Chapter 50: Burning Heart

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By the time football conditioning ended, Nolan had rejoined the team.

This time he had handled it better: asked for the afternoon off, returned before the session was truly over, and somehow earned praise from Thomas.

"That," Thomas said, pointing at him, "is how a team leader handles business."

Nolan did not feel as if he had skipped training.

Lisa’s office had involved physical labor, after all. It had also provided a close look at how a top Hollywood agent negotiated, adapted, and used language like a weapon.

He had taken something else with him too: an unopened high-end portable cellular phone from Lisa’s office. It had originally been meant as a work phone for her secretary.

For the mid-1990s, a portable cell phone was not just a convenience. It was a status object, a business tool, and a way to move faster than people who still had to find a pay phone.

Lisa added a secondary line tied to her number. Nolan would not pay the bill.

The price was that Lisa could now reach him whenever she wanted.

Near the end of practice, another unexpected visitor came to the field.

The players saw him and immediately surrounded him.

"Adam, how is the ankle?"

"Was that girl from prom your girlfriend?"

"You pick a college yet? You still playing?"

Adam was still part of the team, even if injury had taken him off the field.

"Doctor says the cast comes off next month," Adam said. "As for the girlfriend..."

He blushed.

"We can skip that for now. College, though. I am going to Ohio State."

Ohio State was a football power. Adam’s meaning was clear: he wanted to stay close to the game.

Nolan came over, and the two nodded to each other.

Adam was there because Nolan had called him.

A few minutes later, another visitor arrived: Rachel Burt, editor of Highlights.

She had come because Nolan’s charity sale interested her. In exchange, Nolan had agreed the event would be presented as a joint effort between the campus paper and the football team.

Her other reason was probably boredom. Summer quiet did not suit Rachel. She was not exactly a party animal.

Adam came for simpler reasons.

He had promised to help when Nolan needed him. He was keeping that promise.

"I need Highlights to contact possible recipients," Nolan said. "Poor patients who cannot cover medical bills, homeless families, children with rare illnesses. I do not care who, as long as the story is real and visible. We also need promo materials: foam boards with the sale name, big enough that people in the stands notice."

Rachel took notes.

"Adam, I need your reputation," Nolan continued. "Students like you. You know people. Find volunteers. As compensation, everyone who works gets a hot dog, a drink, and a group photo afterward for their activity record."

That kind of thing could go into college applications. More importantly, it looked stronger than routine community service because it was student-organized and tied to a real event.

At least the volunteers would get something useful.

Nolan considered that more ethical than half the concert volunteer programs celebrities ran.

...

Soft romantic music drifted through one shared set of headphones.

Nolan opened his eyes and looked at Katherine beside him. The song was the theme from La Boum, all dreamlike longing and teenage ache. Katherine wore a small, sweet smile that made her look like a scene from an old European coming-of-age film.

Mia had gone out with Lisa again, this time to get her hair done. Mia was happy, and Nolan was relieved. Mia was nothing like Lisa’s usual Hollywood friends. Fewer games. Less poison.

That made the friendship safer than it could have been.

Katherine opened her eyes and pinched Nolan’s cheek.

"You do not know how exhausting volleyball was today."

Her matches were about to start too. Like football, volleyball training had become suddenly brutal.

She rolled over and set both feet on Nolan’s chest.

"Massage."

Her right ear still held one side of the headphones, and her smile turned sly.

’Had she and Lisa coordinated this?’

Nolan looked at the bright red polish on Katherine’s toes, the pale skin around it almost luminous by contrast.

Lisa maintained herself with expensive, relentless care.

Against Katherine’s freshness, even that had limits.

At eighteen, Katherine was unfair.

Nolan lunged playfully, and Katherine squealed as they tangled on the bed.

"Thinking about the tape?" he whispered near her ear.

Katherine bared her teeth and shook her head. Not yet.

He did not push.

Forcing that kind of thing would only make her hate the idea, and him with it. So he retreated into a sillier suggestion.

Hands and feet.

Katherine laughed under her breath.

"Fine. I will try."

Part of it was curiosity. Katherine had spent years as the older, responsible one. She had heard girls whisper about strange methods and ridiculous private tricks, but she had never allowed herself to take those thoughts seriously.

Nolan had peeled back the wrapper.

Something in her mind had connected.

Just as they began, the headphones switched songs.

The soft romance vanished. "Burning Heart" surged in, all Rocky-training urgency and stadium-sized drums.

Katherine burst out laughing.

"This is for workouts."

Then she paused.

"Actually, this makes me feel weirdly motivated."

Gradually, her movement found the beat. The ridiculousness became rhythm. Then rhythm became focus.

Nolan wondered what the songwriter would think if he knew this was one possible use for the track.

Maybe the team needed it in the weight room.

...

Hollywood Hills at five-thirty in the morning were cold and pale.

Mist thinned around the huge Hollywood sign. Beneath it, Ford ran alone in a training jacket, headphones on, curls damp with sweat. A heavy sandbag was strapped around his waist.

The song in his ears had turned into pure drive: hunger, fire, a promise not to stop.

Ford’s blood seemed to heat with it.

His breathing grew harsh. Sweat blurred his vision. The weight at his waist dragged him down, and his legs burned as if needles had been threaded through the muscle.

’Do not quit.’

Ford clenched his teeth and widened his stride.

’Do not fall first.’

’Never.’

’One last sprint.’

Half an hour later, he lay spread-eagled on the ground, soaked through and half blind with sweat.

Then he sat up hard, shook sweat from his hair, faced the first edge of sunrise, and started again.

...

"Thirty... thirty-one... thirty-two..."

In his bedroom, Flea pulled himself up with everything he had. His arms trembled violently. Somehow he dragged his chin over the bar again.

Sweat slid down his forehead, skin, and shirt, collecting in a small puddle on the floor.

The bedroom door nudged open. The family’s wrinkled little Shar-Pei wandered in, lowered its head, and began licking the sweat from the floor.

Flea did not have the strength to protest.

...

At the same time, in a Beverly Hills backyard, Boar and his father were already set.

Father and son shared the same enormous frame. In front of them sat a professional line-training sled: a metal frame with padded contact points shaped for football collisions and a weight platform in the middle.

Boar’s father stood directly on the platform. His weight drove the sled’s bottom rail into the dirt.

Boar crouched low.

Then he exploded forward.

His shoulder hit the pad, hands wrapped as if completing a tackle. For a second the sled did not move at all.

"Go, go, go!" his father shouted.

Boar roared.

The sled shifted an inch.

Then another.

Then the movement became a drive, carving two deep grooves through the ground as Boar pushed thirty yards across the yard.

When father and son collided at the end, they roared together like the noise itself was part of training.

...

The day before the Santa Ana football game, Nolan went to the indoor gym to watch Katherine’s volleyball match against Santa Ana.

In a sense, it was the preview.

The small gym was packed. As the teams entered, Katherine heard a familiar voice. She turned and saw Nolan standing in the crowd with his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting for her. Mia sat beside him.

Katherine nodded toward both of them.

Then Nolan saw Santa Ana’s girls’ volleyball team come onto the court.

"Shit."

One glance was enough.

Several Santa Ana players did not look like ordinary high school athletes. Their shoulders, backs, and overall size carried the same suspicious medical-exemption shadow he had already heard about around the football team.

Whatever paperwork Santa Ana used, this did not look like a level court.

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