Page 145 of Scoring the Player
After the road was cleared, and she’d changed out of her heels and freshened her lipstick, she’d hear her assistant gasp, and wonder if she’d done it, if the whispers were true. Her two-part investigative series on the neglect, abuse, and preventable deaths of those kids slain over there in Nebraska would finally win her a Peabody.
She threw her shoulders back and breathed in the rare air of victory when her office door opened and her haggard assistant entered, wide-eyed and shell-shocked, and delivered news that I, her back-stitched son, jumped from a seventy-story building, delivering the best sweeps week of her career.
Flipping around, I shifted until my heels hit air, whispered I’m sorry to Anaïs, spread my arms wide. And let go.
I lurch awake with a gasp, stomach clenched, fingers grasping at nothing.
Sid’s living room crashes into focus.
“Fuck.” I blow out a ragged breath and press on my throat to quell the burn.
I kick off the throw blanket and scramble to my feet.
A dim light illuminates the kitchen as I enter.
Ty looks up from a book.
“Hey.” I slide onto the stool across from him.
“Chocolate mousse?” he offers. “Sid bought it.”
“What’s in it?” I lean sideways to fill my cup with water from the sink. “Butterfly pollen?”
His lips curl up in an almost grin. “Avocados.”
“Of course.”
“He also has beet yogurt in there.”
I gurgle a groan as I gulp the water. What’s next? Water alkalized from mermaid piss? He won’t pass away like the restof us. He’ll just evaporate into frankincense-and-myrrh-scented air.
“I’ll go with the avocados,” I say.
He reaches into the fridge and then slides over a cup and a bottle of water.
“Bad dream?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Still buzzing from the game. You?”
Sid and I caught some of the replay. Ty had made it rain, something like forty points in the second half alone.
“Weird dreams,” I answer after swallowing a bite. “Old ghosts. Regrets.”
“That should be your album name.”
I grin as I scan the mousse cup’s label. “Why is this so delicious?” None of the ingredients explain the creamy, salted, dark-chocolate flavor bomb.
“I know, right?” He recycles his cup and loads his spoon in the dishwasher. “Life’s about learning to live with ’em, right?”
“What?” I ask as he retreats toward the door.
“Ghosts and regrets.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Night.”
“Hey, that pump fake, fadeaway against Jimmy earlier… Fire.”
