Chapter 63: The Best Player

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At John Wayne Airport, in the lounge seating area, Lisa was still not done asking.

"How exactly did you sell that script?"

By then, Nolan had already told her the story several times from beginning to end. She kept returning to it anyway.

She could not help herself. To her, the whole thing still sounded absurd.

A high-school football player had walked into a music-video shoot and sold a script for two hundred thousand dollars.

The number meant more when compared with her own offer. Thirty thousand versus two hundred thousand was not a small difference. In an agent’s world, that was the kind of gap that hurt pride.

"Nolan, I should retire and leave my career to you," Lisa said.

Nolan had insisted it was luck. Lisa knew deals too well to believe that. Luck might open a door, but it did not negotiate price, exploit timing, and turn a fallen director’s desperation into leverage. Nolan had also landed a music-video appearance while quietly positioning his future.

Many of Lisa’s younger lovers over the years had only known how to ask. Pretty words, pretty faces, then money spent on someone younger. Nolan was different. He had the shamelessness of a kept man and the instincts of a closer.

Nolan shook his head.

"You should keep doing it."

"Ha. You have no sympathy for me at all. You want the meal brought directly to your mouth."

"Of course. If I have to move a finger, it does not taste as good."

"Remember you said that," Lisa said. "Starting tomorrow, I am feeding you milk myself."

Susan returned with the ticket changes before Lisa could push the joke any further.

The organizer, High School Sports Magazine, had booked economy tickets on Southwest. The moment Lisa learned that, she sent Susan to change two of the seats to Delta first class. It meant waiting several more hours, and it cost far more than the original tickets.

In Lisa’s words, she would not ship a pet dog on Southwest if she could avoid it.

Susan looked at her and seemed unsure what to say.

She had worked with Lisa for more than a decade and had never seen her like this. Lisa’s private life had always been chaotic, but work had remained the center of her existence. Now the name Nolan kept slipping into everything.

"I changed both of your tickets to Delta first," Susan said tightly. "Boarding is four hours later."

"See you on the plane," Lisa said, already taking Nolan’s hand.

She turned to him with a smile.

"Time for you to experience a real VIP lounge. Unlimited snacks, quiet seating, better restrooms, and enough privacy to feel expensive. You’ll like it."

Susan watched them walk away and sighed.

For a moment, she wondered if Nolan knew hypnosis.

On the way to the lounge, Nolan saw a few familiar faces: three Santa Ana starters. They had been invited again this year. With Eric hurt and their group still loyal to him, spending the next few days as teammates would be awkward at best.

They did not notice Nolan.

He did not greet them.

They passed each other like strangers.

Inside the lounge, Nolan made thorough use of the unlimited beef. He even considered packing some for later until Lisa laughed and scolded him. She promised to send better steaks to the house when they returned.

Lisa had clearly planned to make use of the private room for more than resting, but Nolan focused on eating. Her mood softened anyway. A full Nolan was a more useful Nolan later.

She collected several newspapers.

The Los Angeles Times had already run Jim’s piece.

The headline made Lisa smile:

"Alien? Football Genius? Tactician? King of Nickoll Field? No. He Is Just a High-School Student, and He Kept His Promise."

"Jim moved fast," Lisa said.

She had helped make sure he did.

Other Southern California papers had picked up the story too: the Los Angeles Daily News, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and smaller regional outlets. For the first time, the name Nolan Callahan was moving through print beyond Beverly Hills.

Not all of it was praise.

The Los Angeles Sentinel, one of the largest Black newspapers in the country, had little patience for rumors that a player had used the n-word on the field. The report used careful language because no hard proof existed, but the implication was there.

The Orange County Observer, a paper with ties around Santa Ana, aimed lower.

Its lead suggested that a gifted but controversial player had committed brutal fouls, carried racial controversy, and behaved strangely off the field. Anonymous sources claimed he had grown unusually close to a teammate’s mother after joining the team.

Anonymous sources, Nolan assumed, meant someone around BHHS had talked too much. A roster had dozens of players. Not all leaks were malicious. Some were just stupid.

The article itself was mostly smoke. Lisa had appeared with Mia and Katherine after a game, several players had seen it, and the jokes afterward had turned into a rumor with legs.

"Vultures," Lisa said through her teeth, crushing the newspaper in one hand. "If they keep writing garbage about me, I will bury them in lawyers."

"Truth is not the product," Nolan said, wiping his mouth. "A story is."

It was not about good or evil. It was not even really about journalistic ethics. Gossip sold because people loved staring through other people’s windows.

The Boeing 757 felt different from the planes Nolan knew from cheap travel. Flight attendants greeted Lisa as if she owned the cabin. The lead attendant and captain both came by to speak with her. The service was polished, the seat wide, the amenity kit expensive enough to feel like a gift rather than a courtesy.

Once the aircraft climbed and leveled, Lisa grew restless.

She hinted, then stopped bothering with hints.

The line from an old song drifted through Nolan’s mind: thirty thousand feet away from the ground, desire turning into gravity.

By the time they landed, a flight attendant quietly handed Lisa a wrapped blanket.

They had arrived four hours later than most of the other players.

When Nolan, Lisa, and Susan reached the Rosen Centre Hotel in downtown Orlando, nearly everyone had already checked in.

Formal training would begin the next day. That night, most players were loose, gathering in the bars and restaurants, walking the hotel, meeting one another, enjoying the strange freedom of being young athletes treated like attractions.

The moment Nolan entered the lobby, people looked.

His casual clothes and BHHS cap marked him as an All-Star player. Lisa drew even more attention. Many of the boys were used to girls from school; Lisa’s mature, expensive beauty struck a different nerve. A few stares turned hungry the moment she smiled.

The three Santa Ana players were in the lobby too.

They disliked Nolan on principle. He had put their friend in a hospital bed and ended Santa Ana’s dream season. They had read the Orange County Observer article and spent days mocking him in private.

To them, going after a teammate’s mother sounded like betrayal. A crime against the locker room.

Then they saw Lisa.

Alberto Rodriguez, Santa Ana’s defensive end, stared despite himself.

"I understand Callahan a little better now," he muttered.

Roberto Garcia nodded with grave false wisdom.

"Two teammates becoming closer could improve chemistry. In a sense, that is team unity."

Elvis Coronado glanced at him.

"Roberto, isn’t your mom single?"

"Screw you," Roberto said, laughing. "When we get back, I’m going to your house for your mom’s apple pie."

Alberto did not join the joke. His expression turned awkward for a moment.

All three tried to imagine the same situation with themselves in Nolan’s place. The more they imagined, the less judgment they had left.

When Lisa pulled out a black credit card and paid to upgrade into one of the hotel’s best suites, envy hit them even harder. She had money, looks, and the willingness to spend on Nolan.

How many women like that existed in America?

Not enough.

After check-in, Nolan entered the elevator with Lisa and Susan. In the lobby behind them, the event staff had placed promotional posters for the All-Star Game.

One poster occupied the most visible spot.

Peyton Manning.

Nolan read the name.

The boy in the photo wore a green football jersey. His face was young and friendly, his smile almost too harmless. Without the pads, he could have passed for a hotel bellhop.

Yet that harmless-looking quarterback was the center of the entire event.

East All-Star Quarterback.

Nolan came from California. That made him part of the West.

Sooner or later, he and Peyton Manning were going to meet on the field.

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