Thankfully, Andy and his girlfriend Jenna arrived on time, sparing me the grief of having to keep the food warm while waiting. Emmy had set the outside table so we could enjoy the summer evening on the balcony/outside living room area. We’d really come to spend a lot of time in the evenings out there rather than inside the apartment, and honestly, it was really the only part of the apartment I was going to miss when we moved out.

Andy looked exactly the way I’d visualized him. A little older, a bit beefier, but still the same guy. No facial hair, thankfully. Jenna, well, she was blonde and pretty, to my surprise, but at least she seemed as if she had a brain in her head.

“Your home is really beautiful!” she said after introductions were made.

“I am afraid we cannot claim any responsibility,” Emmy admitted. “We are renting, and the apartment came furnished as you see it.”

“Oh, well, you chose a nice one, then,” Jenna said, recovering nicely.

I ushered everybody out to the balcony, saying, “Dinner is almost ready. I just have to get it from the oven.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Jenna asked, to her credit.

My first instinct was to tell her that I had everything under control, but I relented. “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks!” I said, cocking my head towards the kitchen so she would follow. Jenna helped me in transferring the chicken and roasted vegetables into serving dishes, making idle chit chat while we did so.

“Andy told me that he’s known you since you guys were kids,” she stated, but I could tell it was really a question.

“Yeah, we’ve known each other since grade school,” I replied. “I don’t know if you’ve been to Fallbrook,” I hedged, and when she said she had, I said, “Well, it’s a small town. Only one high school, two middle schools, and I think four elementary schools. Five, if you count the school over in Rainbow. I’d lived in Fallbrook since I was born, but Andy and his family moved into town when he was maybe eight? His family lived in the same basic area as mine, so we wound up in the same third grade class, and the rest is history.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said. He also told me that you were bigger than him back then.”

“God, that was so awkward,” I said with a groan. “I mean, I’ve always been tall, but at that age, you know the girls grow up quicker than boys, right? So I was, like, the tallest kid in class from about third grade all the way into middle school.”

“Well, you are really tall,” Jenna said, looking me up and down. “He said you were, but I guess I just didn’t expect you’d be as tall as you are.”

Shrugging, I said, “Six foot two and a half or so. My mom is kinda tall, and so was my dad, so I just doubled down on the genes, I guess. But at Stanford, I had a teammate on the volleyball team who’s six foot eight. Now that is tall,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Yeah, maybe a bit too tall,” Jenna agreed with a laugh. “Um, I don’t know if I’m treading on any toes, here,” Jenna said, looking embarrassed. “But Andy said that he and Emmy used to date in high school?”

“Yeah, for a little while,” I agreed, not wanting to contradict Andy’s story, but not knowing what he’d told Jenna. “Before I swooped in and stole her away,” I added with a laugh.

“So, us being here, it isn’t awkward, is it?” Jenna asked, still unsure of how things stood.

“You know what? Andy was a friend of mine for most of our childhood. I’m happy to see him again, and pleased to meet you. If you can make Andy happy, I’m glad for the two of you, so no, I don’t feel awkward about it at all, and neither does Emmy.” Thinking about it for a moment, I asked, “Are you O.K. with meeting an old friend of your fiancé who happens to be another woman? And meeting another that he had romantic interest in for a few months in high school?”

“Um, yeah,” Jenna said, thinking about it. “I mean, you guys are married to each other now, and I’m going to marry Andy, so it’s not like there are any leftover feelings, right?”

“Just old friendships,” I said with a shrug. “And maybe new ones?”

“That would be nice,” Jenna said. “We don’t really have any couple friends here in LA, you know?”

“I can relate,” I said as we carried the food to the table.

“Relate to what?” Andy asked as he helped set the salad bowl down.

“Not having any couple friends,” Jenna said, sitting down next to Andy. “Leah was just telling me about Fallbrook. It seems like everybody knew everybody.”

