Overnight Sensation(11)

That’s what I’m up against.

My conscience tugs at me even as I finish that thought. Oh poor me! The soul-grinding punishment of golf and expensive resort food… So I’m a whiner when I’m tired. Sue me.

Silas reappears with a giant cup of coffee in a stainless-steel travel mug. “This is for you,” he says. “You can drink it in the passenger seat while I drive us to the Hamptons.”

“Nice try,” I snort, and he laughs.

“Aw, come on! If I had a brand-new car like that, I’d let you drive it.”

“Would you really?”

He shrugs, and then gives me the lopsided, innocent grin that shows up on Instagram every other day. Chicks dig his innocent face.

I don’t have an innocent face. I just don’t. Ask my mother. And it’s just as well, since there’s nothing very innocent about me. Not anymore.





My new ride is a Tesla Model X in Pearl White Multi-coat, and she is beautiful. Zero to sixty in four-point-nine seconds, and a ride so quiet it’s like you’re shooting directly through the space-time continuum.

Or at least shooting along the Long Island Expressway, which is where we are right now.

Fact: it’s completely impractical for a man who lives in Brooklyn and walks to work to own this car. But that only made me want it more. I’m a single guy who earns almost a million a year. No wife. No responsibilities. This car is the first decadent thing I ever bought myself, unless top-shelf liquor counts.

My family doesn’t understand. When I told my dad I was thinking of buying a car, he suggested a Honda CR-V. “You can get a used one coming off a lease for under twenty grand,” he’d said.

When I spent a hundred large on the Tesla, he almost burst a vessel. But the point of the car is that it’s beautiful, not that it’s practical.

“Just listen to that quiet,” I say as I pass a Honda CR-V with the noiseless, instant acceleration that only a Tesla can manage.

“Can I listen to the silence with the radio on?” Silas asks.

“No, you cannot. Jesus. I get enough of Delilah Spark at home. She and I are on a first-name basis now, because we see so much of each other.”

“Are you, now?” Silas says in a low voice.

“Yeah. We’re going steady. Are you jealous?”

Silas doesn’t take the bait. He’s immune to our teasing at this point. Also, my phone is ringing. At least I think it’s mine. The billionaire—Nate Kattenberger—who owns the team, provides every player with the same model of phone, and sometimes we get confused.

“That’s yours,” Silas says. “How come you don’t have it linked to the car?”

“Didn’t get around to it yet.” I’m not that interested in gadgetry that doesn’t go ninety miles an hour. You can keep your apps and photos.

Mercifully, the phone stops bleating.

“I’m going to hook you up,” Silas announces, reaching for my phone.

“Oh, baby. You’re really not my type.”

Ignoring me, Silas reaches into my gym bag on the floor behind my seat, and retrieves my phone. Then he spends a few minutes tapping on the Tesla control screen.

“Unlock your phone for me,” he says, tagging my hand off the steering wheel so he can press my thumb to the screen.

“If you want to hold hands, all you have to do is ask,” I say as the phone beeps in recognition.

“Please,” Silas complains. “I don’t want your body, but I’d probably sleep with you anyway if it meant I could drive this car.”

That cracks us both up. We’re still laughing when the phone rings again. “Who keeps calling me at seven a.m.?”

“Uh-oh,” Silas says. “It’s Tommy.”

“The new publicist?”

“That’s the guy.”

“Don’t answer. We’ll see him in an hour, anyway. You told the travel team we weren’t gonna be on the bus, right?”

“Of course. All they said was ‘drive safe.’”

“Ready for some acceleration?” I ask as we gain on a slow-moving tractor trailer.

“Scare me,” Silas says. I barely have to touch the pedal and the car shoots forward. It’s like flying. The acceleration is so swift that it pushes me back against my seat.

“Jesus,” Silas says. “This car is everything. It’s better than sex.”

Are you sure you remember? The dig is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say it. I don’t even know what’s stopping me. With my teammates, pretty much anything is fair game at any time. But I get a lot of action, and it’s not nice to brag.

Besides—Silas doesn’t hook up. Ever. I don’t really know why. And I don’t want to make assumptions that might be wrong.

My phone chimes with a text. And then another one immediately follows.

“Uh-oh,” Silas says again.

“Tommy again?”

“Yeah. And…shit. There’s a picture of you on a sports blog.”

“So?”

“It’s you and Hot Pepper.”

I’m still not seeing the problem. “What, we’re playing darts?”

“No. You’re sort of…” He sighs. “Dragging her. It doesn’t look good. You’ll have to look at it to see what I mean.”