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Your mother’s face drops in pity and sadness. “Of course, baby. We totally get it.” She nods to your forgotten plate on the coffee table. “Are you going to eat some more? You didn’t really touch anything.”

“Oh.” You pick up the plate, because you’re not an ungrateful teenager. “Maybe, maybe not. I’ll bring it out back with me.”

“Will you be back to finish the game?” she asks hopefully.

The wince on your face probably says it all. “Don’t think so,” you admit. “I don’t foresee this being a short phone call. And, honestly, my heart’s not in it. I’m sorry. If you box up some of those leftovers, I’ll totally cheat and eat them for lunch tomorrow.”

“Okay.” One thing about Margo Grayson; she’s fully committed to her reality as a superstar’s mother. “We’ll see you in the morning. Try to sleep well.”

You kiss her forehead, and pat your dad on the shoulder. As wrapped up in the game as he is, you only have perhaps a quarter of his attention when he says goodnight.

As you predicted, you are on the phone for much longer than you would like.

Desi’s phone call turns into a battle summit discussing how to word the statement that has already been requested by no fewer than a dozen major press outlets.

You need to reiterate your support of your boyfriend while also kowtowing to the authority and good judgment of the National Football Association, she decides.

Kai has been coming off a challenging situation with his recent head injury, and his stress level is high.

You can hear the italics in her voice, the buzzwords peppered in her fragments of PR-ese.

Honestly, you don’t know why she called to confer; she seems to have had everything figured out before you picked up the phone.

“Sounds like you have this under control, Des,” you say for about the fifth time.

“Of course, we may have to pivot when the Association’s official punishment comes down,” she prattles on. “If they really throw the book at him, and he’s suspended for multiple games, we might need to lean a little harder on the public’s goodwill.”

“ What public goodwill?” you mutter. Without realizing it, you have started pacing the floor of the guesthouse, making a tight circuit from the door in the little front room to the back of the bedroom, where you’ve tightly shut the curtains.

The phone is against your ear, and you keep going to crack your knuckles, only to realize that they are already sore.

On the other end of the line. Desiree pauses. It’s three hours earlier in Los Angeles, you think. Maybe the sun hasn’t even set yet.

“Well, yes,” she hedges. “That’s a fairly obvious complication.

My contact with the NFA was keen to remind me that they swept the whole issue with the Hard Rock bomb threat under the rug for us, and heavily suggested that we return the favor by keeping any statements focused heavily on our agreement with the Association’s ruling.

I mean, he doesn’t understand that we’re fighting a pretty intense war of public opinion, here.

I think that we have to tread very carefully. That’s why, again, I suggest…”

And then, just when you are pretty sure you want to throw your phone across the room, she reiterates the plan. Again.

By the time you manage to pry her off the phone, your stress level is at a 10/10, and you have a tension headache sawing against your forehead. According to his location on your phone, Kai is still at the stadium, and a quick Google tells you that the fourth quarter has only just started.

Fuck it , you think. Nothing good will come of staying up, feeling worse, and trying to talk to him after the game when you are both upset.

You always FaceTime him at night when you are apart, no matter how late it is for either one of you, but you make an executive decision to break the rule.

You turn your phone off and take three tabs of melatonin before washing your face and brushing your teeth, falling deep into a dreamless sleep.

In the morning, you check your phone and see that Kai didn’t even try to call.

Your mood hangs over you like a storm cloud.

You try to fake it for your mom’s sake and stomp into the house to have coffee with your folks, but that was a mistake.

Noemi asks too many questions and gets under your skin, and your mom is upset by the bickering that follows.

You leave your mug behind, and grab the keys to your mother’s Highlander.

You actually know how to drive, thank you very much.

You have a valid driver’s license issued by the state of Tennessee and everything.

Still, you can’t remember the last time you operated a vehicle.

You probably shouldn’t be driving on a Tuesday morning, and you definitely shouldn’t be doing it without someone from your security team, but you feel like giving the whole universe a giant middle finger.

So you put on a pair of sunglasses and leave, just like an ungrateful teenager after all.

Two minutes into your impromptu escape, you are realizing this might have been a terrible idea.

