When you’ve built your entire career on your ability to pick up on the slightest change in the environment around you, something slightly annoying happened.
You couldn’t shut it off.
Even when I wasn’t on the field with the clock running, I noticed the people around me. How they were standing. Whether they were carrying their weight differently after a particularly brutal game. After Jack injured his knee his rookie season, I found myself watching the way he walked for two solid months. It drove me crazy, but long ago, I’d accepted it as a part of me. Part of what made me good at my job.
It was also why I didn’t think myself insane for studying Allie the way I did for the next three weeks.
In my head, I told myself it was because I barely saw her. The house next to mine was empty and quiet, no lights in windows or terrible music coming from her little bright blue speaker that always accompanied her outside. The first week after my fight with Marks, I saw her twice, brief glimpses down hallways and through open doorways.
We won on the road that first week, cementing our division lead by two games. She didn’t join the team for the first time all season.
The second week, I noticed that her hair was shorter. The cheekbones on her face were a bit more pronounced as though maybe she hadn’t been eating enough. If she saw me, if she noticed me, she gave me absolutely no indication of it.
Not in the hitch of her breath, a pause in whatever conversation she was having, no flick of her eyes in my direction.
The third week, we won at home by one point. The cameras panned to her suite, and I saw her high-fiving fans in the row in front of hers. It was only time I saw her on game day. She’d taken a hiatus from doing her pre-game walk on the field, and none of us could blame her. I’d have stopped too.
They moved the cameras away before I could see her face fully, gauge if she looked well. If she looked happy.
Not once in three weeks did I see her eyes unless her face was in profile.
It did weird things to my head when I found myself wondering things like were they still the same color or had I imagined it?
I saw the slight upturn in her straight, perfect nose. I saw the stubborn angle of her delicate jaw. The curve of her smile, to varying degrees, depending on who she was speaking to. Those were things I saw. But not her eyes. And I hated that I couldn’t use them to know what she was thinking. How she was feeling.
“Are you sure you don’t know where she’s living, Daddy?” Faith asked me on week three. Standing at the hedge, which was taller than her, she looked so sad that I almost lied, almost told her that Allie would back soon, just to see her smile about it.
“I think she’s living in the house she grew up in, turbo.”
Faith sighed and spun back around to me. It was Tuesday, our day off during game week. I’d already lifted for the day, so I would spend the rest of the afternoon with her before watching film once she was tucked into bed.
“It was so fun to have her here that one morning,” she said between twirls. I’d heard this twenty-two times in the past three weeks. “She’s nice. And doesn’t treat me like a baby.”
Not being treated like a baby was a big deal to a six-year-old. My initial panic at being told that Allie had walked out of my room during their morning pancakes had been short-lived because apparently, she handled it like a champ.
Besides, I couldn’t really be mad. In my sex-clouded brain, I’d completely forgotten to double-check with my mom that they wouldn’t be stopping by the house before school that day.
“And,” Faith continued like she was trying to convince me of something, “Grandma really liked her.”
I’d also heard that a few times, from the direction of the woman who gave birth to me. My dad, as usual, had stayed stoically silent, content to let Mom voice their joint opinion. Maybe if I’d been married for forty-two years, I would do the same thing.
Better head on her shoulders than most of the men I know, were the precise words my mom had used, including my idiot son who can’t figure out what’s right in front of him.
That was what she didn’t understand. What none of them could understand even if I’d been capable of explaining it to them. My life was controlled chaos, at all times.
I had a daughter who fell off playgrounds and in the next instant, had a broken arm, even though I was ten feet away from her, watching her every move.
I had a football team that looked to me to lead them, to see things they didn’t see on the field, and predict outcomes like we had a chess set in front of us, carefully carved pieces that could be moved at will.
A coach who threatened me within an inch of my life if I ever started another fight on the field again.
My job would’ve consumed my life if it wasn’t for Faith, who made me pay attention to some of the things I’d normally miss. The tiny purple flowers that were growing along the east side of our house that someone else had planted. The fairies planted them, according to her. She got what was left of me after meetings and weights and notes and game plans and hours of film, and it still didn’t feel like I was giving her enough.
How could I possibly set any more pieces aside for another person?
I had to grit my teeth as I stared at the pool. Where she’d waited for me. For the first time in my life, I’d experienced that strange dichotomy that I’d heard talked about.
