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There’s silence on the other end. You wonder if Steve is in his high-rise apartment in Atlanta, and what he’s looking at. You irrationally remember the fifteen-by-ten cell you shared at Burke East, the twin beds and the filthy microwave. Life was simpler then in so many ways.

“Should I call the other guys?” you ask. “Tell me what to do, Steve-o. I’m lost here. ”

“Nah. Give’m some time to cool off.” His brass trumpet of a voice is gentle, which is almost disturbing coming from him.

“They’ll pull around. Maybe talk to Sterling, though.

He’s gotta know something about keeping the media in line.

Ain’t copacetic, what happened. You chose this life, but we’re just average Joes. ”

He doesn’t mean it as a dig: you chose this life , but it feels like one, anyway.

“I can’t say enough how sorry I am,” you repeat.

“Eh. Worse things that could happen,” he says lightly. “Try not to stress out, Kai. You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah,” you say, lying through your teeth.

“That’s what I like to hear. You stay chill, brother. We’ll talk soon, okay?”

As you hang up, you know from experience that you are unlikely to hear from Steve again until next year. And, after this, maybe you won’t even be invited back.

***

Sterling, if it’s possible, sounds even sorrier than you when you get him on the phone. He directs you to Maeve, and Maeve hooks you up with one of Sterling’s lawyers. Not the shitty old-head who handled your NDA; a relatively young guy. He’s polite on the Zoom call, but brisk.

“I understand that a paparazzo invaded your privacy?” he asks, looking at some papers on the desk in front of him. It’s a nice desk, bathed in sunlight streaming through heavy navy curtains. “And he was posing as a utility company representative?”

“Uh-huh,” you confirm. “He… uh. God, this is humiliating. He said that his name was John Deere. His badge had the same name, so I just thought that it was funny, you know?”

He doesn’t write or type anything down. “I see. Do you have the information from the rental company on the hosts?”

“Do you think they were involved?”

“I think it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they tipped someone off, yes.”

That makes your stomach sink, as you hadn’t considered that possibility.

“How about how you got to Crystal River?” he continues. “Did you fly? Was it Mister Grayson’s plane, by chance?”

“No,” you say. “It was not that far away, so I drove. Why do you ask?”

He looks down at his papers, and scratches some notes .

“Flight trackers,” he says absently.

Tracking Sterling’s plane? That’s a thing? Stupidly, you think about making love with Sterling in the cozy bedroom of the jet, of the privacy that you both thought you had. Tracking flights. God, you are so fucked.

“Could someone have followed me?” you venture.

“In your car?” he twirls his pen. “Is it especially distinctive?”

“Not the one that I drive every day. It’s just a white Tahoe.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” he concludes. “Less likely that an opportunistic photog is just hanging around Miami and willing to drive several hours away. That guy was tipped off. I’d bet on it. Are you sure it wasn’t one of your friends?”

“My… friends?” Your voice catches the word, almost tripping on it. Like you don’t understand.

“The gentlemen at the cabin with you,” he elucidates, no-nonsense. “Is it possible that one of them sold you out?”

“I really don’t think so…”

“Do they have any debts that you are aware of? Child support, alimony? Gambling issues? Student loans? ”

Your poor inner cheek is raw from all the gnawing you’ve been doing. “I don’t think so? Sir, I’ve known these guys for years. We go way back. I don’t think…”

He clears his throat, interrupting you. “Frankly, Mister Reinhart—and I mean this with all due respect—I feel like your judgment on this kind of thing may be a bit… naive? Most people of your profile wouldn’t have opened the door for that utility employee.”

You’re not sure what burns more, the word naive , or the insidious implication in most people of your profile.

“I was just trying to be nice,” you argue, feeling lame even as you say it. “He said…”

“He said exactly what he needed to say to gain access,” the lawyer finishes smoothly. “And it worked, didn’t it? I think you’ll find, Mister Reinhart, that being nice isn’t always the best course of action nowadays.”

***

The young lawyer—or his office, you have no idea—sends some cease-and-desists, and the photographs get taken down on the main sites hosting them.

It’s too little, too late, however: the internet remembers everything, and millions of people have already downloaded the pictures and are passing them around like trading cards.

You are told that a “deep scrub” of the pictures would not only be expensive, but make it seem like you had something to hide.

