We didn’t talk much.

I texted with Reese a few times, checking on him, but I knew he needed to focus.

The afternoon stretched into evening, and someone from their team came to get me. Reese had requested to see me an hour before going onto the court.

Trent had gone up to the box by then. He said his friend and my airplane buddy Dwayne was there, and he didn’t know anything about what had happened. Someone had taken a picture of Reese kissing me the night before, but my face wasn’t visible, and in light of Roman’s death, Stan got that story killed right away. I hadn’t even known about it until Trent mentioned seeing it in an early alert, then nothing after that.

I was taken to a room. People were everywhere, lining the hallway, and someone mentioned the locker room wasn’t too far away.

Stan came in minutes later and motioned to the door. “Reese just wants a minute with you. He’ll be coming shortly, but then to fill you in on everything, he’ll return to the locker room, and after that, they’ll go out to play the game.”

“Trent said there was a picture of us?”

Stan grimaced, tugging at his collar. “Yeah. I bought the story and killed it. People are already curious about you. It’s been pushed off because of Roman’s death, but word’s spreading. Two bloggers are claiming they have video of you two conversing at the Coyotes game. Is that true?”

I knew who he was talking about, and unease began to trickle in. “Not talking or anything. Reese was going off the court. I held my phone up and he nodded. That was it. Those guys followed me after that, but I lost ’em and left the game with my friends.”

“And these friends? If they’re tracked down, what are they going to say?”

“Nothing.” I felt slapped by his accusation, but the jaded look in his eyes was just resignation.

“Everyone has a price.”

“Not these guys.” My head rose higher. “Not me either.”

He stared at me, hard, unblinking, and then a wall slid away. He cringed. “I, uh, I have to apologize for something.”

More unease. Alarms began to sound.

“That last game you were at, in Washington, that whole mess was because of me.”

Say what?

I lowered my head, my eyes still on him. “Repeat that.”