Protesting, Andy said, “It wasn’t that small. Leah and I just lived in the same part of town, you know? So we always went to the same schools together. We were in the same class in, what, third grade, right? And then again in fourth. Did she tell you that her birthday party was the first time anybody in Fallbrook invited me over to their house?”

“Was it really?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” Andy confirmed. “Your birthday was right after school started, and you invited me. It was a pool party there at your apartment complex, and I got sunburned.”

“Oh, Jeeze, I remember that now,” I said. “You were so pale. I forgot- you guys moved from Japan, right?”

“Yeah, my dad was stationed in Iwakuni before Pendleton,” Andy confirmed.

“So that really was the first time anybody from school invited you over?”

“Yeah,” Andy said. “I don’t know if you remember, but I was kinda shy and was having a hard time making friends.”

There was a lull in the conversation while we both remembered back to those days in our childhoods. Finally, Andy said, “It’s true. Even though girls were mostly yucky back then, you were my first friend at Ellis Parker.”

Jenna put her hand on Andy’s arm and smiled. “You never told me that,” she said.

“I guess it just never came up,” Andy said. “But yeah, I had a hard time for the first few years of school when I was a kid. We moved around a lot, so I never got to stay in the same school for a whole year in kindergarten, first and second grade. It wasn’t until we moved to Fallbrook that I had any real friends, you know?”

“I didn’t know that, either,” I said. “You told me that you guys moved a lot, but I didn’t know it was that bad.”

Smiling to show that it wasn’t worth being sorry about, Andy shrugged. “Well, it was what it was. Once Dad got posted to Pendleton, everything settled down, you know? It’s all good.”

Jenna was a good conversationalist and kept the easy discussions flowing, asking about Emmy’s music, what Stanford was like and so on, freely telling stories about her own childhood in Chicago, and meeting Andy at USC in a calculus class.

After dinner, we moved over to the couches by the fireplace and burned through the pitcher of sangria, still talking amiably. Once the sangria was gone, I broke out a couple of bottles of wine, and those disappeared, too.

“We’ve been looking for a house to buy,” Andy said at one point. “But we just don’t know where we should even look. Our games are going to be at the Coliseum, but our practice facility is out in Thousand Oaks. T.O. is nice enough, but it’s pretty far from where anything interesting happens in LA,” Andy lamented.

“What things do you guys want to be close to?” I asked. “If you buy in, say, Studio City or someplace like that you’ll have a commute against traffic, so it wouldn’t be too bad. You would still be close to Hollywood and Downtown.”

“Yeah, that’s sort of where we’ve been leaning. A lot of the other players have been buying in Calabasas, but that’s a bit too close to the Kardashians for comfort,” Jenna said, making me laugh.

“Leah just bought us a new house in the Hollywood Hills,” Emmy said. “She is having it remodeled for us so we can move in.”

“Yeah? When’ll it be ready?” Asked Andy, interested.

“The general says that he should have it done in six months with all hands on deck once the plans are approved, but I’d bet it winds up closer to a year’” I replied with a shrug. “We’re having a lot of work done.”

“Like what?” Asked Andy, his interest piqued.

“Well, there’s a story to tell first. First off, it’s not really a house now.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jenna, puzzled.

“It is an old movie studio,” said Emmy. “With a sound stage and recording facilities. Even old film vaults in the cellar!”

“Seriously? That’s so cool!” Jenna said, excited by the idea. “So you’re remodeling it into a place to live?”

“Well, part of it. Most of it is going to get restored for video and audio production and rehearsal space for Emmy’s band. Only about ten thousand square feet will be converted into a residence.”

“Only,” snorted Andy, rolling his eyes. “So what, half the size of your place in Fallbrook, right, Em?”

“Yes, I think so,” Emmy agreed. Then, a thought just occurred to her. “Both of our new houses together coming to make one house as big as my parent’s house in Fallbrook,” she said, her eyes wide with astonishment at the idea.

“Both your new houses?” asked Jenna.

