“You mean Mr. Big Balls?”
“The one and only.”
“What about him?”
“My mistake with him was less embarrassing than today.”
In our sophomore year, Miller had gotten me a job at the place he worked—he did tech support for a payroll-software company. I should’ve known before I started that it was a bad idea. Clients would call in when they had a problem, and we’d share our screens, showing them the steps to get through the issue with our software. There was also a chat box on the bottom of the screen where you could see the client’s profile picture and they could see yours. Third client into my shift, this guy pops in for some help, and his profile pic shows him standing. I could see down to his mid-thigh. I swear, to this day, I still have no idea what was going on in that photo, but on my screen it looked like he had giant balls. I don’t mean a pronounced bulge. I mean two round softballs trying to escape from his pants. I managed to get through the support chat, but before we disconnected, I took a screenshot of the profile pic with my phone so I could show it to Miller. Then I thought I disconnected the guy. You can see where this is going already…
Long story short, I proceeded to send the screenshot to Miller through our employee DM chat, where we had a lengthy discussion about whether balls could grow that big. I even did things like google conditions that could cause testicular swelling and then searched the guy on social media to see if his profile picture had been distorted somehow or if he really looked like that. Needless to say, I hadn’t actually disconnected, so Mr. Big Balls had watched everything I’d done on his screen before he called my boss. Miller and I were both fired, and my very first day became my very last.
“What could you have done that’s worse than Mr. Big Balls?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe mistake the best quarterback in the league for the pizza delivery guy and then give him a lecture on sexual harassment in the workplace.”
Miller’s eyes flashed to me and back to the road. “What the hell happened?”
“Drizella happened.”
“But how can you not recognize him? You memorized the statistics of every player on the team.”
“You know me and faces don’t mix well. I memorized his numbers, not his appearance—which, by the way, is breathtaking. The man’s jawline could make a sculptor weep.”
Miller shook his head. “I hate to tell you, but you’re not building algorithms anymore. You’re going to have to start paying attention to people. Use the tricks you’ve always used when you had to put faces together with names.”
I pouted. “I’m not a people person. I’m a mathematician.”
“Not anymore, princess. You’re a billionairess who owns an NFL team.”
“I think I want to go back to my old job. I’m done peopling.”
Miller chuckled. “You’ll get better at it. I promise.”
CHAPTER 2
* * *
CHRISTIAN
“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in. Took ya long enough.”
I walked over to Coach and automatically went to extend my right hand, but caught myself at the last second and offered my left. Coach’s right side had been impaired since his stroke a few years back. It was also the reason he used a wheelchair.
We shook. “How’s riding the bench treating you?” he asked.
I patted him on the shoulder with my free hand. “I like it about as much as you like riding this chair, old man.”
Coach chuckled. Marvin “Coach” Barrett and I had been busting balls as far back as my pee-wee football days. He’d been my first football coach, but he was also the father of John Barrett, one of the greatest football players of all time and the owner of the New York Bruins. Well, John had been the owner until he passed away from pancreatic cancer two years ago. Now the organization was apparently being run by a woman who thought I was the pizza delivery guy and lectured me on sexual harassment.
“So what’s going on? How’s the recovery?” Coach asked.
I’d had surgery to reattach a torn ligament to my knee a month ago, after being injured in a game. “I feel good. I’m killing it at physical therapy, and my knee hasn’t been this limber since my college days. But Doc won’t sign off for me to come back for at least three more weeks.”
“I’m sure they know best. Remember that time you cracked two teeth in the third quarter of a game in middle school? You didn’t tell anyone until the game was over because you were afraid they would make you sit out the last eight minutes. And if I remember correctly, your team was up by more than twenty points, too. You had to get nine stitches because you cut up the inside of your mouth so badly. It looked like you ate a razor blade. Doctor’s right for not trusting you to make the decision yourself.”