The Bust

by Jamie Bennett

  “No malarky. Got it,” I answered.

  Coach Márquez leaned forward and looked into my face, like he was searching to see if I was messing with him. “Good,” he said finally. “I sent you Rami’s number, so call him, or DM him, or however the hell you guys talk to each other now. Learn the offense from him and we’ll see how you do with it.” He paused. “So you’ll be on our roster. Congratulations.” He waited and leaned forward again, watching.

  “Thanks,” I remembered to say, and he nodded.

  I stood there alone in the parking lot after the coach and all the other guys had driven away. I had a new feeling in my stomach that spread all the way down to my fingertips, but it wasn’t a need for drugs. It was…excitement? A thrill, maybe, because I was back in football.

  I was back.

  ∞

  Kylie

  I tasted what was in the pot and my nose wrinkled. This dinner hadn’t turned out exactly like I’d planned, but it was food, and anyway, I’d spent a ton on the groceries and taken way too much time cooking to toss it and restart. For a celebration dinner, soup wasn’t something that most people would prepare, but I’d tried my best, even if this wasn’t exactly caviar and champagne.

  Kayden couldn’t have champagne in any case, but I had wanted to make a big deal out of him making the Junior Woodsmen team—and more importantly, getting a paycheck. He had texted to let me know: “Made it.” And I had run around the house screaming for a minute and Emma and I did our victory butt bump before I’d gotten a car and we’d come over to his apartment to start cooking a special dinner for the occasion. I tasted again and thought, maybe more salt? I added some and hoped for the best.

  As I stirred that in, I thought about the feasts in the latest book I was rereading, The Marquesa Weds a Highlander, in which many courses of food were served in trenchers of stale bread by a variety of lusty wenches while minstrels roamed around. At least we’d have real bowls and spoons, Kayden’s dishes, which were very nice. It turned out that the nice stuff in this apartment (all totally mushroom-free, by the way) came with it as part of the furnished rental. That was a shame because he wouldn’t be able to sell any of it for ready cash without the actual owner getting pretty upset, and now that he had a job, he wouldn’t be able to make a fast break out of the neighborhood without complications.

  Knocking at the door made Emma growl and yap, which was not allowed because I’d done a little research and found that Kayden had been totally wrong: dogs were not permitted in this apartment building. We’d snuck in past the doorman, which had been difficult and had involved creating a diversion and using a dog disguise, and I didn’t want to blow it now. “Shh!” I corrected and she gave me a look that told me that she didn’t enjoy my attempt at discipline.

  I peeked through the peephole and saw that I could take this guy with Emma as my second, if it came down to a fight, so I went ahead and opened it. “May I help you?” I asked the visitor, and smiled politely.

  “I’m looking for Kayden Matthews. Is he here?” The man tried to peer around my body. “Do you live here?”

  Well, the first rule of life was to answer no questions from a stranger at your door, especially if that stranger looked like a landlord. I could smell them a mile away, so I just smiled. “May I help you?” I repeated.

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with the tenant here, Mr. Matthews,” he informed me, then frowned when he heard a noise. “What was that?”

  It had come from Emma, whose tummy was acting up again. “It was me. Excuse me,” I said. “Is there a message that I can pass on?”

  He handed me an envelope. “Yes, please pass this on. He needs to respond, immediately.”

  Oh, lordy. I knew exactly what this envelope meant, and I reluctantly took it. “Ok, I’ll let him know,” I said. Maybe I’d talk to Kayden about this issue after dinner, which wasn’t the feast that I’d been thinking of but would at least be hot and fit for human consumption. I’d gently explain that he was on the verge of being evicted, but at least this landlord was being nicer about than any of the ones I’d dealt with in my past and I didn’t think he’d find his belongings thrown out onto the sidewalk.