“Leah bought me a townhouse in Manhattan a few months ago, too,” Emmy said. Not really bragging about it, but proud that I’d done that for her, I guess.

“You’re kidding,” Jenna breathed, setting down her wine glass. “Is it Pre-War? Like, Upper East Side? Maybe in Chelsea?”

“Mid-Town East, right by the East River,” Emmy explained. “And yes, Pre-War. In fact, we are having it restored to undo some of the changes that had been made to it in the last hundred years. It will be so beautiful- here, let me show you pictures,” she said, and moved over to the squeeze into the space next to Jenna on the other couch, pulling out her phone.

“You know I worked in construction back in high school and even my first couple of summers at USC,” Andy said to me while the girls oohed and aahed over the pics of the townhouse. “I’d like to see your new place, just to look at what they’re doing. It sounds really cool.”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” I said. “I have a meeting scheduled with the general and the architect Saturday afternoon. If you want to check it out, that’d be a good time.”

“Works for me,” Andy said. “So, you guys bought in the Hollywood Hills because you need to be near the entertainment industry, right?” Andy asked.

“That’s why we moved to LA in the first place,” I said. It just so happened that the place we stumbled on was there in the Hills.”

“So, you would have been O.K. with, I dunno, Pacific Palisades, or Laguna Beach?”

“Probably not,” I admitted. “We needed to be close to the center of the music industry, right? So it had to be in certain parts of town, like you said.”

“So why’d you guys buy a place in New York, too?”

“The music industry is really big there, too,” I replied with a shrug.

“Yeah, that makes sense. You know, I have all her music on my phone. None of my teammates at USC ever believed I actually knew Emmy, much less dated her a couple of times.”

“My teammates at Stanford all believed it,” I said with a laugh. “Since she came to the home games.”

“Yeah, that would do it,” Andy said, leaning back. “But you know I’m gonna have to get some selfies with you guys.”

“Well, sure, and I’m going to need some with you, too, to prove that I know the star defensive back for the Rams.”

“I’m not ‘star’ anything yet,” Andy admitted. “I’ve only played two NFL games so far, and they don’t count since they’re just pre-season, anyway. I’ll be lucky to start as a rookie.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” I said. “You’ve made it to the NFL- how many great high school players never even pull on a pro uniform? You’ve signed a contract for what, two, three years, right?”

“Four,” Andy said, correcting me.

“Four years. If I understand anything about NFL contracts, that means you’re making a minimum guaranteed salary of what, a million a year, something like that? So you could retire after those four years and live comfortably for the rest of your life if you manage things right,” I said. “You’ve basically won the lottery. Just be careful, be smart, and look at the long term.”

“It’s a four year contract for six million, four million guaranteed,” said Andy. “I know that doesn’t sound like much compared to you guys…”

“Don’t kid yourself,” I said. “You’ve been to the apartment I grew up in. You know I used to take the city bus to school. Heck, you know I used to work afternoons at the frozen yogurt place there on East Mission. I know you know, because I gave you extra scoops for free sometimes.”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” he admitted. “It’s just, now you’re married to a billionaire’s daughter, and look at this place,” he said, indicating the apartment, the view, everything. “You’ve just bought two mansions, one on each coast, and Jenna and I are trying to find a house in our price range that’s worth living in.”

“Here, come inside,” I said, standing up and waving for him to follow me. I sat him at the kitchen counter, then grabbed my laptop and opened up some of the files Randi had sent me. “Yeah, here we are,” I said, pulling up the listings by area. “Look at this place,” I said, turning the computer his way.

While he looked at the house description, I asked “Care for an old fashioned?” as I got out the bourbon.

“What? That’d be awesome,” Andy said, before turning his attention back to the screen. “I don’t know,” he said, doubtfully. “The house needs some work.”

