Page 33 of Escape Velocity
Callum sighs. “I like it, since it makes me become better, but not when it comes from the wrong people. I don’t like to be told what to do and forced into doing things. I like it when I don’t understand something, or someone. It’s a good challenge for me when I have to figure something out, like a new play, or an opposing player.”
Callum’s eyebrows are furrowed as he looks down at his feet, avoiding Mason’s gaze.
Mason writes furiously in his notebook. He’s surprised that Callum doesn’t like to be challenged by his own superiors. He likes to be challenged by peers. At least, that’s what Callum is trying to say.
Mason knows how to read between the lines. If he wants to be a good journalist, he has to.
Mason sighs. “Okay, last question. How best can I help you achieve your football goals?”
Callum looks at Mason and blinks. “What?”
“How best can I, Mason Fanning, help you achieve your football goals?”
Callum gulps. “Is this some kind of trick question?”
Mason shakes his head and shows him his list of questions.
“Clearly,The Goldberglikes me reporting on you, so if we keep having to cross paths, I have to make sure you’re being supported.”
Callum focuses his gaze behind Mason, getting a faraway look in his eyes.
“I just want you to know… that I didn’t mean for all of this to happen. That’s what would help me feel supported by you.”
Mason blinks, his throat clenching. “What do you mean?”
Callum gestures his hands between the two of them. “This. Us trading barbs. Going from friends to not friends. I didn’t mean for it to go like this.”
Mason clenches his fist around his pen. He hates how nonchalant Callum sounds about it all. Of course he does; he isn’t the one who got cut off or teased.
He saw Mason trying to hang onto the vestiges of their friendship and did him the disservice of cutting him loose from the rope hanging from the tower of their friendship.
He ditched his best friend for his football friends, and that stung more than anything else Callum could ever have done. Standing by and watching as the same people Callum would stand up for Mason against teased and laughed at Mason.
A once fierce protector turned into a complicit bystander.
Mason sighs. “But it did. You ditched me like I was some kind of loser, and screwed off with all of your new friends, and you didn’t say asinglething when they teased me. It doesn’t matter if you wanted it to happen or not, Callum, it did.”
Mason angrily gets up, gathering his things, picking up only one of his lattes that he isn’t going to drink.
Callum sighs. “Mase?—”
“Don’t call me that.”
He feels the familiar sting of tears pricking in his eyes, and he refuses to give Callum the satisfaction.
“I have everything I need. I’ll see you around,” he croaks out as he turns away from Callum.
He sniffles and walks down the bleachers, swiping at a tear before he makes contact with the concrete.
He doesn’t look back.
He has everything for the player profile, and he can’t pretend for too long that he and Callum can ever be friendly.
Hopefully, this is the last time they ever have to talk one-on-one, and if he has anything to say about it, it will be.
11
MASON
