Page 108 of Colliding with Ten

“Stop—” She was laughing so hard she could barely talk.

I kissed the tip of her nose.

“You’re crazy,” she said, but her hands were on my face, and she wasn’t pushing me away anymore. Her eyes shone, smiling, pensive. “You looked it up, didn’t you. The disease.”

I stayed silent.

“Lennox.” Her voice was soft.

“Yeah. I did.”

“You shouldn’t have done that. It’s scary reading that stuff.”

We locked eyes before she leaned forward and kissed me, as if thanking me for caring. Was I supposed to not care? She’d shared that a disease might be hurting her, and when I imagined it taking years from her, it felt like it was taking from me too. But I couldn’t say all that. We were just getting to know each other, and that somehow sounded permanent.

She leaned her head back on my shoulder, curls fanning across the pillow. I’d slept in this bed for three years, but her hair made it look different.

I pulled a curl, watching it spring back.

She swatted my hand away. “Don’t start sniffing my hair like a weirdo again.”

“Please don’t deprive me of your hair. I’ll bury my head under it. You won’t even know I’m here.”

She frowned. “It has its own zip code. I know.”

I pulled another curl. “I think it’s beautiful.”

She smiled as her fingers made a pattern on my chest. Her eyes drifted across the room and landed on the shelf by the closet. The shelf held a couple of college trophies, a game ball from my first NFL touchdown, a framed photo of my parents, and a football helmet.

Her eyes stopped roaming. “Is that a SpongeBob figurine between a Heisman trophy and an expensive art piece?”

“It might be.”

She sat up to get a better look. “It is. It absolutely is. Lennox ‘Lights Out’ Monroe. QB1 for the Los Angeles Stallions. You have a SpongeBob toy on your bedroom shelf.”

“It’s not a toy. It’s a collectible.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Limited edition. 2004.”

She giggled. “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever learned about you.”

“My brother gave it to me when I was eight. Before my first peewee game. He told me SpongeBob never quit, so I couldn’t either.”

Wrinkling her nose, she gave me a sheepish smile as the teasing fell away. “You have brothers?”

“Yeah. Two of them. Twins, but they’re fifteen years older. They have their own families now living in Chicago.”

She leaned back against my chest, her hand holding mine. We talked a bit about her fellowship and how Hill was now letting her do more than observe. She told me about a patient she’d watched a trainer work with, though she was careful not to reveal details about who it was. The player had hip flexor issues, but kept lying about his pain level, and she knew he was lying because of the way he adjusted his stance when he thought no one was looking.

“You would’ve been a good quarterback,” I told her.

“Because I can read people?”

“Yeah, you saw what he was trying to hide.”

“Not always.”