Page 62 of Between Love and War
He looks at me and something shifts in his expression. “Iamnice, you know.”
I nod approvingly. “Yeah, I’m starting to see that.”
He grins. “So you admit it now—you were wrong about me. I’m not a self-absorbed athlete.”
“I said you were nice,” I clarify, raising a finger. “You can still be self-absorbed and nice.”
He throws his head back with a laugh. “Fair.”
Then, for some reason, I ask, “Have you always wanted to be an athlete?”
He blinks, caught off guard, and then leans his head back against the wall. “Wow. You just hopped into origin story.”
“You offered soul-crushing talk,” I remind him. “I’m just cashing it in.”
He exhales. “Okay, well… yes and no.”
I squint. “Explain.”
He runs a hand through his hair, and for a second, he’s not Michael Lee, MVP, sports guy, certified menace. He’s just… a person.
“My parents died in a car accident when I was three. Trish and my grandma raised me. They did the best they could, but… they were both busy, tired, grieving. There wasn’t a lot of room for figuring out what I liked. One day, someone said, ‘Hey, you’re tall. You should play basketball.’ So I did.”
I nod, quiet now.
“And I was good,” he continues with a little shrug, like it still surprises him. “I mean, really good. And then I kept going. Next thing I knew, basketball wasn’t just something I did—it becamewhoI was. I didn’t choose it so much as I just… grew into it. But I like it now.”
I look at him, stunned by the honesty.
“Wow,” I say, my voice quieter now. “That was… very emotionally literate of you. Proud of you, champ.”
He gives me a crooked grin. “You asked.”
“I know. I just thought you’d say something like ‘I sawSpace Jamand decided to change lives.’”
“Honestly,” he laughs, “not far off.”
There’s a pause, and then he adds, “So what about you? Did you always want to be… this? Preschool teacher and occasional baker of the best cookies in the world?”
I chuckle, playing with the edge of my blanket. “Well, I…”
And that’s when I hear it.
Footsteps. Not the casual kind.
Fast ones.
Panicked, I try to sit up with some semblance of dignity—which, of course, backfires because my entire body forgets how gravity works after being in bed for hours. In the blink of an eye, I lurch forward like a sentient sack of rice and fall (no,crash) into Michael.
He grunts, winded, but because he has the reflex of a jungle animal, he somehow catches me. Like, actually catches me, with his hands on my waist.
And now here we are. I am, for lack of a better word,onhim. My palms are pressed against his chest, which is unfortunately very solid and very real. His hands arestillon my waist, warm and steady. Our faces are inches apart. His breath fans across my cheek while my breath is nowhere to be found. I think I forget how to breathe. But I think I somehow squeak? I don’t know.
Then the bedroom door swings open with a bang, and Bon appears, holding a plastic bag in one hand.
“Okay, I brought crackers, ginger ale, and—” She freezes. Blinks. “Michael Lee is in your bed and you areonhim.” She looks away, her eyes scanning the room, landing on everything except us. “I obviously walked in on something here…”
“No, you didn’t!” I yell, and I make a sound somewhere between a scream and a squeak as I try to roll off Michael, but only manage to tangle myself further in the blanket. Michael helps me get the blanket off, and I sit, tying my hair again because it flew out of the hair tie.
