I walk into the kitchen, feeling like someone punched me in the gut when Blair looks at me over her shoulder and smiles.
She has a soft, morning-after glow, her face fresh and clean without makeup and her hair up in a messy bun.Her baggy sweats are the same ones she had on last night, but her shirt is a black tank top that shows her white bra straps.
I’ve regressed into a teenage boy, getting excited over fucking bra straps.I can’t make myself look away from her.It feels intimate seeing her this way.Like we spent the night together.Which we sort of did, I guess, but not in the way I wanted.
Don’t even think about it.You can’t go there with a single mom when you might not even be here in a few months.
“What time is it?”I ask, forcing myself to look at a plant on the kitchen counter.
“Seven twenty.There’s coffee if you want some.Breakfast will be ready in like twenty minutes, so you guys can play until then and you can go after you eat.Will that give you enough time to get to practice?”
“Yeah, that’s perfect.Thank you.”
She pops a small piece of bacon into her mouth, her lips quirking with a smile.“Wait ’til you taste it to thank me.Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah, I slept great.”
It’s not really true.Dong batted me in the face in the middle of the night more than once and I’m not used to sleeping on my side or with my knees bent.But it was well worth it to see her like this, comfortable in her fuzzy slippers, drinking her coffee from a mug that says, “Tears of the people I beat at board games”.
“You like board games?”I ask as I walk over to the pink coffee maker.
“I love board games.”
I pick up the empty mug she left by the coffee maker, which says, “Damn, it’s seven a.m.”
“Does this one mean you don’t like early mornings?”I ask.
Her smile widens.“That one means I like Taylor Swift.I don’t mind early mornings, as long as I get enough sleep.”
“Magnus.”Coop is getting impatient waiting for me.
“Let me get in two sips of coffee,” I say, making sure the first sip is long.
“What board games do you like?”I ask Blair.
“Codenames, Catan, Root ...I’d play any board game, really.”
“She’s good at Monopoly,” Coop says.
“You’re getting better and better at it,” she says.
“And let me guess—you’re competitive, aren’t you?”I ask.
She grins.“I might be.”
“Do you want to play Monopoly?”Coop asks hopefully.
“I wish I could, but, but I have to go to practice soon.”
“That was two sips!Come on, let’s play cars.”
That’s fair.I said two sips.Though I want to stay and talk to Blair, I follow Coop to his room, where we resume playing cars.It’s not really so much playing as him telling me all about his cars and racetracks.
“Santa gave me this one in my stocking,” he says.“I’m asking him for a real Feeyari when I get my license.A red one with my name on it.”
“Can he fit a full-size car on his sleigh?”
“His sleigh is magical.I saw it on TV.”
