“Fine. But if you’re going to score men, you should at least know the deets on Travis. He’s single, a contractor, has an eight twelve credit score, drives a Tesla, and owns his own home. He also doesn’t purchase single-use plastic bottles because he’s concerned about the environment.”
“And you’re telling me this because today was not a setup.”
Miller grinned. “That’s right.”
“I’m going to grab a drink and go back outside to watch the game.”
He guzzled the remnants of his wine and held the glass out to me. “As long as you’re at it… I need to tinkle.”
Travis smiled when we joined them outside. Miller was right; his smile was nice. But I found myself comparing it to Christian’s. Which was absolutely ridiculous.
“So, what’s it like running a football team?” he asked.
“Well, it’s only been two weeks, but it’s pretty much meeting after meeting. I’m not used to that. I think a lot of people really like to hear themselves talk.”
Travis chuckled. “I’m not a meeting person either. I actually changed my career because of that.”
“Miller said you’re a contractor. What did you do before?”
“I went to school to be an architect. Once I graduated, it took me less than a year to realize that while I loved building things, I wasn’t cut out for the job. I spent more than half my time in meetings with owners, inspectors, the building department, or my bosses. So I quit and bought a house that was falling down near me. Moved into one room while I fixed it up, and then I sold it. A friend of my dad’s loved the renovations I’d done and asked me to work on his summer home. Things snowballed from there, and I transitioned to being a contractor.”
“Do you like owning your own business?”
He turned in his seat to face me. “I do. The good thing about being the boss is that if you don’t like parts of your job, you can assign those to someone else. My assistant handles all the building-department issues, and my site manager handles all the homeowner issues. So I pretty much get to focus on the building part, which is what I like.”
“Well, that’s something to look forward to. I’m pretty sure I don’t even know all the different parts of my job yet.”
“You will soon enough. When I started at the architecture firm, I found myself asking tons of questions of the contractors I’d work with. Looking back, I realize I was more interested in that job than the one I was hired to do, from the very beginning.”
I smiled. “I asked a million questions of the Director of Analytics the other day.”
“What does he do, exactly?”
“He keeps all the statistics the coaches use to manage the players and prepare for games against each opponent.”
“I guess that’s up your alley?”
I tapped the three-ring binder sitting on my lap. I’d been jotting things down in it all day. “I’ve started working on an algorithm that predicts game stats, just for fun, in my spare time. I’m better with numbers than people.”
“I don’t know about that. You’re doing pretty well right now.”
He seemed like a sweet-enough guy, but I needed to stay focused on the team, and talking to him kept me from tracking the stats I wanted to record. So a little while later, I excused myself and went to go sit with my grandfather. I learned more spending a quarter and a half next to him than I had reading a hundred books on football over the last two years.
When the game was over, I’d started to wheel him from the row when Christian Knox appeared on the sideline directly beneath us.
He banged on the backstop wall. “Nice shirt, old man!”
“I’m going to use it as a rag when I get home,” my grandfather yelled. “By the way, you looked great out there today… Oh wait, that wasn’t you who led the team to victory. It was the guy gunning for your job.”
Christian clutched his chest. “Low blow, Coach. Low blow.”
The two men smiled. Christian lifted his chin to me. “What’s going on, boss lady?”
“Not much. Just got more of an education on the sport of football in an hour than I did over the last two years trying to learn it on my own.”
“It’s annoying as hell, isn’t it? I think I know it all until I sit with him. You guys sticking around for a while?” He thumbed over his shoulder. “I gotta run to the post-game meeting. But I can grab the PT van from Doc and give you a ride home, if you want, Coach.” He looked at me. “It’s wheelchair accessible, and they don’t care when I take it to drive him.”
My grandfather put a finger up. “I’ll take the ride. Lenny Riddler dropped me off, but I know his daughter is in town, so I’d rather not make him go out of his way again.” He pointed to Christian. “You, on the other hand, I don’t mind wasting your time.”