To the best of your knowledge, nothing punitive happens to the man who called himself John Deere.

Your friends noticeably overlook a few of your posts on your private social media accounts.

On a phone call a week or so later, your mom casually drops the bombshell that reporters keep trying to talk to her in the Fresh Market. That’s when it really hits you: your private life is cooked.

***

It seems like you’ve been waiting forever for Tokyo.

Sterling’s last stop of the tour is a week away, and you are pumped.

The Goalposts Tour has been going on longer than your entire relationship.

You’ve never experienced the luxury of Sterling staying in one place for longer than a few weeks.

You two have talked casually about things you want to do: the places you want to go before you have to report back for training camp, the people you want to see.

You feel like a kid starting summer vacation: the boundless excitement and wishing-on-stars feeling.

With everything going on, it kind of snuck up on you.

When Sterling Facetimes you that night, you are scheduling social media posts for Kefi and working in your office.

You take his call on your iMac, and his face fills your big monitor.

It’s 7 PM in Miami, and it’s freshly six in the morning the next day in Tokyo.

When Sterling angles his phone, you see that the sun hasn’t even risen yet through his hotel windows.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” you say, leaning back in your chair. “What does Thursday feel like?”

“It’s too early to say,” he grumbles, rubbing his eyes. “How’s your Wednesday going?”

You fumble in the open drawer beside you for the open bag of apple slices that you’ve stuffed in there. You haven’t planned dinner yet, but you’re hungry and trying to make good choices in the wake of your ill-fated boys’ weekend. Like sticking to a clean diet could wash away all that bullshit.

“It’s tolerable,” you say, munching loudly on two pieces at once. The juice explodes brightly across your tongue, laced with the lemon juice that you added to keep the apples from browning.

He leans in close and squints. “What room are you in? I’ve never been there.”

You look over your shoulder, leaning in your chair. “It’s the extra bedroom. I hardly ever use it.”

He’s still peering into his screen. “What is on that shelf behind you?”

The chair’s back squeaks irritably when you press it back further. “Lotta crap. I have some old high school varsity football awards. Some pictures of Mama and Pops. I got a Magic 8 Ball there that Sandy gave me as a joke back in college. And, uh. Oh…”

Sterling points at the screen. It’s an inexact science, given that you have no way of actually pinpointing the trajectory of his finger, but somehow, you know anyway.

“Is that me?” he asks.

Guiltily, you grab the object that you know he’s indicating, and pull it in front of the camera.

It’s a small plastic figure, maybe five inches tall.

It has long brown sculpted hair and wide-spaced black eyes, with no expression on its cute little face.

It’s wearing a sparkly turquoise bodysuit cut down to its featureless navel, with pants that flare at the knee and a pair of truly impressive stacked silver platform heels.

Its apricot skin is dusted in glitter, and its nails are painted a darker blue.

A bedazzled microphone is clutched in its fingers.

“I am pretty sure I didn’t license a Goalposts Tour Funko Pop,” he says, bemused.

You turn the toy over in your hands. “You didn’t. It’s custom.”

“They make custom Pop figures?”

“Uh-huh.” You admire the little Sterling in your hands. “My goddaughter, Chanel, got it for me for Christmas.”

“You have a goddaughter?”

“Yup,” you nod. “My favorite cousin’s little girl.

Well, not so little anymore. She’s thirteen.

She’s a huge fan. We got talking about the tour when I called her at Thanksgiving, and she asked me what my favorite costume of yours was.

And I said it was this one, the blue one.

She got it ordered on Etsy.” A blush creeps over your face.

“It’s, uh, stupid. But I like it. Reminds me of you. ”

“You didn’t tell me that your goddaughter was a Grayling,” he says, mercifully skipping over the truly ludicrous fact that you keep a toy figurine of your boyfriend on your shelf.

You snort. “If I commented every time I ran into someone who was a fan of yours, we’d never talk about anything else.”

“Yeah, but she’s your family.” He leans across the bed, grabbing something on the nightstand. A pad of hotel paper, the kind with the name emblazoned on the top. “What’s her name again?”

“Chanel. Chanel Reinhart,” you say. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to send her some stuff. You got the name of the Etsy artist who made that figure?”

Clutching Chibi Sterling protectively, you frown. “ Why? You going to hit them with a DMCA complaint?”

He grins, showing off his pretty teeth.