Walter Ashby had borrowed money from them when his wife became ill.
Medical bills.
Shop expenses.
Tournament travel for Nyla.
At first, the debt was manageable.
Then interest changed.
Payments rose.
Walter tried everything.
But the night before Nyla’s national final, Langford Holdings called the loan.
Walter signed over the shop.
Every lathe.
Every rack.
Almost every cue.
The building too.
He accepted the deal only because the Langfords agreed not to pursue Nyla personally for the remaining debt.
“And your father?”
“He signed everything away.”
“So it wouldn’t follow you?”
Nyla nodded.
Theo looked at the cue.
“Did you play the final?”
“No.”
She closed the case.
“Why?”
“Because the next morning my father was sitting in an empty workshop.”
Walter told her to go.
Ordered her to go.
Said he would never forgive her if she missed the match.
Nyla packed her cue.
Made it halfway to the station.
Then turned around.
She never played the national final.
She never entered another sanctioned tournament.
Walter never made another cue.
“He stopped making,” Nyla said.
“So I stopped playing.”
Theo leaned against the locker.
“You’ve been working here nine years.”
“I needed a job.”
“In your father’s old shop.”
“It paid.”
He stared.
“How did you do that?”
Nyla closed her locker.
“Same way people do anything they don’t want to do.”
“How?”
“One shift at a time.”
A voice came from the hallway.
“Theo.”
They turned.
Trevor Dalton, the floor manager, stood there.
Gray vest.
Tablet.
No smile.
“Mr. Langford wants you gone.”
Theo frowned.
“For handing a woman a towel?”
“For forgetting whose name is on the door.”
Theo looked toward Nyla.
Then removed his vest.
Placed it on a service cart.
“For the record, the name on the old door was Ashby.”
Trevor’s jaw tightened.
“Get out.”
Theo left.
Nyla watched him go.
Then Trevor looked at her.
“Two million people watched you kneel on that floor tonight.”
Nyla stared.
“Best content we ever made.”
She felt sick.
“Saturday is the Velvet Nine Invitational.”
Trevor smiled.
“The commissioner comes. Tour license review. Sponsors. Every camera in the city.”
He pointed toward the main room.
“And Trey gets crowned in his own house.”
Nyla closed her locker.
“It isn’t his house.”
Trevor laughed.
“Nine years here and you still haven’t learned.”
He leaned closer.
“Whoever signs the checks owns the room.”
Nyla looked toward the old wall behind him.
Her father had installed the paneling with his own hands.
“No.”
She picked up Walter’s cue case.
“Sometimes people only borrow it.”
That night Nyla drove forty minutes west.
She carried the old cue into a basement pool hall beneath a shuttered bowling alley.
