AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Instead, I say into her neck, “Igot you all messy.”
She smiles and grabs my head,making me face her. “I don’t care. I loved it. I loved feelingyou.”
I simply say, “Yeah. Me, too,”when what I mean is I love you so much I want to hurt you fornot loving me back. It terrifies me how much I need you.
This is fucking agonizing.
“We’re good together, aren’t we?”she says, a question I can’t decipher in her eyes.
“Yeah, we are,” I answer onautopilot.
Why don’t you tell her? Look ather. She all but said she loves you, too.
I can’t. I can’t. Not now. Notyet.
Instead, I lean down and kiss herdeeply, the only way I am able to confess how much she means to meand how much she can hurt me. We melt into each other and for alittle while we are in a bubble, and it almost makes sense that wefeel the same.
****
We shower and feed the cats, andhave a light breakfast. Roxie insists that we go run outsideinstead of at the gym, and repeats her promise to buy me lunchafterward.
“Rule number one of living inWisconsin is you have to take advantage of all good weather beforethe winter comes,” she says, as we stretch before the run in one ofthe neighborhood parks.
“I thought rule number one wasthat you must eat cheese curds. Or drink beer.”
“Why, yes, those are also veryimportant rules. It’s hard to rank them, really.”
I laugh and focus on stretching myhamstring.
Roxie glances toward thebasketball court. There are three teenage boys with a basketball,apparently trying to work out how they can all play.
“You wanna go play with them?” Iask.
“I really do,” she says with asheepish grin. “It’s so weird, I hadn’t thought about playing inover ten years, and all of a sudden I see them, and there’s thispull, like when I was in high school.”
“Okay. Just make sure you warm upproperly first. I’ll run a few laps around the park.”
She squeezes my arm. “You won’tmind running without me?”
I smile. “Not at all. You have funwith the boys.”
She leans into me, and I enjoy thenow-familiar smell of her hair and skin as she kisses me lightly onthe lips. “I can’t remember the last time I was so happy.You make me happy. Thank you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Roxie
Before I know it, I am in thezone, and I don’t mean the defensive strategy. The muscle memory isstill there, and everything vanishes but the rhythm of my breath,the tap of the ball on the court, and the crunching sound ofsneakers on the pavement. I try to keep it simple when I dribblebecause I’m not sure if my knee will tolerate juking, and it’smostly fine because these are kids, albeit very good and eagerkids. I haven’t taken a proper shot in years so my aim is terrible,but I can still do a layup, and do it well, even though myAchilles’ tendons complain because I haven’t used them to get offthe ground in a very long time. I do worry about my knee, and Iwish I could’ve somehow predicted this game so I could bandage it,but I get warmed up and loose, and before I know it, I feel like myold self, watching the movements of the boys on the opposite team,tracking their interactions, doing those subconscious calculationsthat I was always so good at back when I used to play. Within a fewturns, my teammate Darryl and I have a series of chin nods and handgestures with which to signal to each other what we will do. It’sclose, as the other two boys are pretty good, but I feel strong andfast and it feels so, so good to feel the ball in my handagain—to dribble, to pivot, to jump—it almost brings tears to myeyes.
Chris is back from his run, andsits on a bench next to the basketball court. I want him to beproud of me. When I was in high school, occasionally the guys Idated would come to my games, but I never particularly cared aboutthem, so I didn’t care about what they thought. I knew I was good,and I was completely focused on the plays, on my teammates andwinning. I was far more concerned with whether my mom, dad, andbrother would think I played well, and what bullshit I would haveto hear from Dad if my performance wasn’t up to snuff, than I waswith what any boyfriend thought.
I see Chris relax into a manspreadposition, with knees far apart and elbows on the backrest. There’sa small smile on his lips as he watches us.
“Roxie, dude! Head in the game!”yells my teammate Darryl, because I’m clearly distracted by the hotmanspreader.
“Sorry, sorry,” I raise my palmsin surrender. “Let’s play.”
I make several assists to Darryl,block a few shots by the opposite team, and steal a couple of ballsto a torrent of swear words, followed by blushing cheeks and a handover the mouth when the kid realized he swore. I smile because I’mreminded of how young they are, and how heartbreakingly vulnerablekids are at that age. I remember I’d always wanted to coach kidsafter I retired from WNBA, but somehow that dream and everythingI’d ever hoped for regarding basketball was buried when my Division1 career ended.