“Yeah, it does, but that’s why I’m gonna buy it. Well, that and that cool ironwork,” I explained, handing him his cocktail.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know how much Emmy has told you, but I do real estate investment and management. I’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars by buying up places like that,” I said, indicating the computer. “The old rule of ‘buy the worst house in the best neighborhood’ is absolutely true. I buy a place like that, spend the money to fix it up and either sell, or rent it out for a while while the market appreciates, then sell. Or I just hold on to it if the metrics are right. So that house right there is at least two hundred grand below market value if it were fixed up. Since I have my own set of contractors, fixing that place will cost me about a hundred grand, and that’s with a new kitchen and baths, and fresh landscaping. So I could buy that house, get it dialed in, and sell it immediately and pocket a hundred thousand bucks. But I wouldn’t. I’d rent it out, since that neighborhood is getting hotter by the minute. If I hold onto it for, say, three years? I might make a million dollars when I do sell.”

“So why’d you want me to see this?” Andy asked, sipping his drink.

“I want you to buy it from me at that cost, plus what I’ve spent remodeling, as soon as it’s ready. You can afford a nine hundred and fifty grand house, which, again, will be worth nearly two, two and a half million dollars by the time you renegotiate your contract. It’ll be like you signed for seven million bucks, not six.”

“But that’ll be a million bucks you don’t make,” Andy said. “Why would you do that?”

“Well, we’re old friends, for one,” I said. “And you guys will be close enough to visit on the regular, and like Jenna said, it’s good to have friends in the area. The second thing is, even if I don’t make any money by hanging onto the property for a while, upgrading a rough-looking house in a neighborhood like that has a positive effect on values up and down the street, and it’s an area I’ve been investing heavily in.”

“Plus, it keeps your crews working,” he said.

“Eh, they’re working their asses off anyway,” I said with a shrug. “So go take a look at the house. It’s empty now- I’ll text you the address and lockbox code. Take Jenna, of course, and think about how you’d like the place done up. I’m scheduled to finalize the deal on Tuesday, I think, so normally I’d get our guy out there before the end of next week to work up the renovation plans. If you guys like the neighborhood and think the house has potential, let me know ASAP and I can have you meet my guy there to specify what you want.”

“Leah, this is so awesome,” Andy said. “But what if Jenna doesn’t like it?”

"Come down to my office in Santa Monica sometime and we can look through some other properties. I buy places like this all the time. Or you guys can find one on your own, and have my guys do any work you need. Whatever. I’m just saying, there are still deals to be had, and you should play your hand smart.”

“I know,” Andy said, looking into his glass. “So many of my teammates rush out and buy these really big places with their first contract, and buy really flashy cars, too.”

“And you haven’t?”

“Well, I did get myself a Mustang GT- you know, the Shelby model? But that’s only sixty grand, and Jenna insisted I treat myself at least that much.”

“That’s a sweet car, and she’s right. You do need to reward yourself a bit. But remember, you’re making your money playing football, and that’s precarious. You could get injured any given time. So bank on that four million, since it’s guaranteed, but for now, assume that’s all the money you’ll ever make playing in the NFL, and plan accordingly.”

“Holy shit, Leah,” Andy said, looking at me with amazement. “That’s almost exactly, word for word, what my agent told me after I’d signed the contract.”

“Well, I’m sure he’s seen more players blow their money on stupid shit than you or I can even begin to imagine,” I said. “So go, buy yourself a nice house, but not too nice. If you renegotiate for five, ten million a year, whatever, then buy a bigger place. But not yet.”

Just then, Jenna and Emmy came inside, carrying the leftovers to put in the fridge.

“What are you looking at?” Jenna asked Andy, sitting on the side of his lap.

“Leah wants us to take a look at a house in Sherman Oaks,” Andy said.

“Sherman Oaks? Isn’t that by Burbank?”

“No, it’s west of there,” I said. “Sure, it’s in the Valley, but plenty of celebrities live in Sherman Oaks. I think Leo DiCaprio does, and I know George Clooney used to, and Jenifer Aniston,” I said.

“LA,” Jenna said, shaking her head. “It’s crazy.”