Derek

My agent Lance takes some clothes out of his bag and passes them to me.

“Hope the sizes are okay,” he says.

“Thanks.” I take the sweatpants and T-shirt into the bathroom of my dad’s Denver apartment and change.

When I come out of the bedroom, my dad and Lance are still looking at me like I’m a ghost.

“I was never dead,” I remind them with a smile. “Quit looking at me like I just rose from the grave.”

“I just can’t fucking believe it,” Lance says.

I sit down on the plain brown sofa in the furnished apartment Dad moved in to after the lodge was destroyed.

“I can’t either,” I admit. “I was starting to believe we’d never get out of there.”

“What’d the cops have to say when they called?” my dad asks from the kitchen.

“They’re looking for Bryce’s cousin Oscar, but he’s probably in another country by now. The detective is pretty sure John and the real wiring guy were killed in the explosion.”

Lance gives me a confused look. “The real wiring guy?”

“Yeah. Oscar and Bryce knew someone who had worked on the building crew for the bunker. That guy violated the NDA he signed and told them about it. They came up with a plan to rob me, and once Bryce made sure I was in the bunker and no one was near the door, Oscar locked us in there and then made sure John, my security guy, and Trent, the guy who was supposed to be wiring the bunker, were inside the lodge when he rigged the explosion. That way there was no one left who knew we were down there.”

Lance shakes his head in disbelief. “And it looked like all of you had died in an accidental explosion.”

“The arson investigator suspected foul play all along,” I say. “He just didn’t know why.”

My dad sets a cup of coffee in front of Lance on the coffee table, and he passes another to me.

“John was a good man,” Dad says. “He had a wife and daughter.”

A fiery anger reignites inside me. Bryce and his cousin need to pay a steep price for what they did.

“I want to pay all John’s burial costs and set his wife and daughter up with some money,” I say to Lance.

“I already did,” Dad says.

I nod my thanks.

“Did you sleep okay last night?” Lance asks me.

“I slept okay.”

I didn’t, really, but I don’t want to go into it. I haven’t even been out of the bunker for twenty-four hours yet. My dad and I stopped by the hospital yesterday evening to see Matias and Erin, but someone recognized me in the elevator and started filming me with their phone, whispering about how I’m supposed to be dead, but I’m obviously not. Then someone else caught on and started taking photos. Dad suggested we get out of there before it turned into a scene.

“I’m working with a PR firm on a press release,” Lance says. “And I’m in touch with a lawyer for the league about where we go from here.”

“Meaning what?” I say. “I’m going back to my team as soon as I can.”

Lance furrows his brow. “It’s not that simple. When the police declared you dead, terms from your contract about your death kicked in.”

“Give it to me straight, man.” I rub my temples, knowing I won’t like his answer.

“Your contract basically ends upon your death. Your estate gets the rest of your salary for this season, and that’s it. So the team already adjusted its roster.”

I gape at him. “Do they not want me back?”

“They don’t even know yet, Derek.” Lance leans forward in his chair. “And when I tell them, of course, they’ll want you back. But we have to do this right. I have to see what the options are, and that starts with the league’s legal team.”

“So what do I do in the meantime?”

“My advice is that you hole up here. The video of you at the hospital has been shared everywhere, and the conspiracy theorists are chomping at the bit. When we put out a press release, you’re gonna get mobbed by the media like you can’t even imagine.”

I shrug. “I’m used to it, man. They’ve always followed me everywhere.”

Lance shakes his head. “No, this will be different. When it gets out that Derek Heaton isn’t really dead and was locked in a doomsday bunker with four strangers for three months, the level of interest in you is gonna reach a point that you’ll want to have your face scraped off so you can enter the witness protection program.”

“Fuck.” I bury my face in my hands. “Can’t the cops keep that part confidential? About the bunker?”

“I doubt it. You have to remember, it’s not just the cops who know. It’s also every firefighter and paramedic who came to the scene. People at the hospital. The people who were down there with you. Their families. We aren’t going to be able to control this story as much as we’d like. We’re trying to get ahead of it, but reporters are going to be rabid over this. They’re gonna want photos.” He gives me a look. “Which reminds me, you need to shave.”

“Who cares about the beard?” I run a hand over the facial hair I’ve gotten used to. “I’ll shave before I go back to my team.”

Lance shakes his head. “You look like a homeless guy, bro. And you’ve dropped weight. The less you look like you did before you disappeared, the more the media will want photos.”

“Fine, I’ll shave. But I’m not staying here for days without leaving. I need to go see Erin and Matias at the hospital.”

“I checked on the kid,” Lance says. “Apparently, he’s stable.”

“Good. And you arranged for his family to get here?”

My agent nods. “I set them up in a hotel and told them all Matias’s medical costs are being covered.”

“Thanks.” I stand up and pace across the room, restless. “Can you get me Erin’s number?”

“She’s one of the people you were trapped with?”

“Yeah. Erin Morrison. I’m pretty sure that’s her last name.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Dad stands up and looks between us. “Why don’t I make some breakfast? Anyone besides me hungry?”

I nod and Lance smiles.

“That’d be great. And Derek, we can go over contract details and give your coach a call.”

I rub the back of my neck and exhale as Dad walks into the kitchen.

