Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 152064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
But last night she was in full-on defiance mode. Hurt. Upset. Devastated and looking for an escape from the shit in her head. And I was the person she came to. Bringing her back to my place, being the one to take care of her, seeing her in my robe, sleeping in my spare bed…is giving me ideas I shouldn’t entertain. Can’t entertain.
Coach Vander Zee blows the whistle, ending that conversation and dissipating my fantasies.
But my mind is still whirling. I didn’t pay much attention to anyone but Tally at the Watering Hole. That doesn’t mean other people weren’t noticing us, though. Dred sure did. And so did Tristan. I should have let Quinn drive her home, but I couldn’t.
I decline the offer to go to the Watering Hole after practice. Instead, I make a stop at the retirement home since it’s cribbage hour and I’m always down for cards with octogenarians.
“Stop letting me win, Phillip,” Gurdy says after she beats me for the second time in a row.
“I’m not. You have decades of experience on me,” I argue as I move the pegs back to the beginning and set us up for round three.
“You’re missing points left and right. What’s going on?” She covers the cards with her wrinkled, age-spotted hand and tips her head. “Is it woman problems?” She squints. “Or maybe man problems?”
I sigh and flop back in my chair. “It’s woman problems.”
“Hallelujah. You finally got a girlfriend, didn’t you?” She slaps the table and opens her mouth to announce it to the entire room.
“No girlfriend.”
Her lips pucker. “Then what kind of woman problems? Did you get someone pregnant?”
“God, no. My coach’s daughter has a thing for me,” I confide.
“Ah.” She nods knowingly. “And you don’t feel the same?”
I sip my Earl Grey tea. “That’s the thing, I don’t know.”
She arches a gray, almost nonexistent eyebrow. “You don’t know, or you don’t want to admit that you have feelings because it would complicate things?”
“My coach would kill me if I dated his daughter.”
“You’re too important to the team to kill,” she reasons.
“She’s too young for me,” I rebut.
“How young is she?”
“Twenty-one.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s hardly too young. She’s an adult; you’re an adult. You’re making excuses. What’s the real problem?”
“She deserves better, and I have too much baggage.”
Gurdy reaches across the table and places her soft, age-weathered hand on top of mine. “Dear boy, we all come with baggage. What if she’s your right person? Don’t let her slip through your fingers because you’re too afraid to try.”
For the time being, I just give her a look and let her win again, but I roll our conversation over in my head on the way home. Gurdy doesn’t know my history with women and relationships. She doesn’t realize pursuing Tally would be wickedly selfish. She would have to face all the media bullshit that comes along with me, and eventually I would have to come clean about what really sent me down that dark path. Tally deserves someone who can give her his whole heart, not just a pile of fragments.
When I arrive home, I toss my keys on the counter next to the mail. My first stop is the laundry room. I pull my freshly washed and dried sheets and bathrobe out of the dryer. Immediately after I dropped Tally at her apartment, I came home, stripped the bed, and put everything she’d touched in the wash.
I stupidly thought cleansing my personal space of her presence and her smell would erase the memory of her being here. But the image of her curled up in my spare bed, long wavy blonde hair fanned out across the pillow remains vivid. It’s been an eternity since I’ve felt this kind of…longing for something. Someone. She looked so peaceful, like she belonged…
I shut it all down. Compartmentalize it. There’s no other choice. Vander Zee would destroy me. Even if he didn’t and we did try, I can’t risk messing up the friend group because I’m suddenly lonely. Tally needs these people and their support more than I need someone to cuddle with.
I make the spare bed on autopilot, hang my robe in the bathroom, grab a healthy snack made by Rix from the fridge, and park my ass on the couch.
The book I’ve been reading sits on the coffee table, taunting me. The irony is real, since it’s Tally’s. She suggested it in the group chat and passed it to Rix, who passed it to me a couple of weeks ago. I flip the book open. But my mind keeps drifting.
Tally’s become an integral part of our friend group. I look forward to the nights where she joins us at the Watering Hole. I try to make her dance showcases when we’re in town and don’t have a game, because she’s incredible on stage.