Page 48 of Guarding Our Love
“You don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?”
“You said she affected the one thing you love more than anything, but I think you love her more than anything. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have let it affect your game. The question is, what are you going to do about it?” He turned his head to the side and stared at me.
Damn, he might have been right. Maybe I did love Sloan more than basketball. Was that possible? Maybe. Or maybe I loved them both the same.
“What should I do?”
“I can’t answer that for you. I’ll tell you what I would do.”
I sat up and listened intently while he gave me suggestions on what I could do. I agreed with him and put a plan in motion.
“That’s a good idea. I’m going to get on that right now.”
“Good. And, Calil, don’t mess up your career.”
“I won’t. It’s getting late, so I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.”
I hugged my grandfather then went to find the nurse so she would know I was leaving. There was an extra room on that side of the house for the nurses when they came over.
Thirty minutes later,I stood on Sloan’s porch. It was bold of me to show up at her house, especially not knowing if her husband was there or not. I tried to call her again just in case, and I didn’t want to impose if the boys were there, but I was at my wits’ end with her.
Something had to give. It was either going to be she told me to go about my business, or we were going to work this shit out. Either way, I wasn’t leaving until she told me something. If her ex were here, then I would deal with that if it happened. I shifted from foot to foot as my heart thumped wildly in my chest.
“Fuck it.” I pressed the doorbell and tried to get my heart rate to slow down.
I waited and waited. Then just when I was about to walk down the steps, I heard the front door open.
“Calil? What are you doing here?”
“Calil? What are you doing here?”I was shocked when my doorbell rang and even more shocked when I saw Calil on my porch and not Roy as I thought.
I changed the locks so Roy couldn’t just come and go as he pleased.
“Apparently, something is wrong with your phone.”
“There is nothing wrong with my phone,” I responded, stepping onto the porch. The boys were here, and I didn’t want them to see Calil.
He scoffed. “It sure seems like it since I’ve been texting and calling you, and you haven’t been answering my calls, so clearly there’s something wrong with it.”
Even though I tried not to show it, I couldn’t hide the fact that heat rose to my cheeks. He looked concerned, and I felt bad that I had been ignoring his calls. I just needed a minute to myself.
“I’m sorry, Calil. It’s just been a lot going on.”
I walked over and sat on the swing seat on the porch, and Calil joined me. His cologne and natural scent infiltrated my nose, and God, I missed him. His locs were in a messy ball on top of his head, and he looked exhausted. I knew he had a game and that they lost, which made me more surprised he was on my porch.
“Was it so hard for you to tell me that?”
My heart broke at the sadness in his voice.
“I didn’t know how.”
“Easy. Hey, Lil, I need a little space. Simple, and I would have given you that. For you to just ignore me hurt me, Sloan. Like, for real. I fucked up earlier, and we lost our game.” He looked down at his feet as he moved them back and forth.
Did he lose because of me?That couldn’t have been the case. He did look like he wanted to be anywhere but at that game, but I didn’t think it was because I hadn’t returned his calls.
“I saw the game. What happened?”
