Page 7 of The Progressions

“Good.Bye.”

The phone beeped, since he had hung up, but I concluded with the rest of the information. “After the lease is ready, I’ll email a link and you can electronically initial and sign. Our policy is that we must receive the full amount of the security deposit within forty-eight hours of our receipt of the completed agreement.” But I could include all that in my email.

I looked in on Dad, who seemed to be peacefully asleep, and I didn’t disturb him to share my plans. He needed to get rest when he could. I also didn’t change out of the pajamas I’d worn to work around the house, but I did grab my purse with the office keys inside it before I got in my car. I hoped that the engine’s noise in our driveway wouldn’t be too loud inside the bedroom.

It was certainly quiet on the roads around my house at night, but it got it busier as I approached the complex and it got brighter, too. It was totally dark out where I lived but there were some streetlights here. I saw that two of the tall poles that were supposed to illuminate our parking lot weren’t functioning, though. It wasn’t up to Oren to repair them or to replace the bulbs, because we’d need a cherry picker, but it was definitely hisresponsibility to monitor for problems and keep us informed if they needed work.

Without those lights, it was very dim as I parked my car and walked over to my office. But it wasn’t dark enough to obscure the bright yellow SUV that was also parked there, and I recognized it. I also recognized the tall figure leaning against it.

“Mr. Hennessy?” I called, and he stood straight and strode over.

“Kayla?”

“Close,” I told him. I thought of how my dad had been upset that this man hadn’t bothered to look at me during our earlier interactions, and I got snippy. “I’m Kasia Decker. You must have heard my name on the outgoing message when you called the office and got my cell number, and you wrote it out today when you signed my autograph book.”

“At Fan Day.”

“Yep, that was me. K-A-S-I-A, Kasia.”

“I signed about thirty thousand things,” he said wearily. “Tyler Hennessy, number sixty-two. I don’t ever want to autograph anything again.”

“You’ll have to sign your name on the lease,” I reminded him. And if he was going to be a Woodsmen, he had many Fan Days in his future—it was a standard clause in the players’ contracts that they had to attend, barring natural disasters and personal catastrophes (I’d read that in posts online, when some of their contracts had leaked). “But you didn’t actually have to deal with the lease in person. You could have done it online.” I slid aglance over my shoulder as I unlocked the office door. “Don’t the Woodsmen usually have parties and go out together after all the events are over at the stadium?”

“Maybe they do.”

They definitely did; their activities were all over social media. Tons of them were at the home of Garrett Bowman, one of the defensive linemen, and another big crowd had also rented out a bar downtown to continue the party there. “Didn’t you want to go?” I asked curiously, and that was the moment when he frowned and got annoyed.

“Are we going to do this or what?”

Right, the lease. I got started working on that as Tyler Hennessy moved around the little office. It was actually a trailer, one that was probably meant to be temporary but then had stuck around through the years. It definitely wasn’t large and it definitely wasn’t comfortable, like there weren’t a lot of places to sit, but we did have a chair for guests. He squeezed himself into it and shifted a lot, like he was uncomfortable, and he kept up the yawning and frowning that he’d been doing at the stadium during the autograph signing. I tried to hurry but I wanted to get everything exactly right, since he was high-profile and I was trying to make a good impression for myself and for Iva, the person who would also get blamed if I messed up.

“Are you wearing pajamas?”

“Huh?” I looked up quickly. “Me?”

He didn’t bother to answer, but his eyebrows went up and he got a “yes, you idiot” type of expression.

“These are my PJs,” I agreed. “I was going to bed when you called.”

“No parties for you?”

“No, not for me, either. It’s a weeknight,” I said.

“You sound like someone’s teacher. Or grandmother.” He picked up a pencil and spun it around his fingers and then he seemed to look at my face, maybe for the first time. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one. I’m legal, but I’m not much of a partier on any type of night,” I told him. “I don’t ever go out a lot.”

“Why?”

“I have other things to do that are more important. Are you going to be the only lessee?”

He was silent for a moment before getting up and walking to the window. “Yes,” he answered, the word directed to the glass and the parking lot outside it.

It didn’t take all that long for me to finish, since these agreements were pretty standard and I only had to tweak a little bit of the language. He really did distract me with all his moving around, and he asked me more questions, too. Like, was that the usual crowd for Fan Day? That many people? And was there really nothing to do around here? He’d taken a drive to get his bearings and hadn’t noticed much.

“There won’t be as many bars and clubs as a big city, but as I said, I’m probably not your best source for social stuff,” I told him. “Ok, this is all ready for you.”

He flipped through the pages without appearing to read anything, so as a precaution in case he claimed ignorance about what he’d put his name to, I went over a few sections. One was the guest policy and another was about noise. Violations of those clauses had caused significant issues for some of the football players who had rented here in the past, as had the section about damage to the unit. There were a few more points I wanted him to hear but from the way he kept yawning, I doubted that he was paying much attention. In the end I gave up, and I just pointed to the places that needed his initials and, again, his signature.

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