Two sides of the same coin.
Peace and fire.
Heat and calm.
She’d given me both, which seemed impossible.
I rubbed at my forehead when I felt my thoughts drifting away from Faith. This was why I couldn’t even contemplate it. How could I possibly try to make a regular relationship work? Keeping her in a neat, small box of time hadn’t felt like it was working. Even after only a few weeks of that, she’d pushed the edges open until I felt powerless against what I wanted from her, what I wanted out of my time with her. Powerless against wanting more time with her.
My phone buzzed next to me, and I saw a text on my lock screen.
Dayvon: Open up. I’m at the front door with leftovers
I shook my head. “Faith, run around the front and grab Mr. Dayvon. He’s here with food.”
She squealed and took off, a flurry of pink ruffles and long brown hair. When he came around the side of the house, she was up on his back, chattering happily in his ear. Something made him let out a booming laugh, and I found myself smiling.
“What’d you bring me?”
With the hand not bracing my daughter’s slight form, he held up a large paper bag. “Tamales. Monique said you looked scrawny last week.”
When he was closer, he tossed the bag, and I caught it. Dayvon used his massive paws to heft Faith up on his cement beam shoulders, where she screamed happily and grabbed him around the face to hold on.
I opened the bag and inhaled gratefully. They’d be my dinner. Probably tomorrow night too. While I rolled the seams of the bag over into tight edges and set it on the lawn, I watched Dayvon make my daughter laugh. He had four boys of his own, the youngest only a couple of years older than Faith.
He and Monique got married right out of college, a ceremony I’d attended as one of his rookie year teammates since we’d entered the draft at the same time. He’d gone in the first round, and I was a couple of rounds later, needing to grow into my talent a bit more.
The ring on his finger glinted brightly in the sun, and I found myself staring at it.
“Does she get stressed during the season?” I heard myself ask him.
Without any further clarification of who I was asking about, Dayvon shook his head. “Nah. We dated all through college too, man. By the time I hit the pros, she knew what she was getting into.” With a roar, he dipped forward so he could deposit Faith safely on the grass. “Why don’t you go draw Miss Monique a pretty picture, baby girl? She’d love that.”
“Okay!” Faith ran off into the house.
Sitting heavily in the chair next to me, Dayvon tipped his head back and sighed contentedly. “Man, I need a place on the water like this.”
“Yeah,” I drawled, “just watch out for assholes on boats with cameras.”
He scratched the side of his face and chuckled. “No shit.” Then he cut me a sideways look. “Haven’t seen much of her lately.”
Quite stubbornly, I refused to look at her house. “Same here. I think she moved into Robert’s house for a bit.”
“Scare her off, did ya?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have time for a woman. You know that.”
Dayvon tipped his head back, hooting loudly. His whole chest shook from the force of his laughter. When I crossed my arms over my middle and said nothing, he laughed even harder. He used the edge of his thumb to wipe at the skin underneath his eyes.
“Oh, man,” he yelled. “That’s some funny shit.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
“No, I don’t think you are.” He stared at the lake, shaking his head. “You think she’s stupid, is that it?”
“What?” I sat up. “I never said that. No,” I insisted. “Of course, I don’t think she’s stupid.”
“So then don’t blame shit that has nothing to do with why you’re sitting here alone and why she’s off in that house when she probably wants to be here.” He clucked his tongue like a chicken.
So I told him that was exactly what he sounded like.
“You need a mother hen, son,” he said. “If Monique was here, she’d smack you so hard.”
I stayed stubbornly silent.
“Tell me this,” he said. “And I won’t ask details because God knows I like Allie too much to know that shit about her, but when you were with her, how’d you feel?” When I gave him a skeptical look, he held up his hands. “What? I’ve been married for twelve years. I know how to talk about feelings, man. Not my problem if you don’t. Just, don’t answer if you don’t want to. But without all the extra noise, just you and her, what was it like?”
Effortless.
Impossible to describe.
Instinctive.
Nothing we’d done made me second-guess myself, not until the moment everything went wrong at the press conference.
“Doesn’t your ma ask you about stuff like this?” he asked.
I shook my head. “We weren’t the family who shared our emotions. It was more like …” I thought for a minute about my childhood, college, when Cassandra died, and my parents moved out here to help with Faith, so I wasn’t paying strangers to help raise her. “We showed our love by showing up. We didn’t need to put the words on it like pretty labels. You just be there.”