The other cars are being driven faster and more confidently than you are doing, and you don’t even know where you are driving.

You can’t actually go anywhere. It’s not safe.

You’re on Tokeneke Street, the MTA New Haven Line passing overhead, when full-on panic sets in.

Morning traffic is slow and plodding, but everything feels too much.

The other cars, the honking horns, the highway overpass.

The traffic lights. The sunlight in your eyes!

I’ll just pull over , you think to yourself. I’ll pull over, and call someone to come get me, and suck up the ass-chewing I’m gonna get from Cal and the guys.

You see a shopping plaza, and put on your left-hand turn signal.

Your heart is thumping double-time. There’s another car ahead of you in the turn lane, a lifted red Ford F-150.

When there’s a break in the traffic, it makes the left turn.

There’s plenty of room, so you zip across the street behind it.

Only for it to brake at the very entrance to the plaza, where there’s apparently a drastic dip in the pavement.

You were following too closely, and you collide with his back bumper.

“Fuck!” you scream into the otherwise empty car. You are going to faint. You’re sure of it.

The driver, who appears to be male from his thick, hairy arm out the window, signals for you to continue into the lot and pull into a parking space behind him. There’s a modest dent in his bumper that wasn’t there before. Your vision swims.

You park the car, and the other guy gets out. He’s in his mid-40s and balding, with reflective Ray Bans and a short-sleeved work shirt, despite the fact that it’s only in the high 40s. An embroidered patch reads Noroton Contracting . He does not look especially pleased.

“What the hell!” he cries before you can even say anything. “Are you fucking stupid? Everyone in town knows that you can’t go flying over that fucking rut.”

“Sorry” you say. “I don’t live around here.”

“Typical out-of-towner,” he mutters, examining his truck’s rear, touching the dent as if evaluating it.

“I’d prefer if we didn’t get the police involved,” you say, trying to tamp down the panic in your gut. “I’ll pay for whatever body work you need.”

“Fat fucking chance!” He shakes his head. “Spoken like a loser with no insurance. We’re doing this by the book. Accident report and the whole nine.”

Your hands are trembling. You don’t even know if you brought your wallet with you.

When you were growing up, Mom always kept her insurance card and registration in the glove box.

You wonder if they are still there. You are trying to process everything— calling the cops means there will be an official report, which means that the media can get hold of it.

Desi is going to have to deal with it —when the man flips up his sunglasses and squints at you.

“Hey!” he says. “Do I recognize you from somewhere?”

You bite your lip. “I have no idea, sir. We’ve never met before.”

He takes a step closer. Your first instinct is to take a matching step back, because he’s the kind of straight man that makes you instinctively nervous. But he only looks you up and down curiously.

“Anyone ever tell you that you look like that fruity singer?” he asks suspiciously. “The one who just had the big tour?”

“All the time,” you say miserably. You really don’t like where this conversation is going.

“The one who’s dating the NFA player,” he continues, as if this were an actual conversation. “Blowing kisses on TV! You know, I’ve got nothing wrong with gay people, but I think that’s a bit too much, you know? Men should act like men when they’re playing ball.”

“Please don’t say that.” The words come out of your mouth before you can stop them.

“Why?” he snorts, poking at the screen of his cell phone. “Hurt your feelings?”

“I don’t like people talking shit about my partner,” you say, as calmly as you can.

That makes him look up sharply. “Holy shit!” he says. “You are that guy. What’s your name again?”

“Sterling Grayson,” you grit out behind clenched teeth.

“Sterling!” he says, his whole demeanor changed. “Nice to meet you. Name’s Mike.” Unwillingly, you shake his proffered hand. “What are you doing here? Don’t you live in Hollywood or something?”

“Not usually,” you say. You are very aware of the cars circling the shopping plaza. It’s still early, and most of the businesses aren’t open, but there’s a grocery store in the middle, and people are going in and out. “My parents are here.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he marvels. “My niece entered the lottery, you know? Tried to get tickets to your concert in the city. I think my brother was really glad she didn’t get picked!

” He laughs loudly. You want to cringe. “I guess you weren’t kidding about having the money to just fix my truck, huh? ”