Chapter 94: Dream Start

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On the bus ride back to Los Angeles, Nolan checked his phone and saw Tom Brady’s message.

I have decided to quit football and focus on baseball.

Nolan stared at the screen.

’He quit already?’

For a few seconds, he did not know whether to laugh or worry.

’Did I just retire the greatest quarterback I know with one scrimmage?’

Maybe it was temporary. Maybe Tom would miss the sport after a week and come back. Maybe the current would correct itself because some events were too heavy to move.

Or maybe Nolan had stepped on the wrong butterfly.

Either way, he had gained something from the meeting. Brady’s calm, his pocket discipline, and the way he viewed quarterback play had given Nolan a new direction. Nolan would not become Brady. He had too much body for that, too much violence in his game.

But he could steal the useful parts.

That was enough.

...

The new schedule looked punishing.

BHHS still had league obligations on Friday nights, but the national push required showcase games against out-of-state or high-profile opponents. If the school accepted every useful invitation, the team might average two games a week during some stretches, with the occasional week that felt even worse.

Thomas planned to use backups in softer league games whenever possible. The starters had to survive the schedule, and the Normans were finally deep enough to experiment.

Nolan liked the ambition.

He liked it less at three in the morning, when the bus returned to Beverly Hills and his body wanted to fall asleep before he made it to his room.

Mia was in New Haven with Katherine.

In the next room, Charlize had the television on low. A laugh track drifted through the wall. When Nolan knocked, she opened the door in shorts and an oversized shirt, remote in hand.

"I am studying accents," she said.

On the screen, an old episode of The Love Boat played with the bright cheer of a decade that seemed determined to smile through everything.

"Can your studies cook?" Nolan asked.

"I can cook."

Ten minutes later, Nolan looked at the steak patty in front of him. It was burnt on one side and uncertain in the middle.

"This is a crime with protein."

Charlize frowned. "You asked if I could cook. I did not say I could cook well."

Nolan ate enough not to waste it.

"Katherine is gone," he said afterward. "I need late-night food, basic laundry, and someone who can keep this place from turning into a locker room. Rent stays covered."

"That sounds like a maid."

"A very valued member of the household."

"A maid."

"A roommate with incentives."

Charlize thought about rent, food, auditions, and the fact that Nolan’s strange little orbit had already done more for her than any promise in Hollywood.

"Fine," she said. "But I am not wearing a uniform."

"Nobody asked."

"You were thinking it."

Nolan did not answer quickly enough.

...

The semester began, and AP classes immediately tried to remind Nolan that football was not the only thing capable of causing pain.

Friday night arrived anyway.

The first official game was against Santa Monica High. Last season, the matchup had been a struggle. The Normans had survived the regular schedule only to crash into the Braves in the playoffs.

This version of BHHS was different.

By the third quarter, Nolan had already broken the game open. Thomas pulled starters before the score became insulting, and the student section spent the rest of the night waving pillows because the monthly theme was pajamas.

One week later, the Normans won again.

Then again.

In week four, they traveled to Arizona and crushed the Phoenix-area champion on the road.

The phrase "dream start" appeared in local coverage before Nolan heard it from a teacher in the hallway.

He hated how early it was.

He liked how it sounded.

"Until the national final," Nolan told Thomas after the Arizona game, "we should remain unbeaten."

Thomas gave him a hard look. "Do not say that where reporters can hear you."

"Then win fast enough that it stops sounding arrogant."

...

The media attention climbed with every game.

Prime Ticket crews began showing up more regularly around practice. Fox Sports mentioned Nolan in short segments. The Los Angeles Times framed him as Southern California’s hope, and one magazine tried to turn his early workouts into a myth about a four-in-the-morning gym.

Penny rose with the story.

Her station treated Nolan as a continuing feature, and she was now one of their most visible on-camera reporters. Their private arrangement remained adult, deliberate, and rough enough by choice that she sometimes had to rest her voice before going on camera, but on screen she looked polished, sharp, and increasingly difficult for her producers to ignore.

Nolan’s private life grew lazier as his public life grew louder.

Katherine had not returned for a month, though they spoke almost every night. Nolan drove Lisa’s BMW around Los Angeles, spent several nights a week with Lisa, and let her manage nutrition, supplements, meals, and every expensive little advantage money could buy. Susan still appeared when her own schedule allowed. Penny appeared when work and risk aligned.

The question of Lisa’s pregnancy had not resolved. The doctor had given no clear barrier beyond age and chance, so Nolan did what he could and let timing handle the rest.

What he still needed was a real house.

Reese finally found one through a sale notice: a large furnished place in the San Fernando Valley, tucked into a wooded hillside community and priced below what it should have been because the Northridge earthquake had left everyone nervous about property.

The house was about five thousand square feet, old but solid, with enough rooms for Nolan’s current life and whatever absurd thing it turned into next.

The seller asked $150,000.

Nolan offered $130,000.

The seller agreed too quickly.

"This is not secretly a film set, right?" Nolan asked.

The man looked offended. "It is a real house."

Mia handled the contract. By the weekend, Nolan had a new place to move into.

...

Charlize rode with him in the moving truck and claimed a room before the furniture was fully unloaded.

"This one has better light."

"You are already decorating?"

"I have taste."

"You also have no money."

"That is why I am decorating with imagination."

She had received an audition through Lisa, a small role in a thriller. It was not much, but it was a step.

"If I become a great actress," Charlize said, leaning on a stack of boxes, "will you take credit?"

"When you win Best Actress, I will be insufferable."

"You are already insufferable."

"Then I am prepared."

The community looked quiet from the outside. Trees, sloped streets, houses set back from the road.

Then Nolan noticed lights flashing through a second-floor window at a nearby house.

Not party lights.

Production lights.

A long-haired man with a beard and a short-haired woman walked over from next door, both studying Nolan and Charlize with professional interest.

"Which company are you with?" the man asked.

Nolan paused.

"What company?"

The man’s eyes moved toward Charlize.

And Nolan realized the neighborhood might not be as quiet as it looked.

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