Page 2 of Good Guy Gabe

I firm up my lips and nod sharply. I do know better, but it’s easier rolling with Blaise’s shenanigans than trying to reason with him. And it’s not like Merrick is going to stop Blaise. They come together like sulfur and oxygen. I wish I could be a fire extinguisher, but I’m just the farmer mowing over his field to keep the brushfire from spreading.

“We’re done,” I assure Huang. “Just a stupid thing to try. We’ll clean it up before we head out.”

I expect him to be mollified by that, but instead he says, “Not you. Emily Hess wants to see you.”

“Ooh,” Blaise and Merrick sing out in unison as though I’ve just been called down to the principal’s office.

I glare at them, but I have to look over my shoulders to do that. Of course they’re using me as a meat wall. Blaise is shaking out the twists he just had done, his preferred hairstyle during football season so he can bring the afro back out from February to July. Merrick winks one blue eye and blows me a kiss.

“Who’s Emily Hess?” I ask them, nervous. This is the final season of my current contract. I can’t be messing up now.

“She’s in PR,” Blaise says.

“You’re in trouble, dude,” Merrick adds.

Huang has to shout, “She’s the director of events!” over another chorus ofoohs, saving me additional stress. It wouldn’tbe the first time I’ve gotten chewed out by PR about some social media nonsense that wasn’t my fault.

It’s almost always Blaise’s fault. When it’s not, it’s Merrick’s.

“What does the director of events need me for?” I mutter as I head out of the gym. Huang barks orders out behind me, and I’d fully expect a fistfight to break out if it wasn’t mid-August, with only one more pre-season game before the second season of the Wilmington Juggernauts officially starts.

Emily Hess, Director of Events, has an office that is simultaneously spacious and cluttered. The offensive line could fit in here comfortably, but right now, there’s barely enough room for just me because of the stacks of crates, all labeled KICK-OFF GALA, plus an entire team’s worth of life-sized pop-up replicas of us. I come face-to-face with myself, and even cardboard me took twice the materials of Merrick standing nearby. Merrick’s looking all sleek and suave and dangerous in that way that gets his fangirls dropping panties. Cardboard me is red-faced and jolly and tubby, Santa Claus working his part-time gig.

Yeah, I got fangirls, and yeah, I mostly get cookies from them. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the cookies. But I wouldn’t say no to some panties.

I frown when I notice this photo must have been from this past summer, before I noticed the patch of silver sprouting at the edge of the ginger and started using a shampoo that makes it less a beacon pointing to my advanced years. I meander over to the desk and open the top drawer to see if there’s a Sharpie or red pen or dark nail polish, anything to color in that spot. Only then do I hear a hissing sound and realize I’m not alone.

Lurking between Dom Morales, second-string QB, and Micah Oliver, running back, is a very petite, very angry middle-aged woman. She has one very angry finger pointed at me, another pointed at the headset in her ear, I guess to indicate she’s on a call. She’s got one of those haircuts that tells me she’s complained to the manager so many times she’sbecomemanagement.

I ease the drawer closed and sheepishly lower myself into her seat, but the creak it makes has me shooting back up. I fold my arms in and keep my head hung in acknowledgment of her eye daggers as I wait for her to finish her call.

When she talks, it’s pleasant, upbeat, go-getter platitudes, assuring whomever is on the other end of the call that everything is right on schedule and the Kick-Off Gala is going to go off without a hitch. They’ve even added extra security in case any disruptive elements need to be removed.

That’s the team. We’re the disruptive elements. We’ve already been told that we will be served exactly two alcoholic drinks aside from the champagne toast, to not even try to bribe the bartenders because there will be cameras, and that we’re all going to be sent through metal detectors and manually searched upon entry.

When her call is over, her voice jumps an octave as she gestures for me to leave, like I wasn’t told to come here by the least likely Jug to prank me. “You, the Quilted Flower, now.”

I pat myself down, wondering if I’ve somehow picked up some fabric brooch of hers or something. Nope, just my usual athletic shorts and my baby pink Party Animal hoodie with the screen print of a DJ cat in Deal-With-It sunglasses.

And a giant rip on the side.

“Go to. The Quilted Flower. Right now. The quilt we’re auctioning for the Kick-Off fundraiser is coming from there, and I haven’t been able to get in touch with the quilter in four days.”

“The quilter?” I repeat. The only quilter I’ve ever known was my great-gram, who passed a couple years back at the ripe old age of 92. Even died with a quilt in her lap, halfway through a stitch. Grams tried to pass it off to my sisters, but they all agreed the thing was cursed. I don’t know what ever happened to it.

“Yes, the quilter. The person who makes quilts. They’re called quilters.”

“Well, right, but what if she’s . . .” I lean in and whisper, “. . . dead? I don’t want to find a dead body.”

“She’s not dead!” Emily screeches, punching cardboard Kai Bodley right in the face, triggering a domino effect that knocks over half the team. “Her name’s Jocelyn Page. She’s very much alive, she’s just not returning my calls. Now go!”

I shouldn’t push my luck, but I have to ask, “Why me? I’m supposed to be packing for Cleveland.”

I’ve seen defensive tackles driven to the brink of madness by Blaise’s taunts, to the point of five-yard penalties for offsides, who look less like raging bulls than this woman. She breathes several times. I’m not sure if she’s calming herself or stoking an internal fire. Finally, she says, “The store is in Camden. You live in Camden. It’s on your way home.”

“I mean, Sinclair and Briggs live there too. Plus Bodley and Jennings and Vedder.” I grumble as I head back out of the office, but even I know that’s a bad line. They’d terrorize the poor granny.

I pull out my phone and search for The Quilted Flower. The picture taken from the street is an old farmhouse with weatheredclapboard siding and a wraparound porch that has several quilts draped over the railing. Some look like the ones Great-Gran Bernie made, washed-out pastels and antique tones in fussy patterns, but others are bright and sophisticated murals more like what I’d expect at a modern art gallery. One of the quilts looks like a clean fade from baby pink to a nightmarish neon melon, but when I zoom in, what looked like bad camera pixels is actually intricate designs stitched together from tangerine- and dragonfruit-colored fabric.

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