Chương 177: The Best Day of His Life

The next day, Leo found himself back in Coach Harbach's office. Harbach stood behind his desk. The ceiling tile had been replaced. But the coach's expression suggested a new hole might appear at any moment. Vivian sat in the chair beside Leo. She'd taken the overnight flight from Atlanta and looked miserable. Her arms were crossed. Her jaw was tight. She hadn't said a word since he'd walked in. For some reason, she seemed even more ticked off than Harbach.

"We need to work on your secrecy skills." Harbach's voice was measured.

"I know I didn't say 'don't show off your micrododging.' But what were you thinking?" Leo stood up. The chair scraped against the floor.

"Coach, I didn't want to throw the game. That's not me. That's not..." Harbach held up a hand.

"I wasn't referring to the game." Leo stopped talking. The coach turned to the wall display and tapped twice. The screen flickered to life. TikTok. The footage was grainy, clearly captured from some kind of mounted recording array. London police insignia in the corner. A targeting scope overlay covered the lower third of the frame. In the distance, two figures streaked across a gray sky, one chasing the other. Leo recognized the chase instantly. It was the time he chased Morimoto over the English countryside.

The time he micrododged through police flak cannons. Oh. That. The video showed shells detonating directly in his flight path. Shrapnel burst across the sky. And through the blasts, a small figure threaded gaps that shouldn't have existed, emerging on the other side without a single impact. Leo's stomach dropped. He checked the view count. Two hundred and fourteen million. A janitor hadn't sold him out. The Bills had fielded starters because they'd seen this video.

Someone in their front office had watched Leo thread flak over London and decided the preseason game was the perfect opportunity to test whatever he was hiding. If Morimoto hadn't fled, the police footage wouldn't exist. If the footage didn't exist, the Bills wouldn't have fielded four starters against a rookie in a preseason game. If the Bills hadn't focused two starting gunners on Leo, he wouldn't have needed to micrododge. If he hadn't micrododged, he wouldn't be having this conversation with Coach Harbach.

The chain of causation was clear. Every link led back to Morimoto. But Harbach must have thought this was Leo's fault. Not Morimoto's. He looked to Vivian for help. She stared back at him. Her expression didn't change. She thought it was his fault too. Leo sat back in his chair and swallowed.

"I'm sorry, Coach."

"Sorry." Harbach's laugh was hollow.

"Sorry doesn't unfry the chicken, Chen. Sorry doesn't put the micrododging back in the bottle. Every defensive coordinator in the league has seen that video. By Week One, they'll have countermeasures." Leo said nothing.

"And what were you even doing chasing a fugitive in England?" Harbach threw up his hands.

"What, the Queen personally asked you to handle it over afternoon tea?" Leo's expression froze. Harbach caught it. His eyes narrowed.

"What."

"Nothing, Coach."

"Why do you look like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I just guessed something I shouldn't have." Leo kept his face very still.

"I don't know what you mean." Harbach stared at him for a long moment. Then he shook his head.

"No. No way. There's no way the Monarch Victoria would..." He cut himself off.

"You know what? I don't want to know. I have enough problems." Leo exhaled. Harbach turned back to the looping TikTok video. Stared at it. Took a breath through his nose. Counted to ten.

"So here's what's going to happen. You're going to watch film. Every gunner in the NFL, every flak pattern they've used in the last five seasons. You're going to memorize their tendencies until you can predict shell trajectories in your sleep." Leo nodded.

"You're going to run laps. Every morning. Before practice. During practice. After practice. I want you so tired by the end of the day that you don't have energy left to do anything stupid." Leo nodded again.

"You're going to attend every team meeting. Every film session. Every walkthrough. If Vince is reviewing coverage schemes at three in the morning, you're there taking notes."

"Yes, Coach."

"And you're benched." Leo's head snapped up.

"All of preseason. Every remaining game. You don't see the field until our season opener against the Commanders." The words hung in the air. Leo processed them slowly. Benched for preseason. Not playing until the regular season. Which meant...

"Coach," Leo said carefully.

"If I'm not playing until the season opener..." Harbach's expression flickered.

"... that means I'm a starter." The silence stretched.

"Yes." Harbach looked like he was passing a kidney stone.

"God help us all." Leo grinned.

"Don't." Harbach pointed at him.

"Don't you dare smile at me right now. This is not a reward. I am furious with you."

"Understood, Coach." Leo was already standing.

"I should get a head start on that film, Coach. Thank you for the opportunity." He turned toward the door.

"Chen." Leo stopped. Harbach's face had somehow gone even uglier.

"Lord Mara wanted me to ask you something." The owner. The real boss. The one who told Harbach that Leo was going to be a starter.

"Yes?"

"He wants you to tell Coach Williams to stop printing those 330th anniversary Flyer Seven jerseys." Leo blinked. The Yale merchandise. The red-and-blue jerseys that had flooded the stadium last night, the ones he'd mistaken for Giants merchandise until Tom and Matt had come up to find him afterward.

"Why would I..."

