Page 70 of #Awestruck

He sat down hard on one of the barstools, the shock evident on his face.

“Do you know why?” I asked him. Those kinds of decisions were not made lightly.

“This article says that he claims some of his players were at a party and tried to take advantage of an unconscious girl, and the coach stopped them. He was planning on kicking all the players off the team. And rather than cut the school’s entire starting lineup, they fired him instead. Can you give me a minute? I’d like to text him.”

“Sure. I’ll just clean all this up.” I threw the completely inedible dinner out and put all our dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I wondered if Evan cleaned up after himself or if he hired someone to come in and do it, because I didn’t see a speck of dust or a dangling cobweb hanging off the twelve-foot-high ceilings.

After I finished cleaning, I found him sitting on a dark-brown leather couch in his family room. I came over to sit next to him to wait.

A few minutes later, he said, “It turns out that he’s moving up to Seattle. He took a job at a junior college there. He says the story is true. But the girl was his daughter. Somebody put something in her drink, and she called her dad before she passed out. Apparently, he laid a couple of the players out.”

“That’s really terrible,” I told him, shaking my head and shuddering with disgust. That poor girl. What a nightmare.

“I feel really helpless. I wish I could do something. I wish I’d been there. Maybe I can go up to Seattle after the season is over and see if he needs any assistance. I don’t know what I’ll be able to do. Maybe help with his new team?”

I didn’t know what else to say to tell him how bad I felt for his coach and his daughter, so I ended up asking some random question in response to the last thing he’d said. “Is that what you want to do when you retire? Be a coach for an NFL team?”

“No. During the season NFL coaches don’t see their families. Players have a pretty regular schedule, but the coaches have beds in the offices down at the stadium for a reason.”

He was uncharacteristically quiet and sad.

“I feel so bad for her. That must have been really scary. I’m sorry it happened to her.”

Evan nodded. “I’ve always been the kind of person who learns from other people’s mistakes. It’s another reason I chose celibacy. One of our tailbacks has a higher number of children with different mothers than the average first grader can count to, and his life is pretty hard. And the guys who do stuff like this, getting drunk and going to parties where they treat women like objects. They could have ruined that girl’s life. And is she the first?” He put his head in his hands. “I’m glad this kind of thing isn’t part of my life right now.”

“I can see that. It still must be hard, though. The waiting.” As soon as I said it, I felt guilty. Like there was some part of me that wanted to make Brenda happy and was still searching around to make sure I had the total truth about Evan. I wished I could take it back.

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. I think about it a lot. Like when you’re on a diet and all you can think about is brownies? Because you know you can’t have brownies?”

“I love brownies. Does it bother you that I’ve already had brownies?” I found that I was holding my breath. Once my feelings toward him had started to change, this was a topic that had occurred to me from time to time and concerned me. Would he look at me differently?

“Of course not.” His reply was immediate. “Why would that bother me?”

Relief flooded through me. “Some guys are possessive.”

He absentmindedly kissed me on the forehead. “All that matters to me is who we are together, right now. And the past may not matter, but the future does. I want my relationships to be real. Someday I want to fall in love with my best friend. I read this study that said the level of emotional connection you have when you start having sex with someone is the level you stay at. And I know that I will want an incredible marriage, and I’m willing to do what it takes to get it. I guess my parents spoiled me. I want what they had. I want to love a woman the way my dad loved my mom. For who she was inside.”

“Inner beauty doesn’t get you free drinks,” I joked, as the air had become incredibly heavy and serious around us.

“It doesn’t. But it can get you a lifelong commitment with the right man. But that desire helps me to stay focused on other things. I focus on what I can do instead of what I’ve decided not to do.”

“But don’t you worry about marrying someone and then finding out the sex is bad? Like you wouldn’t buy a car without test-driving it first, right?”

He shrugged. “I think if you love someone, have a high level of attraction, and are committed to honest communication, you’ll figure out the other stuff. And you can tell whether or not you have sexual chemistry with someone. Like what we have.”

Was it hot in here, or was that just Evan? “Oh? You think we have chemistry?”

“The kind an evil scientist would use to blow up a small country. It’s why I hesitated to invite you over tonight.”

“Were you afraid I was going to attack you and you wouldn’t be able to fend me off?” I teased.

“You’d be surprised at the kind of stuff that happens. Like a couple of years ago, I had a woman over to hang out, and I went into the kitchen to get us some drinks while she used the bathroom. When she came out, she no longer had any clothes on. She was not happy with me when I asked her to leave. My home has always been my sanctuary. You’re the first woman I’ve had over since that incident.”

That was incredibly sweet. And made me feel very, very special. I kissed him to show him how that made me feel.

“What was that for?” he asked when I was done.

“For being you.”

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