“If I had any idea it was this bad, I would have stayed at the hotel. I’m sorry you had to be out in this. Thank you for driving me home,” he told the guy. “I hope you’ll get back there safely.”
“I’ll be fine.” The guy stared at the money for a moment. “Would you like your change?”
“No. It’s all yours.” He unsnapped his seatbelt. “Thank you again.”
The guy gestured at Drew’s front door. “Get inside where you’re safe, sir. Have a nice evening.”
Drew spotted his teammate Derrick’s car in the driveway as he got out of the cab. The wind blew him sideways up the front walk of his house. He’d been in Seattle for a couple of years now; he’d never seen weather like this before. The wind howled, rain sluiced down in sheets, and he jumped at the rumble of unexpected thunder: It was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other right now.
He grabbed his house keys out of the uniform pants pocket and promptly dropped them onto the mat. “Shit.” He heard thunder rolling again, and the sizzle of lightning lit up the night. He jammed the key in the lock, turned it, and shoved against the door with all his might. It swung open. He managed to get inside the front door of his house, shoved it closed, and checked the alarm system keypad to his left by reflex. It was disabled.
Relief washed over him. He was home, he was safe, and despite his stupidity in driving over in the first place, Derrick (the knucklehead) was safe as well. He could hear the sound of someone (actually, someones) playing video games from his family room.
He laid the bag with the books on the hallway table and dropped the bag with his wet clothing next to it. He’d deal with all of it later.
He grabbed his phone out of his pocket as he padded on almost silent rubber soles toward his family room. Seven texts, four of which were from Derrick. Maybe he’d let Derrick live. He heard his teammate Seth Taylor’s voice.
“Where the hell do you think McCoy is, anyway?”
Drew heard Derrick answering Seth. “Damned if I know. His car’s still in the garage. I talked to him at four o’clock. I told him it was double-points weekend on Xbox Live. Of course it’s the weekend the fucking power goes out.”
“Nice to see you could both stop by,” Drew said as he rounded the corner. The two men sitting on his family room couch were staring intently at his flat-screen TV and working their game controllers. Good. If they remained focused on the game, they wouldn’t notice his ridiculous outfit. His coffee table was festooned with the remains of two large Pagliacci pizzas, dirty paper plates, and empty beer bottles. They’d been here a while. Of course there were no leftovers for him.
“Shit, McCoy, where the hell you been? I told you my mama and grandma are staying in my condo right now. Can’t game while they’re there,” Derrick said.
Seth shook his head. “I love his grandma, but she was reading Bible verses out loud while we were trying to get to the next level on Titanfall.”
“Grandma’s worried about our spiritual lives,” Derrick said. “My mama wanted me to take her to some church revival thing tonight. I love her, but it wasn’t going to happen.”
There were two grocery bags on Drew’s kitchen island. Maybe there was something edible in there. One of the bags contained two six-packs of microbrew. He glanced into the other bag, moving aside two bags of Juanita’s tortilla chips to spot four large bags of Skittles, a bag of mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and the biggest bag of plain M&M’s he’d ever seen. It was carb-loading at its finest. He was going to have to look through his own refrigerator for sustenance, it seemed.
The guys still hadn’t glanced over at him. They might put the game controllers down if some young, beautiful women walked into his family room. Then again, probably not.
“How’d you get out of that?” Drew said.
Derrick stabbed at one of the buttons on the game controller while Seth let out a groan.
“I gave five thousand dollars to the church’s building fund this afternoon. My mama acted like I gave her some diamonds. I also ordered them dinner from Lot No. 3 and told them they could watch whatever they wanted on pay-per-view,” Derrick said.
“Doesn’t your grandma like watching MMA?” Seth said.
A smile that could only be called calculating spread over Derrick’s mouth. “Why, yes. She does.”
“She seems like such a harmless, sweet little old lady,” Seth muttered. Derrick laughed out loud.
The Sharks had acquired middle linebacker Seth Taylor in a blockbuster trade with San Diego just before the start of the regular season, unloading a rookie who wasn’t cutting it at the same time. The defense kept improving, which Drew loved. Great defenses equaled championships. Seth wasn’t a bad guy, either. He’d been quickly accepted into the group of single Sharks that spent most of their free time gaming, clubbing, or both.