"Thanks, Link. Having someone to talk to has put me much more at ease."
Randolph, hood pulled up, chatted with Link as they walked.
"Me? I didn't do anything. Not only did I do nothing, I even mooched a blueberry pie off your family." Link blinked, unwilling to make the mood too serious.
"Blueberry pie... Mom's blueberry pie really is delicious... I really hope she recovers soon. Now that you mention it, I kind of miss the taste of it."
"For her to recover quickly, she has to stay in a good mood too, Zach."
"Of course I know that. Wasn't she pretty happy tonight?"
"Not just tonight. This is an age of highly developed internet. Turn on your phone right now, and you'll immediately find hundreds of reports saying you and I had a falling-out. Of course, we don't care about that stuff because we know the truth. But not everyone knows the truth, Zach. What do you think Mae will think when she sees those reports?"
Link's words left Randolph deep in thought for quite a while. Indeed, all he had wanted was to come back and take care of Mae.
But the negative news he had left behind was also a source of pressure for Mae.
Randolph could not help but smile. In a few months, he would be thirty-five. He had never expected that his mother would still need to worry about him.
From childhood to adulthood, it seemed he had never once put his mother's mind at ease.
That had been true when he was young, and it had remained true after he entered the league.
In 2002, he was arrested for drunk driving, then suspected of giving false testimony for a friend.
In 2003, he was arrested for possessing marijuana.
In 2004, he became