Page 29 of The Progressions

“I guess,” he repeated. “She stayed in New York. Did you see what happened before the game?”

“You mean, you two swapping spit on the sideline? Yes, I saw. Everyone saw.”

“Good,” Tyler said, nodding like he was satisfied.

But I didn’t understand. “How did she take that picture of the two of you in bed together this morning, if she stayed there and you came home with the team?”

“It was from a few months ago,” he explained. “She has a stash of potential posts and it fit with the sideline show.”

“So that was…a plan?A scheme?You got her to kiss you?”

He nodded again.“She wanted to, anyway.The kiss went viral and she loved how her eyebrows looked in that picture.She wanted to help the situation because she was sorry about the shit with you.”

“I haven’t heard that from her yet.” And I wasn’t going to hold my breath while I waited to hear it, either. Shay Galton had gotten her start by posting videos that demonstrated her extreme lung capacity (and her nipples, because she’d worn see-through shirts), but I thought I would definitely pass out before she ever apologized to me.

“Rami is going to want to beat my ass today,” he mentioned, and I assumed that he was tacitly agreeing that Shay Galton wasn’tgoing to stroll in here with flowers and a big cake that said “Sorry!”

It was true that Rami Nour, the offensive coordinator, wouldn’t be happy with Tyler’s performance, and I pointed out several reasons why. Like, had he memorized the playbook? Really? Because it hadn’t looked like it. He’d seemed confused several times and the quarterback’s frustration had been clear.

“I was distracted,” he told me. “I’ve been distracted for the last week or so.”

“Now Shay Galton knows that you’re not cheating, and you can relax,” I pointed out. Things would get better and he could focus on what was important: football.

“My mom got hurt.”

“What? What do you mean?” I had never heard him talk about his mom, except for very briefly when I’d asked very direct questions.

Tyler had put his head down, resting his forehead in his hand. “She fell and she busted up her hip and her knee, and she had to have surgery. She needs help.”

The poor lady! “Can’t you hire someone? Yes, you can,” I answered myself. “Give me her address and I’ll do it.”

“I already got somebody for her, home care, as much help as she wants. She’s not complaining but I…”

I probably understood his feelings better than most people would. “You want to do it yourself, because nobody else will with the same love,” I filled in. “And maybe she isn’t tellingyou everything, because she doesn’t want you to worry, and that makes you mad, too. It’s also really scary that the person that you depended on is now depending on you.”

“How old were you when your dad had the stroke?”

“Sixteen,” I said. “It was a real turning point. It was the moment when everything changed in our lives.”

“This isn’t as bad as that,” he told me. “And I’m worried more than mad.” He paused. “I’m very worried and I was thinking about having her come here. She didn’t get to visit much over the past few months. She never even saw my old rental house.”

“Why?”

“She and Shay don’t see eye to eye. That’s why.”

“So you excluded your mother? You wouldn’t let her come to your house?” I asked incredulously.

“I didn’t exclude her!” he told me, and maybe he hadn’t been angry before, but he was plenty mad now. “She didn’t want to intrude, so she didn’t. I went home to Georgia to visit her instead.”

“Oh, that’s good. Would it be ok for your mom to visit now?” Maybe Shay Galton would be more sympathetic.

He looked toward his new home and frowned. “There are too many stairs in that place.”

“Just up to the front door, and we can put in a ramp. You can take one of the upstairs bedrooms for a while,” I suggested. He would have to be the one to break that to Shay Galton; she had already proclaimed that the main bedroom wasn’t big enough,so I had ideas about how she would respond to an even littler one.

“I could hire someone to fly up here with her. I can rent a private plane.”

“I’ll help you get a ramp installed,” I said. “No charge.”

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