Page 71 of Freak Show

After my nod, she pulled over and held it steady while I got up on wobbly legs.

“That’s kind of scary how fast you just go out.” She snapped her fingers. “I can see now why Darnell said you wouldn’t want to go out by yourself. I’ll bet that would be scary waking up and wondering if anything happened.”

She’d read my mind.

We walked together, and she guided my way by pointing out how to get around tunnels and upstairs.

“Have you been here a lot?” I asked her.

“I have.” She paused. “If you say five times is a lot. I guess I’m just really good at following signs, though.”

She pointed at a set of signs that indicated where the away team boxes were.

“Ah,” I said. “That makes more sense.”

We arrived at the box a few minutes later, and my eyes widened when I saw the few people inside.

“I think we’re under dressed,” I mused.

“You aren’t,” she said. “They’re overdressed. They’re Instagram and TikTok famous, and they post pictures of themselves at the games for likes. Some of them are obnoxious.” She jerked her chin in the direction of a few normally dressed women. Ones dressed like us. “They’re more our style. The one on the left over there is the quarterback’s girlfriend. I think they’re going to make it.”

She moved us toward the girlfriend.

When we arrived, the girlfriend held out her hand to me and said, “You must be Ari. I’m Gladys.”

Gladys.

I loved it.

“I am. Did Ashton talk about me?” I questioned.

“Ashton talks about everyone.” Gladys smiled sympathetically. “But you’re a big deal among the girlfriends. Everyone was talking about you days ago when we all saw you’d married Slone.”

I had to get a good laugh out of that.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked.

“Yep,” Gladys said. “How’d that happen, by the way?”

In our huddle before the game started, I told her the same story I’d just told Sweetie an hour earlier.

Before long, we were all fast friends.

“Where does Briley go during the game?” I asked.

“Usually, she has a nanny following her around everywhere. She comes up here during the game,” Sweetie explained. “But I think that babysitter moved to Dubai because she got a new job nannying some really rich guy’s new baby. And I think I heard Slone say that he was going to have to start interviewing for new ones soon.”

I hadn’t heard that.

But that really sucked, putting your child’s life in the care of someone else.

That must be downright terrifying.

“Game’s starting,” someone called.

I turned in my seat to see the players start coming out onto the field.

My eyes immediately zeroed in on a familiar pair of arms.

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