"Steven Popkes - [SS] Bread and Circus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Popkes Steven)

John: You said that right. As big as he is, I never would have thought
Sebastian could knock Tom off his feet.

Al: Look out. Tom’s back up. He’s going for him.

****

“Oh, you’re not even listening to me. That’s the trouble. With you, the
job is everything. Where is the time for us? That was the only good thing I
thought might come of this move. We’d have to have time for each other.
Maybe we should spend some time apart.”

Carly shot the ball back in the field. Jesus, he’s good. I need to give
him a raise.

“What?” He looked at the mouthpiece of the headset as if she were
there. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s likely for the best. You can concentrate on your ... game. And we
can decide if we should, well, you know, stay together.”

“Honey—” The ball was in the air, it shot to the left like a live thing,
then like a bird, it slipped past Sebastian. “Yes! Oh, yes.” And suddenly he
was yelling. They were back in the game.

“Mike, you don’t have to take my ear off.”
 “Sorry.” He felt his grin from ear to ear fade. Then, he saw Sebastian
start to chase Vlad. “Uh oh.”

“Sometimes I don’t think we were ever suited.” There was a click.

“Bye,” Mike said absently as he started running.

Tom went down hard and for a moment, the air seemed stilled. Then,
Tom roared back to his feet.

“Stop,” yelled Mike.

Tom was unintelligible.

Mike grabbed his tail. “Not this game. Not this time.”

Tom swatted at him but Mike wouldn’t let go.

Tom noticed him for the first time. He reached around and bit off
Mike’s arm.

The world seemed to flash suddenly white. Everything slowed down.
Tom straightened up and stared at Mike. Then spit out the arm, glanced
over at Sebastian and turned away, lumbering back into the Braves’ zone.