“Yeah, I’m up for that,” I tell Lance, “but can you get me Erin’s number first?”

He just looks at me silently for a couple seconds. “You want me to get it right now?”

I nod. “That’d be great, man.”

“What’s going on between you two?”

I scowl at him. “Are you my agent or my mother?”

“Sometimes, I feel like both.” He rolls his eyes. “Jesus. You want me to dial the phone for you too? Get you a snack?”

“I pay you to do shit like this,” I fire back. “You got me that actress’s phone number when I asked you to.”

“Actually, you’re not paying me shit. I’m here out of the goodness of my heart.”

“Quit acting like a little bitch. You know I’ll pay you when…I’m alive again.”

I shake my head at how fucking strange that sounds.

“I missed your punk ass,” Lance says as he types out a text.

“Did you cry at my funeral?”

“You know it. You’re my highest-earning client.” He smirks.

He’s reading an incoming text, and I say, “Did you get her number?”

“For fuck’s sake, Derek, it’s been like a minute and a half. No, I didn’t get it yet.”

“Well, quit talking and get to work.”

“You know what…” He shifts in his chair and glares at me. “Does this chick have naked pics of you or something?”

“If she did, she wouldn’t be the first,” I admit. “But no.”

Lance nods toward the bathroom. “Go shave that shit off your face.”

I turn that way. “You better have that number when I get back, or you’re fired.”

I’ve threatened to fire Lance at least thirty times in the decade he’s been my agent. He knows I’m kidding. Lance is one of my best friends—one of the few people I trust completely.

“Go ahead, man. Let somebody else deal with the headache of bringing you back to life.”

I laugh. “We both know you’re loving this. How many agents get to call the NFL brass and tell them a dead player is actually alive and well?”

He grins. “Yeah, it is pretty cool.”

I shave and scarf down the bacon, eggs, and toast my dad serves up in his small, modern kitchen. Lance is buried in his phone the whole time, typing out emails and texts in between bites.

“Are you rebuilding the lodge?” I ask my dad.

He shakes his head. “I haven’t even thought about it. I’ve just been trying to get through.”

“I’m sorry about this whole mess.”

“It’s not your fault.” The corners of his lips turn up slightly. “I can’t believe this whole thing went down because you had a doomsday bunker built for me.”

“I thought you’d like it.” I grin at him.

“Hell yeah, I would’ve. I mean, I do.” He gives me a puzzled look. “Will you keep it? Rebuild on the same land?”

I shrug. “I can’t imagine building anywhere else. It feels like home. I’m gonna have the bunker fixed so it’s not possible to get locked inside.”

Dad crosses his arms, considering. “We’re gonna have a shitload of gawkers coming by.”

Lance carries his empty plate over to the sink and sets it inside, then thanks my dad for cooking.

“I got the phone number for you,” he says, turning to face me.

“Thanks, man.” I look around for a second, then remember I don’t have a phone anymore. Mine was blown to shit in the explosion. “Hey, can you go buy me a phone?”

My agent glares at me. “No. We’ve got more important shit to do first.”

“You want me to go instead?”

“Fuck.” He looks up at the ceiling. “You’re my most pain in the ass client, Heaton, you know that?”

“I’m gonna need to borrow the money for it, too.”

“Christ.” He scowls at me. “I’ll go buy you a fucking phone soon, okay? Right now, we need to call Tom.”

“Yeah.”

I’m looking forward to telling my coach his star quarterback is back from the dead. We’ve always mostly gotten along. I run my mouth on occasion, but he knows it’s my way of cooling off after a stupid fucking loss that should’ve been a win. Tom’s got a hot temper himself sometimes.

Lance and I go into the living room and sit down on two armchairs with a small table between them. He dials Tom and puts the phone on speaker.

“Lance,” Tom clips in his no-nonsense tone. “What’s up?”

“Hey, I’ve got some news for you.”

“Yeah…?”

Lance gives me a quick glance before continuing. “It’s probably gonna come as a shock.”

“Nothing shocks me, kid. I was a combat Marine.”

Damn, I missed him. Tom pulls no punches, and I respect the hell out of him.

“Hey, Coach,” I say.

There’s silence on the other end of the line.

“Coach?” I repeat.

“What the fuck? Who is this?”

“It’s me. I’m alive.”

After another silence, Lance says, “Can we set up a meeting sometime soon?”

“This afternoon.” Tom’s words are a statement, not a question. “My office.”

“We’re trying to avoid the media storm that’s about to hit.”

“My house, then,” Tom says.

“Great,” Lance says. “I’ll text you a time after I set up a flight.”

“That video,” Tom says, his tone awestruck, “that was really you?”

“Yeah, it’s me, Coach.”

“You looked like shit, Heaton. Where the hell you been?”

Lance smiles at me across the table between us.

“We’ll catch you up on everything this afternoon.”

He ends the call and stands up.

“Still waiting on that phone,” I say.

“I’m going.” He gives me the finger. “What’s the deal with this woman, anyway? Why are you so set on reaching her?”

Because I miss her. Nothing seems right now that she’s not with me all the time. And I’m pretty sure I’ve never wanted to talk to someone so much in my whole damned life. I’m not telling Lance any of that, though.

“Just get the phone, asshole. And hurry up.”

He doesn’t protest this time—he just walks out the door, middle finger in the air.