t know about the Super Bowl?”

“I know that I usually go on a long trail run that day,” I said, “because everything’s empty, but I don’t have the date memorized.”

“February eleventh. Not that I’m counting any chickens. It’s a rebuilding year here. Not on the offense, because we’re good there. but the defense isn’t where it should be. Or special teams, either.”

“Is that what you are?” I asked. “Special teams?”

He leaned his head against the wall and sighed. “I always thought I didn’t want a woman who wanted me for the sports deal,” he told the ceiling. “Be careful what you wish for.”

I was laughing, and I was holding his arm, too. “If the woman’s impressed by you, does it help?”

He grinned, and then he got serious again. “So, yeah. I could be playing well into January. The lawyer says we can get Ben official on an emergency basis as far as school within six weeks or so, and definitely after Solange dies, but until then …”

I said, “You realize that you’re going to have to take him up there to see her.”

He stared at me. “I thought I just explained this. It’s a team. It’s my job, which I’d lose, because that’s not how it works.”

“She said weeks,” I said. “You told me that Solange said she has weeks. And you’re playing every weekend.”

“I get it,” he said. “I get that it’s not fair, but I can’t do what I can’t do.”

“She told you that a week ago,” I said, “and she looked pretty bad on that phone call. Sebastian—this is the main thing we have to figure out. This is the thing, because it’s what matters most.”

Sebastian

I did not want to talk about this. I wanted her holding my arm again. I wanted my arm around her. I wanted to feel like a damn hero.

Suck it up,I told myself.This is the real world.And said, “I guess I could send him back on the weekends, but that’s the main thing she?—”

“No,” she said. “He’d be unsupported, and she’d be so upset. No, I think you have to take him.”

“How exactly,” I said, “do you propose I do that? I’m not joking about the NFL. You don’t get to take a leave of absence for a family emergency, and you sure as hell don’t get to do it right before the playoffs.”