"Superior Harbach, what is Leo's cut?" Vivian's voice cut through the room. Leo turned. She was still sitting in her chair, arms still crossed, but something had sharpened in her expression. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"What?" Harbach said.

"His merchandise cut, Superior." Vivian didn't blink.

"From the Giants. What percentage does Leo receive from jersey sales?" Leo stared at her. She was right. He hadn't made a single cent from the Yale jerseys. Williams had been selling his name, image, and likeness for years, and Leo had never seen a dollar. At the time, he'd been a student. The jerseys had helped the program, and that had felt like enough. But he wasn't a student anymore. He was an NFL player. First overall pick. Two hundred thousand people had shown up to a preseason game just to watch him fly.

His name was worth something now. And if Lord Mara wanted Leo to shut down Williams's operation...

"That's right, Coach." Leo turned back to face Harbach.

"What's my cut?" Harbach's expression cycled through several emotions.

"Standard rookie contract," he said slowly.

"Five percent of merchandise bearing your name and likeness."

"Coach." Leo gestured at the looping TikTok video.

"Do I look like a standard rookie to you?" Harbach's eye twitched.

"Two hundred thousand tickets," Leo continued.

"Preseason. Four-hundred-dollar scalps. Nearly every jersey in that stadium had my number on it."

"That's not how contract negotiations..." Vivian pulled her phone from her blazer pocket and read from it without looking up.

"League average for starters is twelve. Top five is sixteen." Both men turned to look at her.

"Fifteen percent, Superior." She looked up.

"Thirteen for him, two for me."

In the end, they settled at twelve percent for Leo, one and a half for Vivian. Harbach looked like he'd aged a decade. Leo signed three documents he didn't fully understand and shook hands with two people whose names he immediately forgot. They walked out of Harbach's office in silence. Down the hallway lined with championship banners. Past the film room where Leo was going to be spending the next month memorizing flak patterns.

Past the weight room where a handful of Soldiers were running morning drills, their grunts echoing off the concrete walls. A few staff members nodded at Leo as he passed. One of them gave him a thumbs up. They stepped outside and morning humidity hit Leo's face. New Jersey in August. The parking lot shimmered with heat. Vivian stopped beside her rental car and turned to face him. The morning sun revealed the dark circles under her eyes, and Leo felt a pang of guilt.

She'd probably worked through the flight, preparing the merchandise numbers before she'd even landed.

"Leo. You're going to need to skip the preseason training." Leo stared at her.

"Wait." He gestured back at the building.

"Did you just hear the man? I have film to watch. Laps to run. Meetings to attend at three in the morning. I told him I was going to do all of that. He's going to be furious if I skip."

"Let the old man scream at clouds." Harbach was fifty-three. Leo had checked his Wikipedia page during a particularly boring film session. But what did he know.

"Besides," Vivian continued, "the military will be the one giving you a pass. Lord Goodell himself signed off on it." Leo's brain stalled.

"What do you mean Goodell signed off on it?" The words came out louder than he intended.

"You sat there in that room. You watched me take all of that from Harbach. The laps. The film sessions. The benching. And you knew I wasn't going to do any of it?" Vivian's expression didn't change.

"I was sincere," Leo said.

"I was actually going to try."

"Did you read your email?" Leo opened his mouth. Closed it.

"I sent you the information last week." Leo said nothing.

"I didn't bring it up because I wanted you to focus on your NFL debut." Vivian's voice softened slightly.

"Plus, letting Harbach feel like he won probably earned us an extra point or two on the merchandise deal. But anyways, remember what you discussed with Major Santiago? The Cranesong Nascent Soul breakthrough ceremony?" Leo remembered. The conversation in the elevator to the Gate of Contrition. He'd dangled the remarkable Nascent Soul breakthrough ceremony in front of Santiago and told her to talk to Vivian about it.

"The military took the bait," Vivian said.

"We're doing a deal with the Silvercrest cranes. But you're the only one who can actually record T3 Cranesong. For the next month before the season opener, you need to make the trade work."

"Besides," she added, "there's no way you can practice the Struggle Forbidden Formation here. At Skyhome, you can practice drawing it under combat conditions." Leo nodded slowly. That was true. Then he remembered what the trade was actually for. His generous middleman fee.

"What are we getting in return?" Vivian shrugged.

"Cash. We need it. After your Si breaks 60k, the other three need funding for Gold Core surgery and T4 flying swords." His divine sense was at 56k Si. He'd been diligent about the divine sense press, but at his current rate it would take until March before he hit 60k. No. April. He'd have to take a month off the divine sense press to help with the Cranesong trade.

"The problem is we don't really know what else to ask for," Vivian continued.

"We tried negotiating for Third Person Perspective spiritual medicine. Hard no. And the military isn't telling us what else they have available." Leo thought for a moment. The Nascent Soul breakthrough ceremony was valuable. Valuable enough that the U. S. military was pulling strings with the NFL commissioner's office.

"There is something I want." Leo met Vivian's eyes.