  This guy did seem hesitant to leave without rent money in his hand, but I smiled politely again and shut the door just as he made a face and started to wave his hand in front of his nose. Kayden was in worse trouble than he knew, but I got it exactly. I quickly grabbed his laptop to look up eviction laws in Michigan, since I myself was only familiar with the process in California, Wyoming, Kansas, and Louisiana.

  Emma suddenly gave an excited yelp and actually slid herself up off of the couch. “Is Kayden home?” I asked her, and she walked stiffly to the door. “I’m going to set the table. You will not eat this dinner, so please, no begging.” She didn’t bother to respond, since she already knew that Kayden would share. He’d happily given her part of his breakfast this morning, which had been the sweetest thing.

  “Hey, dog,” he said when he came in. I watched him greet her with pets and a brief tummy rub. He looked up at me. “Hi, Kylie. This is weird, coming home and you guys are here.”

  “I told you I would be, right?”

  “Yeah, you announced that right after you told me that you knew my key code for the door and would meet me at my apartment.” He paused. “I guess I should change the pin on my ATM card.”

  “I wouldn’t take your money!” I assured him, and I certainly wouldn’t, especially since Kayden barely had any. “Congratulations again! Come sit down and eat and tell me more about the tryout.”

  He did sit and started to talk, at first a little slowly and like he was hesitating, but then faster and more excited as he warmed up to it. “I’m supposed to see Rami tomorrow to learn the offense,” he explained, but then frowned. “I’m not sure about it, though.”

  “I have no idea why you’d want to do that,” I commented.

  “Right? That’s what I thought. Why would I ask for help from a guy whose job I’m trying to take? Won’t he just try to fuck me over? Why would he want to teach me anything in the first place, unless it’s some kind of trick or something?”

  “Those are good questions, but I mean that I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about when you say you need to learn the offense. Don’t you just throw a ball and someone catches it?” I asked. “Is it really something you have to study?”

  Kayden stared at me and for a moment, I thought he was going to get very mad. But then he smiled. “Yeah, I have to study. There’s probably a lot to learn, but it’s not going to be as complicated as my former job. The Rustlers’ offensive playbook was six hundred pages long and we got tested on it. Our coach would say the name of a play and call someone up to the white board and we’d have to draw it up in front of everyone. Like this,” he said, and started sketching in the dust on the table. He frowned at the marks he’d made. “Does anyone clean here?”

  “I don’t think so. Have you noticed it happening?” I asked, and he answered with another frown. Had he said that he’d memorized six hundred pages of information? Kayden had to be smart, very smart to have learned all that. I was impressed. “Well, if you have to learn all the plays and their names, and this guy, the former quarterback—”

  “Rami Nour.”

  “Rami,” I repeated. “Rami said he wants to be, like, a tutor for you? That’s either really nice or you’re right, and it’s a really, really tricky move. Have you ever done that yourself for a new player? Tried to help him out so much?”

  Kayden frowned. “No, never. Maybe some other guys did, maybe. I guess Davis Blake helped me some, after a while.”

  “It must be awful to feel your replacement breathing down your neck like that.”

  “It’s part of the game,” he said. “No one’s a fixture. You never have anything locked up, unless you’re someone too good or too big to trade. But yeah, it’s not a great feeling to know that there’s a guy wanting you to get hurt or make a mistake so he can jump onto the fi
eld instead.”

  “So you met the guy who was going to take your place?” I asked, interested. Football was reminding me more and more of a book my mom and I had read together, The Trials of Imogen, which had started out as Imogen’s mother died in a suspicious way and then her father remarried the woman’s best friend—his second wife had been waiting in the wings all along!

  “I started thinking about that the other day,” Kayden said. “I did meet my replacement. More like, he was a back-up who might have taken my spot on the Rustlers if things had gone his way. He’d been a pretty big deal in college and I thought…” He stopped. “I didn’t tutor him, no. I was wondering what happened to him, if he stayed in the league. I don’t remember.”

  “Let’s find out. What’s his name?” I hopped up to get the laptop from the couch. When I swiveled back to the table, I saw Kayden quickly replacing his bowl on its top. Emma was partway beneath his chair with soup on her whiskers.

