Page 108 of Freak Show

-Text from Ari to Slone

SLONE

“How are we going to do this?” Ari asked me.

I’d thought about this a lot in the last few weeks.

Which I told her in the next breath.

“Yeah?” she asked. “So you have some ideas? Because I don’t. I don’t know how we’re going to do this.”

I pulled her in close.

We were lying in bed after a long week of me going back and forth from the house to sponsorship meetings, to games, then back.

There was a very, very high likelihood that we were looking at a playoff run, and possibly even a Super Bowl push come January/February.

So the sponsors were all in an uproar as they vied for my attention.

Needless to say, we were all tired.

And Briley, with her cast and her bad attitude, was one of the ones suffering.

Mostly because my team owner had all but told me that this back and forth, child traveling with the team thing, was over. Because she couldn’t give the same to the other players on the team.

Though I couldn’t fault my team members for wanting the same thing I had, I had it in my contract and told her so.

Which pissed Kay off even more.

And I had a very distinct feeling that she was trying to trade me and Titus now, just to save face with the team.

And if that happened…I was retiring.

I loved football. But I was tired of the back-and-forth game.

I was ready to be at home with my kid permanently.

Even if that home happened to move with the circus.

I explained my thoughts to Ari, and she sat up, her mouth open.

“You don’t want to play football anymore?” she shrieked.

I grinned and wrapped my hand around her arm, pulling her closer to me so that she was lying on my chest.

When she was close, I said, “I don’t care about football anymore. I haven’t for a while.”

Saying the words felt almost freeing.

“I have a little over a year left in my contract. If they trade me, I’ll take a pay out on my contract and retire. If they don’t trade me, we’ll keep trucking for a year…then I’ll retire once my contract is up.”

She was shaking her head. “But how do we make that work, Slone?”

I curled a stray hair around her ear and said, “How do you feel about keeping Briley with you when I’m out of town?”

Her eyes widened. “I would love that.”

“How do you feel about hiring a driver, and then him driving our motor home around everywhere you go for your shows? Then when we have time, we’ll go home and stay there when there’s a break. We’ll make this work, baby. I don’t care what we have to do. We will,” I emphasized.

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