With all of that settled, Wyatt and Blaire caught a flight back to Clemson, where a new three-bedroom apartment was waiting for them. The kitchen featured a window overlooking an interior courtyard, and the complex was located just twelve minutes from campus by car. That proximity had been Ed's primary condition when he helped search for the place as soon as he learned of Wyatt and Blaire's plans—approaching the task with the same relentless efficiency he brought to anything requiring a practical, immediate resolution.
Elena had insisted that the apartment receive plenty of natural light and that the master bathroom be sufficiently spacious. Both requirements were met, and the monthly rent was remarkably reasonable for what it offered. Ed paid the first three months upfront without anyone having to ask—simply because it was the logical thing to do, and Ed was nothing if not consistent when action was required.
The underlying rationale behind the move was straightforward on the surface, though considerably more layered beneath it: Wyatt needed to be near campus to utilize Clemson's training facilities as he prepared for the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis this coming February. That tier of physical and technical preparation couldn't be executed effectively from Katy without direct access to the coaching staff and state-of-the-art equipment available at Clemson. Doing that work remotely made little sense when a viable local alternative existed. Meanwhile, Blaire had decided to temporarily pause her studies at Emerson until their situation stabilized—a phrase both had repeated with growing comfort over recent weeks, even if its precise meaning shifted depending on the topic at hand.
They had been in the apartment for three days, and cardboard boxes still lined the hallway. Blaire's precise handwriting marked the contents of each box on the side—a level of organization Wyatt had initially found somewhat excessive until he opened the first box without reading the label and spent ten minutes searching for something stored in the second box to his right. From that moment on, he refrained from offering opinions on Blaire's labeling system or the stacks of books leaning against the living room wall waiting for a bookshelf. In the kitchen, basic utensils—purchased by Elena on moving day at a shop along the way—were neatly laid out; Wyatt's mother was not the type to leave a kitchen unequipped. She had also left a sticky note on the refrigerator listing everything they still needed to buy.
Wyatt was in the second bedroom, which they had provisionally designated as a workspace. A box of books sat on the floor alongside clothes that hadn't found a closet yet, and a single dumbbell rested mysteriously in the center of the room, left there by someone for no apparent reason.
Then the doorbell rang.
"Who is it?" Blaire called out from the living room, where she was attempting to find a logical spot for the coffee maker that didn't involve placing it on top of three Thomas Hardy novels resting on the kitchen counter.
"Not sure," Wyatt said, stepping out of the spare room and crossing the hallway toward the front door.
Opening it, Wyatt found himself face-to-face with a man he had never seen before.
The man standing on the threshold appeared to be in his early fifties. He wore a tailored suit that cost considerably more than everything Wyatt had worn combined throughout his entire college career. His smile was simultaneously warm and calculated—the kind of smile cultivated over decades until it stopped looking practiced, though without fully hiding the precision behind it.
He evaluated Wyatt in a single, sharp second—the rapid assessment of a man accustomed to sizing people up instantly—and extended his hand.
"Wyatt Sterling," the man said, carrying the absolute confidence of someone who already knew the answer to the question he wasn't going to bother asking. "Drew Rosenhaus."
He handed Wyatt a business card at the same time he extended his hand. Wyatt took both before his mind could fully process either gesture. The card read Rosenhaus Sports Representation, complete with a Miami Beach address, a phone number, an email, and below it all, in smaller but unmistakable print: Agent.
"I've been in this business since eighty-nine," Rosenhaus said in a voice that had delivered the line often enough to sound entirely natural while retaining its punch as a pitch. "And if there's anyone in this country who should be representing you at this exact moment in your career, it's me. May I come in?"
Wyatt looked at him for a brief beat.
Then he stepped aside.
Rosenhaus entered the apartment with the effortless poise of a man who had walked into hundreds of apartments belonging to young athletes across dozens of cities over twenty-seven years in the business. He moved with an authority that didn't ask for permission, even if technically he had requested and received it two seconds prior.
His eyes scanned the living room—the unopened boxes, the books stacked against the wall, the coffee maker sitting on the kitchen table, and the pair of dumbbells in the corner that Wyatt had unpacked that morning without finding a proper place for them. Rosenhaus offered no comment on any of it. He had learned long ago that what one refrains from saying during the first thirty seconds of a meeting speaks just as clearly as what one chooses to articulate. In those initial thirty seconds, his sole focus was projecting that he was there for the player, not to inspect the state of the living room.
Blaire emerged from the kitchen holding an empty box. She looked at the man who had just walked into her apartment with direct, undisguised curiosity—the same scrutiny she applied to anything unexpected in her space. It took her roughly two seconds of silent evaluation to categorize the stranger before deciding how to engage.
"Drew Rosenhaus," he introduced himself before anyone could present him, extending his hand toward Blaire with the exact same fluid efficiency he had shown Wyatt seconds earlier. "Sports agent. And you must be Blaire Bennett."
Blaire looked at him for a moment before accepting the handshake.
"Blaire," she said simply.
"Pleasure," Rosenhaus replied, flashing the same practiced smile he had used twice since stepping through the door.
