Her smile tightens slightly. “That would be… we would love it if you could. I don’t know if you gentleman have been here to do this before, but I want to thank you for… just, thank you for all of this. Your time and your talent. They’re very excited. You have no idea.”
“We’re happy to be here,” Trey assures her smoothly.
Tyus claps his hands together, swaying slightly from his left foot to his right the way he does when he’s getting ready to come off the sidelines. “Let’s get this started.”
Beverly casts us one last smile before leading us to the first door. It’s open, but she stops to knock lightly on the frame.
“Hi,” she calls sweetly. “Bentley, I have some visitors for you.”
She waves us in behind her.
The room is hot, probably to keep Little Dude’s temperature up. He can’t be older than seven and he’s thin as a rail. Not a hair on his head. There’s an IV in his arm, a yellowing bruise surrounding the insertion point. A heart monitor on his left, beeping incessant and even.
I’m immediately thinking leukemia.
It’s not my goal to guess their illness the second I walk into their room. It seems like a pretty messed up game to play. I can’t help it, though. I make these visits at least twice a year, something I started doing in my college days at North Carolina State, and after a while you start to notice the patterns. The symptoms and the signs. The skinny kids who can’t stand to eat thanks to the nausea inducing radiation treatments that send their hair falling from their scalp. The easy bruising. Chills.
It’s a rough truth, but your body tells your story like a book to anyone paying attention, whether you want it to or not.
I put on my game face and stride confidently into the room. I offer my knuckles to Bentley. “What’s up, little man?”
He beams up at me, bumping my big fist with his small, bone white knuckles. “You’re Colt Avery.”
“That’s right. You a Kodiaks fan?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Like, a hundred percent sure? ‘Cause I got some gear here that I wanna sign for you, but if you’re really a Raiders fan or something, then I don’t know…”
Bentley sits up excitedly, straining to look around agents. His eyes light up when he spots the swag cart. “I’m a hundred percent sure! A hundred and fifty percent sure!”
I turn to the guys standing at the end of the bed. “What do you think, Tyus?”
“Trey Domata!” Bentley shouts, suddenly aware of who else is standing in his room. “Your pass against the Seahawks was sick.”
“You’re talking about the one to me, right?” Tyus asks cockily, smiling with the right side of his mouth and putting up his hands like he’s taking the pass all over again. “Seconds to go on the clock, in the red zone, he hits me in the corner, and bam! Touchdown, baby. Game over.”
Bentley’s face is confused. “You guys beat the Seahawks thirty-one to twenty-one. You were ahead the entire second half.”
Tyus’ hands lower slowly, his smile strained. “Nah, man, the Seahawks game was…”
“You’re thinking of the Chargers game,” Trey tells him. “You made the game winning catch. Sixteen to fifteen.”
Tyus looks at him blankly for a half a second before he chuckles awkwardly. “Right, yeah. That’s stupid. I can’t believe I mixed those up.”
“All these wins, it’s hard to keep track. Right, Bentley?”
Bentley shakes his head adamantly. “No way. I remember all of them. I’ve watched the entire season. You beat the Saints twenty to three. You lost to the Ravens twenty-three to seventeen. You won against the Browns thirty to thirteen. You beat the Dolphins twenty-four to twenty-one. You lost to the Steelers twenty-seven to twenty-four.”
“Okay, okay,” I laugh. “You’ve proved it, dude. You’re a fan, two hundred percent. I don’t think even our agents could quote our record that well.”
“After the Steelers you lost to the Broncos,” Sloane pipes up with a smile. She winks at Bentley, making him blush. “Twenty-two to twenty, right, B?”
“Yeah,” he replies quietly, a smile on his pale lips.
“It was the Giants next,” Berny adds, looking to Bentley. “What was the score on that one, kiddo? I’m old. I forget.”
“Thirty-nine to thirty.”
We all look to Tyus’ agent, Darren.
He grins. “I’m up? Oh man, after the Chargers it was the Seahawks for the win.”
“Quit tryin’ to steal the man’s thunder,” I scold the room. I nod to the intern. “Pass me a football and a blanket.”