Page 122 of It's Always Sonny

“My agent. He’s been trying to renegotiate my contract.” I try to keep my voice light, but PJ’s brow bunches. “I gotta take this.”

I limp away, feeling weaker, emptier without PJ.

Once I’m out of the pavilion, I answer.

“Mikey, what’s up?”

“Sonny, my man, I am about to make you very rich.”

I pinch my temples. Be grateful. “I already am, remember?”

“Richer. You’re getting traded to Seattle.”

“WHAT?”

“I know, isn’t it great?” Mikey says, showing a total inability to read me. “They want you for three years with a trade option after one, but the salary is insane.”

“Mike, I said I wanted to stay.”

“I know. I did what I could, but the Waves were skittish about your knee.”

“My knee? I got this injury winning them a freaking Super Bowl they could never have won without me!”

I feel a delicate hand on my shoulder, and I whip around to see PJ. That same concern tugs her brows together.

“What’s up?” she whispers.

I mute the phone while Mikey gives me a fake “you won that championship for you,” pep talk.

“It’s nothing. I’ll tell you about it later.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing.”

I swallow the acid bubbling from my stomach. “Let me finish this and we’ll go back.” I try to smile, but it’s so fake, it hurts.

“Sonny, whatever it is, we can handle it,” she says. “Tell me.”

I slump. “I’m getting traded to Seattle.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Parker

I’ve been sucker punched. The pain in my gut is worse than a hundred ulcers. “Why would the Waves trade you?”

Sonny gestures to his knee. He looks bitter and exhausted, two emotions I’ve never seen on his face.

“You gotta be grateful,” Sonny’s agent says, still on mute. Sonny puts him on speaker but turns the volume down enough that no one else will hear him. “You get to play your dream job. You have hundreds of millions of fans, and you have the paycheck that goes with it. So you gotta play in Seattle for a few years? It’s a great town. You’ll love it.”

Sonny sighs while his agent keeps going. “He’s right. I should be happy I get to keep playing.”

We’re near an outdoor picnic table, and Sonny leans against it. I put my hand to his cheek. “You don’t have to be happy all the time.”

“Famous people don’t get to complain about the jobs that make them famous,” he says.

“Who wrote that rule?”

“Social media? You know what I’m saying. This is the ultimate first world problem here. I’ve seen too much of the world not to be grateful for a job that provides everything I could ever want.”

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