Dayvon nodded slowly. “I feel you.”
In my seat, I shifted slightly. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Emotional intelligence of a rock, man,” he muttered up at the sky. “I think it wouldn’t matter if you woke up with little hearts floating around your big ole head, you still wouldn’t admit what you feel.”
“That’s not true.” I scoffed. “It just feels … impossible, I guess. Everyone would be watching us.”
“So what?”
Dayvon leaned forward. “Let’s play a game real quick. Don’t think too hard, just say the first thing that comes to your head. Was your life better with her in it?”
Yes.
My mouth stayed zipped shut.
“Do you miss her?”
Hell yes.
“How many times have you seen her in the past few weeks?”
Twelve.
A tease, just a taste, when I wanted to gorge endlessly. In the silence, I could feel my heart thudding uncomfortably, which was probably exactly what the asshole wanted.
He must have seen something on my face because he chuckled under his breath.
“Do you trust her? Did she put constraints on your time? Complain about what you do? My guess is that I know the answer to every single one of those questions.” He sighed when I finally looked over at him. “Man, doing what we do? Do you know how hard it is to find a woman who’s got the strength to put up with the work and the commitment? I don’t care what anyone says, what they have to do is harder. So much harder. Monique is the strongest person I’ve ever met in my entire life, but don’t you dare tell my ma that if you ever meet her.”
I laughed.
He wasn’t done, though. “You want to know why I’ve never once been tempted to cheat on my wife when most guys wouldn’t think twice? Because I don’t want to. There ain’t nothing out there that’s better than what I’ve got at home. No one who could ever compare. Maybe your family defines love as showing up, but I think it’s that I know there’s nothing better. No one better than her for me. I could see a thousand women. I don’t care what they look like, or what they promise me, there’s nothing better out there for me than Monique. And I trust that like I trust nothing else in this world.”
I hung my head down, my arms dangling between my legs while I struggled to breathe.
“So I don’t know why you’re fighting against it so hard because the way I see it, you’ve been a grumpy pain in the ass the past few weeks for a reason. You’re working yourself too hard because you can’t get her out of your head, right?”
I pushed my tongue into the side of my cheek.
“It can’t be that easy, can it?” I asked, voice rough and rusty and coming from somewhere deep in my chest. A part of my body I didn’t normally speak from. It grew into something bigger, wider, too much to be contained within my skin.
Could I imagine someone better for me than Allie?
Hell no.
I’d never been tempted by anyone until her. I’d never come close to accepting the slightest risk of upsetting my life until her. And she hadn’t upset it at all.
She’d fit into it.
Into me.
“Holy shit,” I breathed uncomfortably. My ribs pinched until I had to suck in a deep, cleansing breath through my nose. Everything rearranged inside me to make room. But my brain, always logical, always reacting to what was presented in front of me, rattled and churned to life slowly as I realized the utterly, stupidly transparent truth of what I refused to admit. “It’s that easy, isn’t it?”
He leaned back, stretching his long legs in front of him, his hands folded over his stomach. The picture of smug satisfaction. “Yup.”
I glanced at him. “What do you get out of this little sermon?”
“My wife bet me I wouldn’t be able to get you to admit it. I get the satisfaction of being right, my friend.”
Faith came running out of the house and thrust a paper filled with pink and purple stickers and scribbles in every color of the rainbow. “Do you think she’ll like it?”
“Aww, yeah, I do. I bet she’ll put it right on the front of our fridge, baby.”
I patted my lap, and Faith hopped up, snuggling into my side. “That’s really pretty, turbo. Good job.”
“What are you gonna do about it?” Dayvon asked.
I breathed in the soft scent of Faith’s hair. “Not sure yet.”
He grinned. “Make it big. Women like that.”
“About what?” Faith asked, smacking a kiss on my cheek.
Over her head, Dayvon and I shared a look. “Well, I don’t have a plan yet, but do you think I should figure out a way that we could see Allie more? I know you miss her.”
“Yes,” she screeched into my ear, and I winced. “Can she come over again? Please, please, please?”
“We’ll see,” I told her, unwilling to promise anything more.
Because first, I had to see if she’d even hear me out.
That was what I knew I had to do and just pray she didn’t kill me for it.
