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“Batshit? Really?”
Harley’s Bambi-eyes stared at me. “I love you, Sinclair. I love you enough to let you do things to me that I’d never let anyone else ever do.” I wisely kept my mouth shut. “You know, like pick out my only tattoo while drunk as fuck.”
“Now, Harl-”
“However, watching football with you is one of my life’s hard limits,” he went on, cutting me off. “If you want to go sky diving without a parachute, I’m your guy. If you want to pick a fight with a bunch of angry bikers, I’ll be right there by your side. If you want to chase a feral tiger, I’ll run with you.” Harley leaned back against his couch. “But watch a football game with you? I’d rather set myself on fire.”
“Rude.”
“But not a lie,” he quickly countered.
“I’m not that bad,” I grumbled as I slurped the rest of my wine through the straw.
Yeah, don’t ask.
“You’re worse than bad,” he argued, eyeing me from across the couch. “I mean, how many bars and restaurants have you been kicked out of because you feel so ‘passionately’ for the sport?” The jerk made air quotes around the word passionately.
“Why is it so wrong that I love football?” I harrumphed.
“I don’t have a problem with you loving football, Sin,” he lied. “I have a problem withwhyyou love it so much. It’s not healthy.”
I eyed my best friend, but it was hard to argue with the truth. As best friends, Harley knew damn near everything about me, including what’d had happened in college. He was very aware that I fixated on football because I forced myself to hate basketball. While I loved my job, I was part of the NBA world out of sheer spite, and Harley knew it.
Back in college, I’d been dating the love of my life, Cap Aldrich. We’d met our sophomore year, and I’d fallen hard for the guy. We’d gotten accidentally tangled up during a color run for one of the fraternities, and when Cap had fallen on me, then me on one of the prop pulleys, and then the entire setup came tumbling down on us, it had taken over an hour for them to unravel us safely, and I had fallen in love with Cap during that time.
After a couple of months of just talking as friends, he had finally asked me out, and I had eagerly accepted. Within a few days, we had become exclusive, and my stupid ass had been picking names out for our children while…well, while he’d hadn’t.
Cap had also played basketball, and I’d had nothing against it at the time. I could remember encouraging him and being proud of him whenever he played. Not knowing much about basketball, I had found myself kind of just sitting on the sidelines, learning little things about the sport, but also just letting him be a star ball player. It’d been fine for a while, but then he had started getting noticed by NBA scouts during our junior year of school. Apparently, he’d been better than I’d given him credit for, having not known much about the sport. My family had grown up football fans, so everything that I knew about basketball, I had learned while dating Cap in college.
At the beginning of our senior year of school, I’d gone home early from class, the flu hitting me suddenly and unexpectedly. Like every female’s worst nightmare, I had walked into our apartment, had headed straight to our bedroom to lie down, but when I had opened the door, it’d been to one of the cheerleaders riding Cap in our bed. You could read a thousand books, watch a million movies, and talk to a hoard of people, but nothing could ever prepare you for catching your partner cheating in such a raw, hurtful, unexpected way. While the cheating had been devastating, the lack of sheer respect had felt more debilitating. Cap hadn’t even had the decency not to cheat on me in the bed that we had shared. There’d been a million places on campus that he could have had his flings, but he’d chosen to invite them into our private space, something that had been more unforgiveable than the cheating.
Afterwards, I had learned the hard way that Cap had been cheating with random girls for a while. That phrase, ‘being the last to know’?? That’d been me back then. Almost everyone on campus had known about Cap’s extracurricular activities, and it’d been hard to show my face during the weeks that had followed. I’d gotten a cocktail of sympathy, reservedness, and cattiness, and it’d been a tough time to get through. Nursing a broken heart wasn’t for the weak.
Incredibly enough, Cap had ended up surprising everyone with spending our entire senior year of college trying to win me back. He had begged, done the grand gestures, and hadn’t let up until I had walked the podium to get my degree. Even after blocking him on my phone and social media, he hadn’t let up. Everyone had been so sure that he’d give up eventually, but he’d hadn’t. He hadn’t until he’d been drafted by the NBA, and I had gone on with my life.
So, in some twisted way, Cap Aldrich was partly responsible for the life that I had now. Having wanted nothing to do with basketball after that mess, when I had applied for jobs, I had applied at Coltrane Therapy out of stubbornness and spite. Knowing that they were partnered with the NBA, I’d done it in a fit of female regret and outrage.
Then I’d gotten hired.
Granted, unless Cap got traded to the Devils, I was safe from ever having to see him again, so I wasn’t actuallythatbrave. It’d just felt good to feel like I’d been sticking it to him.
“I’ve always liked football,” I repeated, forcing the last of my wine through the straw.
“Keep telling yourself that, baby girl,” Harley snorted.
“It’s the playoffs,” I went on, ignoring him.
“Yeah, for teams that you don’t even like,” he pointed out. “Weren’t you the one that wanted to put a hex on the Bratton Spartans for knocking the Hawks out of the playoffs?”
I chewed on my lower lip. “But did I?”
“Do you really want to see the Spartans kill the Vipers?” he asked.
“I want to see the best team win,” I lied.
Harley eyed me over his beer. “You’re in denial.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll go without you.”
