Page 82 of High Notes & Hail Marys

Your heart sinks a little bit when you think aboutSterling’s refusal to do anything sexual on video calls. The way that he’s only kissed you in public once or twice. What’s happening to Gabi—it’s his worst nightmare.A massive violation.

“You’re right,” you say quickly. “I didn’t get it. I understand, now.”

“GoGo’s got her by the neck,” he says. “I didn’t actually think he would have had that much forethought. I knew he wasn’t a great guy. I figured it out about the drugs, based on little things Gabi told me and that night at the restaurant. I eventually looked up his past. But I didn’t think he was capable of going this far. I don’t know. He seems…”

“Stupid?” You snort. “I mean, he pretty much is. The guy wouldn’t have made it into college if he wasn’t a blue chip recruit. High school football is wild in Texas. The boosters probably paid the nerdy kids good money to write his papers.”

Sterling shudders. “How is that legal?”

“It’s not,” you reply simply. “GoGo is a fucking dumbass. But that’s how things are.”

He stirs a bit of sugar into one of the mugs. Tastes the coffee. Adds some more, then silently passes it across the bar to you. That little moment—he knows how you take your coffee—is almost enough to dispel the black cloud over your head. Almost. Sterling may be the cutest thing in the UK, but theGoGo and Gabi situation is a train wreck you can’t walk away from.

“What’s the team going to do?” Sterling asks.

You scoff against the lip of your mug. “What theyshoulddo is kick his shitty ass out, and all thirty-one other teams should blacklist him. In a perfect world. What will actually happen, I don’t know. ‘Specially if Gabi won’t press charges. The NFA claims to have morality clauses, but they aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Production is what counts, and GoGo’s really good at playing football.”

Aghast, Sterling sets down the spoon he was about to use to stir his own coffee. “So, what? He gets away with it? He keeps collecting millions to play a stupid game after he just bruised a woman? And maybe not even for the first time?”

You bite the side of your cheek so hard, so suddenly, that you taste blood.Is that what he thinks about what you do for a living? That football’s a stupid game?

Sterling catches himself almost immediately.

“Jesus, Kai,” he says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say…”

The legs of your stool catch the tile and make a horrific scratching whine as you push yourself abruptly back from the bar.

“I’m going to the gym,” you tell him. “I’ll be back in a couple hours, after I’ve gotten my head right.”

His hand is tentative on your arm. You hate that your gut reaction is to push it off. You don’t. But he can probably feel you tense up.

“What I said was out of line,” Sterling says quietly. “Please don’t let that be what you’re thinking of while you work out. It’s a terrible situation. I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you,” you reply. It’s half a lie, but that’s not too bad. Just half.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Your coffee is untouched after all that. It swirls black and sticky around the drain when you pour it in the sink. “No. I’ll be fine. You stay here. In case Gabi calls back, or… I don’t know. Go back to bed. Try to get some sleep.”

“Like I’m sleeping again after that,” he mutters darkly.

Upstairs, you change into fresh gym clothes. Lace up your sneakers. Grab your bag, and your water bottle, and your over-ear headphones. You put them on and make sure your music is playing on your way back through the kitchen, so you don’t have to talk to Sterling. Rod Wave is blasting at a deafening volume.

You take the Tube to the gym, keeping your head low, and let your trainer run you absolutely ragged. Drop by drop of sweat, the anger and ugliness leaches from your pores. By the end of the session, your muscles are sore and exhausted, but your mind is strangely clear.

The message that you get on the subway back home doesn’t even rattle you: a strongly-worded missive from the Cyclones’ front office reminding you (and the fifty-two other active roster players plus sixteen practice squad members doubtlessly BCC’d) that, while you cannot beforcedto stay silent, management wouldstrongly preferthat you not make unauthorized statements on other players’ personal lives.

As if wild horses could drag a fucking sound bite from you on the issue. Hah. It’s still the middle of the night on America’s East Coast. The PR machine is working overtime.

By the time you get home, you are chill. You drop a kiss on Sterling’s head. He has plaited his hair in two French braids and is sitting with his laptop, listening to some tracks that Graham sent over. When he sees you, he looks somewhat anxious, and it makes your chest hurt. You tell him that you are going to take a shower, and to meet you in bed after. It’s lunchtime, and the sun is staring to just peer through the drizzly mist and gray clouds, but you two cuddle up and sleep the afternoon away.

A few days later, the verdict comes down from the Association: GoGo will receive a three-game suspension, to be served at the beginning of the upcoming season. The news tastes as bitter as wormwood, poisonous on your tongue. By that time, Sterling is getting ready for his fourth stop of this tour leg, the Dublin shows. You let that distract you. Tour the Guinness factory, even though you hate stout beer. Have a private picnic at a castle with Sterling, the ancestral lawn and the gray-green Irish Sea rolling out beyond where you sit. Make silly Instagram posts about searching for your Lucky Charms

You purposely don’t ask Sterling about the pictures—the ones that led the police to GoGo’s doorstep. You know exactly what photos the news station was talking about, the ones from that awful night at Mantel right before Christmas. The film that Sterling paid the paparazzo to give him, the kid in the bushes.

You’ve lived long enough to know that revenge is a dish best served cold, but you can’t help wondering what made Ster pull the trigger at the moment he did. Did he consult his team, or did he decide all on his own? Did he hit send on the message personally?

You realize that it doesn’t matter, because you don’t care.

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