Page 58 of On His Team

At some point, she gets up to refill her water, comes back, and instead of sitting across from me, drops into the chair beside mine.

I look at her. “What?”

“That’s not your chair.”

She glances at the one across the table. “This one has a better outlet.”

There is no outlet on either side.

I look down.

Her charger is plugged into the wall behind us. She opens her laptop again.

Our elbows are closer now. Not touching, but close enough that I have to move mine when she reaches for her drink.

Neither of us says anything about it.

She starts typing again.

I do too.

A while later, I catch myself reading the first sentence of the same paragraph for the third time because Gianna is tapping her pen while she thinks.

I look back at my screen.

Read the sentence.

Understand none of it.

Try again.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“You sighed.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

“Maybe I’m tired.”

She looks over at me. Her hair is still pulled up from the trip, but pieces have fallen out around her face. “You should be. You actually played.”

“You worked later than I did.”

“Yeah, but I had fun.”

“I noticed.”

Her expression changes. Not much. Just enough that her pen stops moving.

“You did?”

I nod. “You looked like you were having fun.”

“I was.” She looks down at her laptop, but she isn’t typing anymore. “The road stuff is better than home games.”