Saturday, Bree and I sleep in until ten o’clock. I can’t remember the last time I did that. High school, maybe? I wake up a few times and never once feel the urge to get up and get my day going. Everything I want is right here in my arms. Drooling.
Eventually, I’m going to have to leave Bree for a few meetings and then get to the airport for my flight to Houston where we’ll play our last playoff game.
Saturdays are the closest thing I have to an off day during the season because I don’t step foot in the weight room on these days, so it usually gets packed full of meetings. Which…now that I think about it, makes it not an off day. This morning, though, I blew off an early meeting in favor of staring creepily at Bree while she sleeps. I’ll have to deal with Nicole’s wrath, but it’s worth it. I think that’s considered progress.
One of Bree’s hairs gets sucked into her mouth, and when I try to carefully extract it, she jolts awake. Like a jack-in-the-box, she bolts upright in bed, hair eight sizes larger than normal. She whips around to me with wide eyes looking like she just woke from a cryogenic sleep.
“I TEACH A CLASS AT TEN THIRTY!”
A bit yell-y in the mornings. It’s okay, I’ll still keep her.
Throwing the covers off, she sprints from the bed and out of the room. I stare at the empty doorway until two seconds later I hear footsteps racing back. A flash of octopus hair and limbs is all I see before she tackles me on the bed. Hovering over me, her dimples pop and she kisses me with a punctuated POP. “Good morning. I love you.”
I smile and lean up to kiss her more fully, but she tucks her chin.
“UH, no. Neither of us brushed our teeth last night, and morning breath is rank. You get a closed-mouth pucker and NATHANSTOPITRIGHTNOW!” She’s scream-laughing because I’m tickling her ruthlessly.
“You’re saying my breath is bad?! You’ll pay.”
“Let me go! I have class!” She can barely talk, she’s laughing so hard.
“You shouldn’t have come back. That was your first mistake, and now you’re caught.” I stop tickling her long enough to reach into my bedside table, grab my Listerine spray, and take a hit. Her jaw drops at my audacity to keep something like that at my bedside, but what can I say, I’m no amateur here. With her mouth open like a fish, I’m able to give her a spritz.
She cackles laughing, and then I kiss her like I want to. I take my time.
Bree texts me later that she’s late for class and it’s all my fault. I’ll gladly take that fall.
I lean back in the giant, porcelain, clawfoot tub and FaceTime Bree. The call connects just as a bubble pops by my shoulder. Her smiling face fills my screen, harsh studio lights hovering above her head. She squints, and then a smile bursts across her mouth.
“You’re in the bath!!!”
“A bubble bath.” I hold up a handful of suds.
I’ve never seen her look more pleased. I can see the light pink spaghetti straps of her leotard, and the hairs on her neck are matted down with sweat. When she takes the phone with her to sit down with her back leaning against the mirror, I can tell in the reflection that she’s alone. She’s breathing heavily. “And? Completely wonderful, right?”
“I had no idea what I was missing.” Truthfully, I’m pretty bored, but I’ll sit in here every night for the rest of my life if it makes her smile like that. Also, after my talk with Bree last night, I’m ready to start doing some things to take care of my mental health. I also scheduled an appointment with a therapist for next week. Nervous about that one, not gonna lie.
“Only way it could be better is if you were in here—”
“NNOOOPPEEE,” Jamal yells from the other side of the bathroom door.
Our flight got into Houston a few hours ago, and because of the strict curfew the team enforces the night before each game, I’m already in my hotel room for the night. Every player is assigned a suitemate when we travel, and Jamal is usually mine.
“Don’t you start all that. No one wants to hear your bubble bath dirty talk,” he says from the other side of the door where I’m sure he’s lying on the silk pillowcase he brought from home.
“Hi Jamal!” Bree yells into the phone.
“Just put your headphones on,” I tell him.
“No. I’ll still know what’s going on in there, and I’m not okay with that.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re just mad I stole the bathtub before you.”