"Queen Victoria engraved her Form Dao in my head. I want a T3 Form Forbidden Formation. Something I can use in the NFL. Or the Azure Profound Continent. Or to make money with." Vivian nodded.

"Good idea. We can probably demand that. The Brits weren't going to let us have the Formation for free anyway." She opened the driver's side door, then stopped.

"One more thing. You should check on the construction of Gustav Mountain while you're out there." Gustav Mountain. The base the team was building in the Great Divide. The giant cannon they would fire against the eventual hoard of zombie cultivators.

"The other three are being cagey about what's going on," Vivian said.

"Make sure Mike didn't add a giant brewery underneath or something." Leo's eyes lit up. A giant brewery sounded amazing. Underground. Hidden in a mountain fortress. Producing spiritual alcohol for the entire region. Vivian read his expression. She sighed.

"Read your emails. I'll send the details tonight." She turned toward the rental car. Opened the driver's side door. Put one hand on the frame. Then she stopped. She turned around and looked at him.

"I watched your game." Her voice had changed. Smaller.

"When you went through the flak. Both shells. I couldn't..." She looked up. Brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. Leo realized he'd never noticed how bright her eyes were. She excitedly took his hands and smiled.

"You were incredible, Leo. I knew you would be. But watching it happen..." She trailed off. Leo opened his mouth to deflect, to make a joke about how Harbach had nearly had an aneurysm, but nothing came out. He was suddenly aware of how delicate her fingers were. Vivian let go.

"Anyway." She cleared her throat. The smile folded itself away.

"Read your emails. I'll send the travel details tonight." She turned to get into the car. Leo noticed, for the first time, what she was wearing beneath the blazer. A pencil skirt. Navy blue. The kind of thing she'd never worn in the four years he'd known her. It took him a second. She'd been teasing him, back when he'd asked for her help. What else? Should I just be your personal assistant? Maybe follow you around with a pencil skirt and a clipboard? He'd laughed it off. He'd assumed she had too.

Harbach woke at 9: 47 AM. He stared at the ceiling for a full minute before realizing what was wrong. The alarm hadn't gone off. The sun was streaming through the blinds at an angle that meant he'd overslept by nearly three hours. His hand shot toward the nightstand. Then stopped. Today was different. Today, Leo Chen was running laps. He'd already finished his morning hour before practice, in fact. He'd run another hour at noon. He'd run a third hour after practice ended. Three sessions.

Three opportunities for the lesson to sink in. Harbach settled back against his pillow. He reached for his phone and opened the weather app. Eighty-two degrees. Seventy-three percent humidity. Sun icon with no clouds. Harbach snickered. Poor Leo Chen. The morning session must have been brutal enough. An hour of laps in the heat before practice even started. Right now the kid was probably sitting in film study, pretending to watch defensive formations while he checked his phone every thirty seconds.

Watching the temperature climb. Counting down the minutes until noon. Harbach scrolled down to the hourly forecast. His finger hovered over the noon slot. Ninety-six degrees. Seventy percent humidity. UV index: extreme. Harbach started giggling. The sound surprised him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd giggled. Chuckled, sure. Laughed at a reporter's stupid question, occasionally. But giggled? Like a child? He didn't care.

He was alone in his bedroom and Leo Chen was going to run laps in ninety-six-degree heat at high noon. For an entire hour. Harbach closed his eyes and let himself imagine it. Leo Chen, stumbling around the final corner of the facility. Legs shaking. Sweat pouring down his face. That cocky nineteen-year-old confidence melting away under the August sun.

"Coach," the imaginary Leo would gasp.

"Coach, please. I'm sorry. I should have listened. I should have benched myself when you told me to." And Harbach would stand there in the shade, arms crossed, expression unmoved.

"What was that, Chen? I couldn't hear you over the sound of your own poor decisions."

"I was wrong, Coach. You were right about everything. The laps. The film sessions. All of it. Please. I'll do whatever you say."

"Fifty-three more minutes, Chen. Keep moving." Harbach opened his eyes. He was grinning so wide his cheeks hurt. He threw off the covers and walked to his closet. Today called for something special. Not the standard charcoal suit he wore to practices. Not the navy blue he reserved for press conferences. Today required the suit. His hand found the garment bag at the back of the closet. Italian wool. Slate gray with the faintest pinstripe.

He'd bought it in Milan during a coaching conference six years ago and had worn it exactly twice. Once to his daughter's wedding. Once to accept the Coach of the Year award. Today would be the third time. Harbach laid the suit on his bed and went to shower. He took his time. Used the good shampoo. Shaved twice to make sure he'd gotten everything. By the time he emerged, it was 10: 30. He dressed slowly. Adjusted his tie three times. Checked his reflection from multiple angles. Perfect.

He would arrive at the facility at noon. Not 11: 45. Not 12: 15. Noon exactly. Just in time to catch Leo Chen starting his second session, when the sun was highest and the asphalt was hottest and sixty minutes of suffering stretched out ahead of the kid. Harbach checked the weather one more time. Still ninety-six degrees. He smiled at his reflection. This was going to be the best day of his life.