Even though we’re going to be speaking on the phone, not Face Timing, I don’t feel right doing it sitting in Brandon’s bathrobe with nothing else underneath. I run up to Brandon’s room and throw on my clothes from yesterday. I feel gross, but this is the price you pay for booty calling without proper preparation.
I stop, midway through putting my shirt on. Booty call? Is that what this is? It certainly doesn’t feel like a booty call. It doesn’t feel like a one-night stand or a casual hookup.
I don’t know what it feels like, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before. It’smore. It’s pillow talk and breakfasts and watching seasons change. It’s cooking in the same kitchen and picking each other up from the airport. It’s calling from the car when it’s been a bad day. It’s falling into his arms every night.
It feels like it’s worth sacrificing my career for.
I know that’s a stupid, rash thing to think. It’s a very Brandon-type of statement. But for once in my life, I’m not worrying about what would be easiest and most convenient for everyone else around me. As much as I want to keep refereeing, it is a finite career, based on my physical ability to keep up. I won’t have that forever. For the first time, I’m looking beyond that to what I want to come home to every night.
Who I want to come home to every night.
The answer is undeniably clear.
As sure as I was that Brandon deserved a foul for kicking Trevyon Wallis-Smalls, I’m sure that we deservemorewith each other.
I dial the number sent to me and discuss everything with James that’s been said to me up to this point. He asks for emails and screenshots of what I have.
I wish I had a screen recording of that Zoom call where I asked about the salary charts.
I’ve already put everything on the line. If I’m going down, I’ll make it in a blaze of glory.
“James ... there’s this one other thing.”
Chapter 39: Brandon
Disappointed.
There’s no other way to put it. I’m disappointed that Andi’s fully dressed and practically out the door. I understand it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. She has to go. She’s got to get her shit organized before she flies to Atlanta.
I don’t want her to leave.
Ever.
“Want me to go with you?” I ask, only half kidding. I don’t want her to walk away. I want to spend hours—days—exploring her body and what this thing is between us.
I have never felt a pull like this before. It’s like my whole world is off its axis, and she’s the only thing propping me up.