  “Were you sharing your dinner with her?” I asked, heart melting. “That’s so kind of you, but you don’t have to feed her right out of your bowl! Here, I’ll get you a clean one, filled up to the brim.”

  “No!” He almost yelled the word. “I mean, I’m already full. I had a lot,” he explained more quietly. “Were you using my computer?” He took it from me and looked at the screen, then read off question in the search bar: “How long does it take to evict someone in Michigan?” He looked up at me. “You’re getting evicted? How is that possible? I thought you owned the house.”

  I shook my head. Not me, not this time. “No, I’m ok. But Kayden, have you been paying rent?”

  “Rent?” He seemed puzzled. “Yeah, sure. Somebody has been. Somebody pays my bills…the accountant used to,” he said, very slowly. “The one who told me that I had to fire her. I guess it was deducted somehow.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I don’t know, have I been?”

  “Do you have enough money to pay it? To pay any of your bills?”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled ATM receipt, which he smoothed flat next to his former soup bowl. We both stared at the balance. “I’m not sure what I pay per month here,” he said, but what he had in the bank only would have paid for a few nights in a cheap motel. “I bet that’s not enough.”

  That was a bet I wouldn’t take. “Your landlord is going to want you out pretty quick.” Reluctantly, I handed him the envelope that the guy had dropped off earlier and Kayden looked over the papers inside, his eyes running back and forth over the pages. “What are you going to do?” I asked him.

  His mouth opened and closed. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked me back. “I got a job. Do you think they’ll wait a while?”

  “No, landlords don’t like to wait for money. What about selling your car for some quick cash? You could get something a lot cheaper.”

  “No,” he answered back immediately. “No, I’m not selling it.”

  “Ok, fine. What about your other expenses, like groceries? Gas for that car? You’ll have to pay for that to get yourself to practices. How much does it cost to fill up your tank? Probably a lot.” He didn’t answer. “Have you seriously never dealt with these problems in your life? Didn’t you ever have to run out on rent? Or write checks you knew wouldn’t get covered, or sell stuff so you could keep the lights on?” He was slowly shaking his head. “You really haven’t ever been poor before?” I was a bit flumbergasted. “Not ever?”

  “No. I never have.”

  I was just about to explain to him how it was to have to hustle, and suggest some tips about what he could quickly offload and how to avoid the landlord, but my phone rang and “Roys Tavern” came up on the screen. “Hang on, I think Roy is melting down. He never calls me unless the bar is on fire or he thinks I stole something.” I said hello, but immediately held the phone away from my ear.

  “What in the hell did you do with the key to the lock on the dumpster?” my boss yelled. “Where in the hell is the toilet paper for the ladies’ room?” He didn’t bother to supply the men’s room with any, but he did toss us women a bone with some single-ply. “What’s wrong with all the damn bar towels?”

  “Roy, calm down. The dumpster key is hanging on a nail next to your desk, under a post-it that says ‘dumpster key.’” I’d convinced him to start locking it after one of the regulars nearly met his end due to sleeping it off among the garbage bags. I explained where the toilet paper was now stocked, in an area that didn’t get regularly flooded from the leaky toilet so we didn’t have to dry out the rolls anymore. Then I explained, “The towels feel different because they’re clean. I brought them home with me the other night and washed them. That’s something I’m going to do more regularly, so you’ll owe me for the cost of the soap and water.”

  “Like hell I will! I don’t like you messing—” He broke off with a quick, deep breath.

  “Roy? Are you ok?”

  There was more silence before he answered, “Fine. I’m fine.”

  I’d had to hold the phone back to my ear to catch it. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I said I’m fine! I just don’t like you messing with my system,” he said, a little of the bark back in his voice.

  I rolled my eyes at the phone. “How’s it going with your son tonight?”

  “He’s doing great,” Roy snapped. “Did you think we’d fall apart without your presence?”

