Page 76 of Between Love and War
For a moment, I tell them some things about the town. I still don’t tell them where it is, in fear of them showing up and ruining my peace. I tell them about the neighbors. How everyone is kind and hospitable. How I run the Little League.
“Seriously though,” Vince says, slicing into some impossibly tiny steak, “I still don’t get how you survived that long. Don’t you miss the city?” he asks, gesturing to the giant window behind us that overlooks the city.
“Sometimes,” I answer truthfully. “I miss the game. The fans. You guys,” I try to deflect.
They laugh, and thankfully, they don’t ask more. There’s a mix of players from the team, some younger guys I’ve mentored, and a few ex-teammates who now coach or have moved to different leagues. It’s all familiar: the shoulder punches, the bad jokes, the celebratory cheers that happen every time someone’s glass is refilled.
“Okay, okay, shut up,” says Carl, one of the newer guys on the team, lifting his glass and tapping the side. “Quick announcement.”
“Are you finally shaving off your sad excuse for a beard?” Vince asks, and everyone laughs. Carl chuckles, but he shakes his head firmly.
“I’m getting married.”
“No,” Chris says. Then a cheer erupts from the table.
“Seriously?” someone asks.
Carl just raises his hand with the tiniest smile. “It’s real. Got the ring and everything. Asked her last weekend.”
We all raise our drinks, clinking whatever’s closest. Vince immediately launches into a fake speech: “To Carl, whosomehow found love despite smelling like locker room for seven straight years.”
Carl flips him off, but he’s smiling. “She likes how I smell. Says I smell like a man.”
“She’s just being polite,” Chris says.
As the jokes settle, Vince turns to me, casually elbowing my arm. “You next, Mike?”
I raise a brow. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb,” he says. “You deflect every time the conversation comes close to your curly-haired lady.”
“She’s notmylady,” I answer. “She’s my neighbor.”
“See,” Chris adds, “that’s the kind of thing we would know if you actually talk to us.”
I look at them, and I suddenly feel bad for keeping my distance. These are my friends. The guys I’ve known for years, teammates who’ve seen me screw up plays and miss flights. And I’ve barely told them anything about my life lately.
“She’s cool,” I say after a beat. “Katie. I mean, Kate. She’s funny. Kind. A little shy and awkward sometimes. But not in a helpless way. Just... in a human way. She’s a preschool teacher who loves the kids way too much that she always brings snacks in case a kid forgets theirs. And she bakes. Like, every day. For no reason.”
Chris raises a brow. “So what you’re saying is... she’s secretly your wife and you’ve been hiding it.”
I shake my head at him. “She’s just easy to be around,” I add. “Like... you don’t have to put on anything with her. You just sit, and talk, or not talk. And it’s nice.”
They go quiet again, this time with less teasing in their faces. The way it usually happens to a rowdy group of guys when something real gets said.
“Anyway,” I say, picking up a fry. “It’s nothing. We’re not… anything.”
“Sure,” Vince says under his breath, smirking again. “Totally nothing.”
They laugh, but they don’t push again. And I appreciate that. Because I don’t really know what this thing is with Kate. Or if it even is a thing that needs defining.
I wanted to walk around the city after our lunch, but I forgot that I can’t just… do that here. In Magnolia Heights, no one really bats an eye anymore. I’m just Mike—guy who helps carry stuff and teaches kids to shoot basketballs. In the city, I’mMichael Lee. Which means I can’t take ten steps without someone raising their phone, pretending to text while quietly whispering, “Is that him?”
So instead of walking aimlessly, I start heading toward the parking garage.
And that’s when I pass an appliance center.
There, on display under a halo of LED lights like it’s being canonized, is apurple stand mixer. Retro. Very girly. Very… Kate.