"Have a seat," Wyatt offered, pointing toward the couch—one of the few pieces of furniture in the apartment already properly positioned.
The three sat down: Rosenhaus in the armchair, Wyatt and Blaire side by side on the sofa. Rosenhaus placed his briefcase on the coffee table with the automatic precision of someone who had delivered this presentation thousands of times in various forms, yet managed to execute it as if it were the very first time. That presentation was part of why it worked.
"I'm going to be straight with you," Rosenhaus began, fixing his gaze on Wyatt with a concentration that stripped away everything irrelevant to the conversation at hand. "You've got the National Championship. You've got the Heisman Trophy in your pocket. And you've got the Combine coming up in February. You are either the first overall pick in this draft or the second. The only margin between those two outcomes is what happens in Indianapolis and how you handle the team interviews leading up to Draft Day."
"And what makes you the right person to handle that?" Wyatt asked calmly.
Rosenhaus looked at him, his expression softening into the closest thing to a genuine smile he had displayed since arriving.
"Because I've spent decades negotiating NFL contracts, and in that time I've negotiated over seven billion dollars in deals," Rosenhaus said evenly. "Because I know Les Snead, I know Howie Roseman, and I know every scouting director for every single team that will be in Indianapolis this February on a level that goes far deeper than knowing their names. I know how they think, what they value in a quarterback beyond raw metrics, and what kind of language they'll try to insert into contract guarantees. The rookie contract for a number one pick in the 2016 Draft has a structurally different value than that of the number two pick, and protecting that difference in guaranteed money is precisely what I do."
Wyatt glanced down at the business card still held in his hand.
"And what if I don't go one or two?" Wyatt asked.
"You won't drop to three," Rosenhaus said with the absolute certainty of a man who had run the calculations too many times to entertain doubt. "That's not optimism—that's evaluation. My evaluation is that Wyatt Sterling leaves the board at one or two, and my work really accelerates the moment the Commissioner steps up to the podium in Chicago this April and calls your name."
Blaire, who had been listening intently from the sofa with the sharp focus she reserved exclusively for things that genuinely interested her, reached a point in the conversation where she decided the remaining details were best discussed between the two men. She stood up with the same unstudied ease that accompanied all her actions.
"I'll leave you two to it," she said, catching Wyatt's eye for a brief second before picking up the empty box from the floor and disappearing down the hallway without waiting for a reply.
Rosenhaus watched her leave before turning back to Wyatt.
"You've got a sharp one there," he remarked softly.
"I know," Wyatt agreed.
"Good," Rosenhaus said, pulling a leather folder from his briefcase and setting it on the coffee table. "Now let's talk about what I can do for you."
What Rosenhaus could do for Wyatt encompassed managing all team communications leading up to the Draft, ensuring no interested franchise reached Draft Day without having the right conversations at the right time; coordinating private workouts with the teams most likely to select him, ensuring what Wyatt showcased aligned precisely with what each specific scheme required in a franchise quarterback; negotiating the rookie contract once the pick was made, utilizing deep familiarity with every clause and offset mechanism developed over hundreds of previous deals; managing endorsement opportunities that would inevitably arrive once his top-round status was locked in; and shaping the public profile a top pick quarterback needed to establish in the months surrounding the Draft.
"The strategy for you specifically," Rosenhaus explained, flipping to the second page of the folder, which detailed a February calendar with the Combine highlighted and a list of teams Wyatt needed to meet with before arriving in Indianapolis, "is to enter the Combine leveraging the film and stats you already have—which are elite. You don't need to over-exert yourself in every field drill. A quarterback who tries to prove more than he has already proven on tape in a controlled environment often projects insecurity rather than mastery."
"And the interviews," Rosenhaus continued, "are where you win or lose positioning on board rankings. NFL franchises aren't just drafting a stat line; they're hiring the leader of their organization. What I do before those interviews take place is ensure you know every question they're going to ask and precisely what kind of answer they want to hear."
"And after the Draft?" Wyatt asked.
"After the Draft, the real work begins," Rosenhaus replied. "Because the rookie contract is just the foundation. What you accomplish in your first three seasons determines the magnitude of the extension we negotiate down the line. And I intend to be sitting at the table for that negotiation, too."
Wyatt listened to him finish.
He looked at the business card resting on the table throughout the entire conversation.
Then he looked back up at Rosenhaus.
"Alright," Wyatt said.
Rosenhaus extended his hand across the table with the same crisp efficiency that had defined every move since he walked through the door.
Wyatt shook it.
"Welcome aboard," Rosenhaus said. "The Combine is four weeks away. We start tomorrow."
With that, Rosenhaus closed the leather folder, slid it back into his briefcase, stood up, and walked to the front door, opening it himself with total naturalness.
Wyatt watched him step out into the hallway.
When the door clicked shut, Blaire reappeared from the hallway holding the same empty box she had carried earlier. She looked at Wyatt from the doorway.
"So?" Blaire asked.
Wyatt looked down at the business card still resting on the table.
"I think I have an agent," Wyatt said.
Blaire gave a single, firm nod, her eyes fixed on the closed door.
"Figures," Blaire said.