  “You’re the one calling me to find the toilet paper! And don’t set it on the back of the tanks when you put it in the stalls. It just falls into the puddles on the floor.”

  He was muttering something about bossy females as he hung up. I had a strong suspicion that things weren’t going as well as he claimed, because he could have found the key to the dumpster lock himself, and he probably also knew where I’d stashed the TP. This call had been a cry for backup but he didn’t know how to ask directly. “Lordy, that man is a giant jerk,” I commented to Kayden. “I think he’s nicer to his son than he is to me, but it must be hard for him to keep his true self under wraps. That might explain why they don’t have a lot of contact. Dexter seems like a normal, regular person, so I bet he takes off soon.”

  “Why do you work for Roy if he’s such an asshole?”

  “Sometimes we have to work with people we disagree with,” I said. “People who are assholes. He pays really well, mostly because he knows that he’s impossible, and I like having that extra money. Were you always friends with the other players on your football teams?”

  Kayden looked at me, then looked off into the space above the soup bowl that Emma had tasted from. “I never much thought about the other guys, if I liked them or if they liked me. No, actually, I’m sure they didn’t like me. Coach Márquez just said that to me today, how he’d heard I didn’t get along with anyone on the Rustlers.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I was too wrapped up in what I was doing to care about making friends.”

  “I care about that, a lot,” I confessed. It wasn’t my most commendimous personality trait, but I knew it was true about myself. That was what had led to our stay in the yurt in Montana: I’d thought that those people had really been interested in me and Emma, but it turned out that they were mostly interested in getting me to collect canned goods and weapons to help them prepare for the apocalypse. Also, they’d thought I had good breeding hips and they wanted to expand their numbers. “I guess it’s better not to give a crap about what people think, right?” I went on. “It’s a more independent and mature attitude. I think that I always want to make friends because I never had a ton of them. I didn’t get a chance to be around other people my age because I wasn’t in school that much. Not regularly, just spas…spasmo…what’s that word?”

  “I think you mean ‘spasmodically.’ I’m not a vocabulary guy.”

  I nodded. “Me neither, and that’s exactly why I’m trying to improve mine! I’m working spasmodically at that too, though. I don’t get to practice the words enough
at the bar.” No one cared what I had to say there, since my boobs and butt were the major focus due to Roy’s “uniform.” Even if they had wanted to listen to me and my vocab, no one could have heard anything over the tired rock cranking out from the jukebox. I really hoped that Roy’s son could at least get him to freshen up those selections.

  “Why weren’t you in school?” Kayden asked me. “Didn’t you have to go?” He stood and I handed him our bowls and spoons. “Uh, I guess I’ll take these to the sink?” He didn’t have much of an instinct for cleaning up after himself, and I heard a big splash in the kitchen when he poured out the rest of the stockpot of soup down the drain instead of saving it for leftovers. He’d probably regret that when he found his refrigerator empty, which was coming soon in his future.

  “I did go to school as a kid, but by high school, I had to get a job and be with my mom,” I explained. “Sometimes I wish I’d learned more, but I’m so glad that I spent that time with her. She needed my help. She tried to make me go to my classes, but I knew that I should be at home.”

  “Then she died?”

  Emma padded over and put her head on my knee, huffing a little bark. She always seemed to know when I needed her. I rubbed behind her ears and thought back to when I was a teenager, when my mom had been so sick. Trying to take care of her and our apartment, fighting with her about going to the emergency room when she didn’t want to go, the landlord wanting rent and other things, the bills that kept coming in.

  “Kylie?” Kayden was standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at me. “Why is the dog barking?” He leaned forward a little and looked harder at my face. “Are you upset?”

  “No.” I swallowed it away. “But I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Em and I should probably go.” This celebration dinner hadn’t been at all what I’d planned with the soup and the eviction discussion. Also, I figured that you didn’t want to end a night of partying with one person close to crying, unless it was tears of happiness. That wasn’t the case with me.