Page 22 of The Battery
I chuckled lightly and turned away.
“What?” he asked, amused.
“I… I don’t really get you.”
“Now what does that mean?” Gone was his smile, but it wasn’t replaced by annoyance. More like playful curiosity.
“I… you…” I shook my head. “You can be this total jerk one minute, then the next you’re giving me solid life advice, and then another time I’m on my knees in a supply closet.” I snapped my jaw shut. I didn’t want to say that out loud. I had an inkling that the bond we were forming was predicated on its silence.
But to my surprise, he said, “Those things are all different. None of them are really connected, to be honest.”
“Wait… what?”
“Look, I’m always a dick. I also like giving advice to people who deserve it. And your body turns me on. It’s all pretty simple.”
This man. He was a machine. How did he compartmentalize those things?
“Well… okay. If it’s how you are…”
“It is,” he stated definitively. “All right. We need to strategize. ‘Cody’s Path to Closer,’” Leo said with air quotes. “I have a playbook I want to fill out with you. Do you have anywhere you need to be?”
“Not really. Just let me know when I’ve overstayed my welcome. I need to call a cab.”
He made a face. “Did you lose your license or something?”
“No, I haven’t bought a car yet.” I scoffed at myself as we came full circle. “I’m too paranoid of dropping back into the minors and losing the salary. So I’m penny-pinching.”
“That’s what rentals are for.”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
“We rent cars all the time. Everything I have here is a rental. The car. The house. The furniture. None of us settle down in one place unless it’s in our contracts. We also get insane discounts oneverything. Did… no one tell you this?”
Freddie. That jerk.“Nope.”
Leo shook his head. “Damn, Hill. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
*
We filled twenty pages of a composition notebook with ideas, strategies, and exercises. He also scribbled down a long column of things for me to take advantage of. Leo’s handwriting wasremarkably legible, almost like typeset. I marveled at how perfect and consistent it was.
The notebook filled up the bulk of our day. Leo ordered us lunch. We stayed in the basement the whole time. While I found it curious he didn’t invite me upstairs, I wasn’t going to press the issue. At dinnertime he ordered more food and brought me to a storage room in the basement that was filled with towers of packages. We spent our dinner ripping them open where Leo implored me—practically begged me—to take anything I found remotely interesting. Turned out guys like him receive promotional swag and goods incessantly once ad companies discover their address.
I would be bringing home a new laptop, two gaming consoles, designer hoodies, designer sunglasses, a smartwatch, and top-of-the-line headphones. Oh, and he had handed me a box of the cologne he wore but I politely declined and said I liked it onhim, not me. To which he gave me another box of assorted men’s perfumes and toiletries. I really was baffled by the amount of swag he had already accumulated, and he promised I would be in the same boat one day soon.
He said he’d drive me home after we piled all the stuff by the door leading to the stairs outside. In my notebook was the phone number and email of the car rental company he used, and he said they’d be in touch with me after shooting a message to his personal assistant. Guys at his level—who had multiple projects outside of their primary job—typically had a mostly-digital assistant who didn’t need to be physically with them.
He disappeared upstairs multiple times throughout the day. I heard the light pattering of footsteps, followed by his heavy stomping. It felt invasive to ask and I had a sudden rush of paranoia while he was up there in the midafternoon. Leonidas Papadopoulos didn’t sit at the upper echelon table of baseball popularity, but he retained the kind of celebrity that still caughtthe eyes and ears of popular gossipmongers. A quick Google search revealed he wasn’t in a known relationship, married, or had kids. I let my curiosity get the best of me when he came back down and asked him if everything was okay.
“Home aide for my uncle,” he had told me succinctly. “She’s in and out throughout the day.” I got nothing more out of him and it felt like an overstep to ask further. I didn’t sense a lie and my “he’s a cheater” radar wasn’t going off.
When the sky fully darkened and the evening came to a natural close, he proposed something that surprised me. “Hot tub?”
“Sure. Got an extra suit?” He didn’t respond. He just gave me a look.
Ah. ’Bout time.
Then he said, “I need to pop upstairs to get my uncle settled for the night. Why don’t you go ahead and jump in. I’ll meet you out there with towels.”
