Page 52 of High Notes & Hail Marys

You are both taller and heavier than Roman, but he still treats you like the baby of the family. You thank him again for the ride, and he drives away.

Inside, it’s thankfully notthatloud. The house has four bedrooms, and your mother was kind enough to leave your room unoccupied. One of the guest bedrooms contains your Aunt Mavis, who mostly keeps to herself, and the other is housing your cousin, Darnell, and his wife, Esther. Their three kids are set up on an air mattress in your office.

“Kai-i-i!” Angelika, Darnell’s youngest, runs toward you, wheeling her arms wildly. “Horsey, please! Horsey!”

You obligingly scoop her up on your shoulders and go to greet your guests.

***

“What did you get me for Christmas?” you ask Sterling that night.

Stuffed to your gills on chicken and dressing, dirty rice, collards, ham-hock pinto beans, and enough buttered cornbread to choke an elephant, you are flopped back on your bed. You’ve pulled your shorts down low to let your gut breathe. Your abs still ripple gratifyingly, but there’s a definite food-baby bulge on your lower belly.

Sterling laughs. “You expect me to answer that?I’ve told you ten times that you have to wait ‘til tomorrow morning. Maybe eleven times.”

“Hmph,” you pout. “Can I shake it?”

“No, you may not.”

You guys exchanged your gifts the last time you saw each other, after that disaster at Mantel with GoGo, and agreed not to open them until Christmas Day. You are stumped by Sterling’s gift. It’s a package about the size of a Cheerios box, bundled in beautifully-folded silver paper. Despite his lack of permission, you have already tried to shake it. There’s no give. It could be almost anything.

For your part, you had a lot of trouble picking out a gift for Sterling. On top of the fact that your boyfriend’s either a certified billionaire or damn close to it—the trade papers can’t decide, and you aren’t about to ask Sterling to clarify—you are also afraid of giving him anything too sentimental. The ideal present, you decided, has to straddle the delicate line betweenmeaningfulandnot too meaningful.

You decided on a Cyclones jersey. It’s one of the official ones, hand-stitched, in a pretty golden alt colorway that you think will look great with Sterling’s hair. Your number—99—is emblazoned on both sides.Graysonis embroidered on the nameplate. It’s kind of dorky, but kind of cool. Deb,the lady at the pro shop, was sworn to secrecy, and she even agreed to wrap it for you. There’s a card included, too. It took three days for you to decide what to write in it.

Merry Christmas! I can’t wait to see what next year holds.

♥Always, Kai

That heart/word combo gave you fits. Real, honest, clutch-your-heart paroxysms of anxiety. But you figured the text of the message, which is hopeful, but measured, balanced the implications of the sign-off. You almost asked Sandy for his opinion, but you chickened out.

“How is the fam?” Sterling asks, shifting the subject away from gifts.

You groan a bit, and scrub a hand down your face. “They’re on their shit,” you say, pitching your voice low so that your house guests don’t overhear. “Mama and her sister got into it over who was fixing Great-Nana’s pie. So they each made one, and they’re trying to get everyone to say which is better.”

“Yikes,” Sterling intones with real sympathy. “Is that all?”

“Well, my ex-sister-in-law came to dinner with my nieces and sat next to my brother,” you say. “Quilltold me that she’s been spending nights over at Roman’s house, but he doesn’t want to talk about it to anybody.”

“Quill is one of the twins, right?” Sterling asks hesitantly.

“Yup. Him and Auggie. They both played for Georgia Tech. Cornerback and RB.”

“And Roman played football too, right?”

“Uh-huh. He played the same position I did. Would have been drafted, too, but he tore a bunch of ligaments in his knee and never got back on the field.”

“Your poor parents must have worked two jobs apiece to feed you guys when you were teenagers.”

That one makes you laugh. You describe how there were three fridges in your childhood home: an industrial side-by-side in the kitchen and two in the garage, all stuffed with food.

“How are things up North?” you ask. “You told everyone I said hello, right?”

Sterling rolls his eyes. “Oh, trust me, they want to know where you are. My mother is distraught that you weren’t here for the ugly sweater party. She wanted you to try her Buffalo chicken dip and tell you all about how it won the Junior League Crockpot Cook-Off back in ‘06.”

“No offense, but that might be the single whitest set of words that I have ever heard.”

That makes Sterling laugh from his belly.

---