Page 61 of Colliding with Ten

I am. Thanks for checking in.

I stared at the screen long after the conversation ended.

Shay called later and said she was in town. She wanted to come by, but I wasn’t in the mood. I was distracted, but this wasn’t just about me. She’d shown up for me plenty of times, so I said yes.

Shay didn’t waste time when she arrived. The front door barely closed before she was kissing me, hands tugging at my shirt with greedy fingers. In the dim entryway light, I could barely focus on what was happening. Normally, it would’ve worked, but not tonight.

She pushed closer, trying to escalate the moment. My shirt came off as she bumped me against the entryway table. She loosened my belt, but still, nothing clicked.

“You’re not here. What’s going on?”

“Long day.” I shrugged it off. “That’s all.”

She looked skeptical, but kissed down my chest anyway, coaxing, trying to pull me in. It failed. She reared back, studying me. “This wouldn’t happen to be about the cheerleader, would it?”

The word snapped me to attention. I hadn’t been thinking about Ayla, but it surprised me that she had. “What?”

She shrugged, defensive. “It’s everywhere. You and her at the airport. My friends asked me about it.”

“That’s not—” I cut myself off. “That’s nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” she snapped. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“The press says things I can’t control. You know this.”

“And I didn’t ask to be a placeholder.”

I drew back from her cold tone, but gave her the attention she’d been trying to get for the last few minutes. “Hold on. Wait a second. Where’s this coming from? I thought we were having fun.”

“We were.” She stepped away, putting real distance between us. “We are, I guess. I don’t know anymore.” She threw her hands up and sighed. “I know what we agreed to. I’m not saying you did anything wrong. You’re never around, and I’ve made my peace with that because that was the deal. Then I open my phone, and there’s a video of you at an airport with another woman.”

“There’s nothing going on with her,” I said, because it was true. “She’s AJ Callahan’s sister. I’ve talked to her a handful of times since I hit her. We bumped into each other in Denver. That’s all it was.”

“That’s not really the point, though, is it?”

I shook my head, confused. I didn’t understand what was happening. “I’ve kept to what we said in the summer. What’s changed?”

“I meant it when I agreed to it.” She looked at me. She wasn’t angry, just tired and sad. “I just don’t think I mean it anymore, and that’s not your fault. I can’t keep doing casual when half of me has started wanting the other thing.”

I should’ve seen this coming before she said it. If I had, I wouldn’t feel so blindsided. That was my failure. She deserved better.

I stepped closer and grasped her shoulder. “You deserve the other thing. But I’m not sure if I can be that right now. And you deserve someone who is sure.”

“I’m not asking you to become someone else. It started fun, but it hasn’t been fun for a while, Lennox. And maybe there was a time that I would have considered us, but not with you being this distant.”

The distance between us happened because I hadn’t been paying attention. I’d been running fourth-quarter situational packages in my head during dinners and checking game film when we met up.

“So that’s it?” I asked.

“Yeah. I think so.” She reached into her bag and set a key on the entry table. It was the spare I’d given her back in August. She picked her jacket off the floor, then turned to me. “Take care of yourself and tell your offensive line to protect you better. I don’t want to read about another injury.”

I walked her to the door.

Shay paused, looking as if she was deciding whether to say something or hold back. “And figure out the cheerleader thing.”

“There’s nothing to figure out.”

Shay grabbed my arm. She did this when she really wanted me to hear her. “Lennox, I’ve known you for a year and a half. I’ve never seen you light up around someone you’ve supposedly talked to a handful of times.” She frowned, not liking that she was the one telling me this.