Page 102 of Power Play

“What is that?”

“Open it.”

I did.

Several pages were already filled with Spanish phrases beside translations and pronunciation notes, along with small explanations beneath words Ryan apparently thought I would misunderstand.

Buenos días — Good morning.

Buenas noches — Good night.

Mírame — Look at me.

Ven aquí — Come here.

Respira — Breathe.

Mi hada — My fairy.

My fingers slowed over the last one.

Beside hada, Ryan had explained that it meant fairy, while mi hada made it personal. Beneath that, he had written that endearments didn’t always translate cleanly because sometimes the feeling attached to a word mattered more than the dictionary definition.

I looked up. “You wrote all this?”

“Last night.”

“You spent your night making me a Spanish notebook?”

Ryan leaned back like the question confused him. “You asked me to teach you.”

“That didn’t obligate you to build a curriculum.”

“I like being prepared.”

“You mock Cade for spreadsheets.”

“Cade makes spreadsheets for recreational purposes. I have standards.”

I turned another page. He had included numbers, greetings, questions, basic verbs, and a warning that insulting someone’s mother in Spanish could escalate a conversation considerably faster than insulting almost anything else.

I laughed. “How often do you anticipate me needing that?”

“With you, I’m covering possibilities.”

“That sounds insulting.”

“It’s admiration with reasonable caution.”

I smiled and kept reading.

The notebook wasn’t full. Maybe twenty pages contained his handwriting, leaving the rest waiting behind them, and the sight of those empty pages pulled my attention toward a thought I had been avoiding for days.

Ryan was leaving for Flint.

Training, his apartment there, his team, and the road games waiting once the season began belonged to a life that had existed before whatever this was between us. That life would keep moving whether I was ready for it or not.

I looked at the blank pages and wondered how many we would finish before he left.