“YES, I’M MAD!” he says in an indignant tone. “For years I’ve been taking a nightly bubble bath and enjoying the hell out of it, and all of a sudden, your new girlfriend tells you how glorious it is and you usurp my self-care time. Not cool, man.”
Bree looks delighted.
“He wears one of those crackly green masks like yours too,” I tell Bree, not bothering to keep my voice down.
“Yes, I do, and I don’t appreciate your condescending tone. Men can appreciate having good skin too. In fact, you could stand for a pore treatment or two, Nathan. I can see your blackheads through the door.”
My pores are just fine.
“Ignore him,” I tell Bree, sinking a little lower into the water. “So what are you doing at the studio?”
“Oh, I’m just working on the choreography for one of the recital dances coming up.”
“Yeah? Can I see?”
Her cheeks turn pink. Other than when I’ve peeked in on her teaching a class or two over the years, I haven’t seen her really dance since high school, since before the accident. For some reason, it’s always something she keeps to herself. I’m hoping now that things are changing between us, she’ll let me back into that part of her life as well.
She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know. It’s still rough. There’s not much to see.” Her shoulders are twitching and her head keeps shaking, making her look like an alien trying to do an impression of a Normal Human Being.
“Breeee.” I cut off her blabbering, and she shoots me a look.
“Natthhaannn.”
“Come on. Let me watch you dance. I’ll even put on a bubble beard the whole time to make you feel less embarrassed.”
Jamal interjects again. “UGH, Y’ALL ARE GROSS!”
“Mind your own business!” I say, throwing a bar of soap at the door. I focus my attention on Bree again. “Why don’t you want to dance in front of me?”
Her eyes dart around the room and her teeth sink into her bottom lip. Damn, I wish I was there to kiss her. We didn’t have enough time last night or this morning. I need weeks with her—no, years to make up for lost time.
“I’m not as good as you remember.”
“You’re in luck—I don’t remember anything. What even is ballet? Is that the thing where you make all the noises with your shoes?” She laughs and gives me a look that says, Nice try. “Bree, take a good look at me. I’m FaceTiming you from a bubble bath right now. Doesn’t get much more vulnerable for me than that.”
“Fiiiiiine. Okay, you win.” The phone gets placed on the floor and angled up so I can see the entire studio. Bree leans down toward the screen and points a finger at me. “But just know, I’m not as fluent or graceful as I used to be. And the choreography needs a lot of work. That’s the whole point of me staying late tonight.”
I hold a bubbly hand up in the air. “It’ll be like I’m not even here.”
Her smile slants. “Mhmm. Sure.”
The sound of soft piano fills the air, and Bree stands in the center of the floor. Her bubble gum pink leotard is painted to her body, making her look soft and delicate, but then her favorite oversized grey joggers swallow up her lower half, contrasting with her prim and proper upper half. It’s a perfect representation of her personality. She’s wearing them as she always does: rolled down at the waist and cinched up over her calves. Pointe shoes are tied around her ankles, a rainbow of bracelets stacks up one of her arms, and her hair is in a wispy French braid dangling down her back.
Those long lean arms stretch at her sides and glide above her head. She goes up onto her toes like it’s nothing and begins a soft walk that turns into a series of impressive turns. I sit in awe, watching Bree’s powerful, graceful body twirl, jump, and completely captivate me until my water turns to ice. I don’t care though, because I don’t ever want to look away.
We don’t talk at all during this time. It’s clear she is hyper focused on her movements, and I wouldn’t dare ruin this glimpse into heaven for the world. Quiet confidence pulses through her veins as she leaps. The angles of her body are sharp glass and soft velvet at the same time. She creates the illusion that she’s as delicate as lace, but when she leaps off the ground with her legs flawlessly extended in opposite directions and then lands—barely making a sound—you realize she is not to be underestimated. She is strong and fierce in her delicate skin. Life tried to hold her down, but she gave it the middle finger and stood up again.
Bree is everything I aspire to be, everything I love, everything I desire. She holds my heart, and, with all that I am, I hope she never gives it back.
