Game of Temptation

nal at six in the morning is the lone

d logic of a company that bills by the headline, that the agent in the middle of the biggest sports story

l thing with a broken button, watching a cluster of fans press against the barrie

ht. Then he saw the phones, saw me, and something in his posture rearranged itself. His shoulders dropped. His hood came down. By th

d enough for the barrier to h

ocol said it should, a hand's width from the corner of my mouth.

nst his collar, for the benefit

e coun

ody ha

gh. A girl of maybe fifteen shouted, "Kai! Lena! Are you two actually together?" and Kai tur

a window and a pair of enormous headphones. The assistant coaches were bent over tablets. Kai's seat was across the aisle

hat page four

careful

pped back, hands laced behind his head, eye

s much dignity as I could manage

two sides, and the local press had been granted a viewing window. Every time Kai crossed the floor, thirty cameras tra

media team whispered at my shoulder. She was twenty-six and fearl

k away, that's a paragraph. Every time

'll loo

comments say you look 'too profess

here to

"Take it up wi

ee times, his eyes already on me. He didn't smile. He just looked, steady and u

e ball dropped witho

away. God hel

was the re

front desk, handling forty-odd athletes and staff in a ten-minute window, ga

the clerk, with a b

ed for the traveling party. Management requested

king spreadsheet, tapping the cells with one finger.

the time we crossed it, three separate groups had their phones out. A man in a Denver jersey aske

t ser

h the wool. "Ask her," he said, with a lazy

n took his photo. We took the elevator alone, and as soon as the

f us said

d see his reflection and mine, side by side, not touching. His ha

ally, to the doors. "The ha

s i

ad nat

evator chimed. The doors opened onto the fourteen

bed in an oversized T-shirt, wrapping up the last of my c

y lunch table for four years, and she was one of the few pe

? Please say

fast. Awake.

d, appeared again. It took

eone changed the commission routing on

e more. They're being moved to a

d"temporary p

already

screen until t

f what?

r nine years. Nobody moves live commissions without a file. Please don't an

e day of the photo, the tiny, satisfied pause before he'd said Legal will draft

I typed.

mani wrote ba

the phone when someo

en silence, as if whoever stood on the other side

eye to the peephole, and my heart

eatpants, one hand braced against the door frame,

gh the wood. "There's somethin