The conference room gleamed.
Good chairs. Dark table. A wooden cross on the credenza at the end of the room. All the modern audio-visual equipment you’d need for conferencing.
Dani found a seat with her back to the window. Every chair had a legal pad and a pen on the table in front of it. She didn’t open the pad. She clicked the pen once and set it down parallel to the pad.
Marcus was laughing when he came in with the rest of the agency team. He sat across from her and flashed her a grin. His smile was doing the same thing it always did. The first viral videos from high school races, then junior nationals. The hospital room. Dani smiled back and nodded politely at the others.
She’d researched all their names. Done her best to play nice at welcome drinks the evening before.
Covenant Sports & Entertainment, in partnership with Aurelius Partners—
The attorney was unhurried. Each clause arrived with authority. It had already been agreed to.
Stewardship. Platform. Legacy.
Their promise to each other.
The room’s temperature was steady and managed. There was the slightest vibration below the table. Marcus’ right knee was going. The small quick bounce that she knew. Almost in time. He used do to it when he was struggling with his homework. He did it before every race. He’d done it when he’d met the Houston pastor, trying to remember all the right things to say. And before the first representation call. The one she’d dialed into from the top floor of the parking garage, because that was the only place she could get a signal.
He was happy, though. He believed in himself, and he believed in other people.
She watched the attorney as he continued to go through the notes.
Section three. Coverage. Medical, travel, performance staff - all included. Performance assurance framework - the phrase passed. Nobody said anything.
Section six. Transition provisions.
She’d read it. Reading was one thing. Different when it was real.
Currently held, per schedule C, by Daniela Reyes, operating as primary representative.
Currently.
The attorney finished all the clauses, all the contracts, and moved to the timeline. It was structured. Supportive. There was a named transition coordinator. Russell, she’d met him yesterday. Everything was designed for maximum sustainability.
Marcus’ leg was still going under the table.
The papers were placed in front of the representatives. A sequence someone had decided before they all walked in. They did the witnessing, initialing, signing.
They called in a photographer for Marcus. He signed the way he ran. Direct. No hesitation in his body.
She watched his hand move across the page. Six copies the same. His name, his future.
There was nothing for her to sign. She didn’t even pick up her pen.
She looked at the papers in front of him.
He was past that excitement now. In a different state. The stillness of having it all. Like they’d dreamed about. She knew that in him, too.
The attorney said something about stewardship one more time. There were handshakes. The room began to close.
The leg had stopped.
A story from the Static Drift universe.
Article photo by Braden Collum on Unsplash.