Page 40 of Old Fashioned
“Do you still want to kiss her?”
I frowned. “It doesn’t matter if I do or not.”
“I guess what I mean is — when she said it was a mistake and you guys should forget about it, did you take that opportunity to tell her that youdidn’tfeel like it was a mistake, and that you’d like to try being more than friends?”
“Mikey, she told me we should forget about it.”
“I realize that,” he said. “But what I’m asking is does she know you feel this way?”
“It doesn’t matt—”
“It does!” Mikey’s voice was loud and firm, and I shut my mouth in response. “She told you it was a mistake, that you both were drunk, and you agreed and said yeah, let’s forget about it. What if there was a little bit of hope in her that itwasn’ta mistake? What if she was waiting to see whatyousaid?”
I frowned.
“Look, I know you, Big Bro, and one thing I know is that you don’t misread signs when it comes to women. You are not an asshole, and you wouldn’t so much asthinkabout making a move on a woman unless there was a real connection and consent. You’ve always been the gentleman, and you’ve always taken things slow with the women you’ve dated — and what’s more, there haven’t been many. So, if you crossed the line and kissed Sydney, I know for a fact that it was because you felt something, and you wouldn’t have felt something ifshehadn’t felt it, too.”
A little balloon of hope filled in my chest, but I popped it quickly. “It’s not that simple.”
“It could be.”
“I can’t just…” I threw my hand out, as if to show him all the reasons why. “Confessthat I wanted to kiss her and that Istillwant to kiss her and that I think about her every damn minute of every day. This isn’t high school. Weworktogether, Mikey. She technically worksundermy supervision, which makes me her boss, in a way. She’s already working against the odds as the only female on an all-male staff in a male-dominated sport,andshe’s back to work for the first time in years.And,” I continued, running out of breath. “She has a daughter, and an ex-husband, and there are just a lot of complications at work here, okay?”
My little brother didn’t respond for a long time. It was just me, breathing heavily, waiting for him to argue with me so I could fight him some more on the topic. But instead, after a long pause, he made a noise of understanding.
“Well,” he said. “It sounds like you have your answer.”
My chest was still rising and falling at a rapid rate, but when the urge to fight him left me, I was left in a hollow sadness wishing he would keep going, keep telling me reasons I was wrong.
“Just pretend like it never happened and things are back to work as usual,” he continued. “She forgets about you, you forget about her. No harm, no foul. It was just a kiss, right?”
A long, slow exhale left my chest. “Right,” I agreed, though my voice was soft and unsure.
Mikey didn’t say anything, letting the silence sit between us, and I chewed on everything he’d said and every point I’d thrown back at him for the rest of our phone call. When we were all caught up and promised to talk again soon, I hung up the phone and stared at the blank screen of my television.
“It was just a kiss,” I repeated out loud, to no one and to whoever might be listening — myself, included.
Then, I picked up my playbook, and got back to distracting myself from all the lies.
Sydney
Fall began to make its descent on our little Tennessee town over the next two weeks. The days cooled to a beautifully perfect seventy to seventy-five degrees, and the evenings welcomed us with a crisp wind that brought chilly nights. It wasn’t quite cold enough to get the fireplace going yet, but it was getting there, and I reveled in the fact that I could wear leggings and a long-sleeve shirt without sweating.
Margaret’s Bakery boasted the arrival of pumpkin bread and apple cider, Charlie Warren was already setting up his pumpkin patch on the edge of town, and I knew the corn maze wouldn’t be far behind.
And most of all, football season was in full swing.
It was our first home game since the one we’d opened the season with, and the Stratford stands were packed. We’d won all three of our away games since then, and our fans were anxious to see if we’d deliver a W at home tonight. Winning in any capacity was great, but winning in your own house was another level of high — and I could feel the pressure our players were putting on themselves to deliver.
“Alright,” I said after wrapping our quarterback’s left ankle. I tapped the toe of his cleat. “Try not to get sacked, and I’ll re-wrap at halftime, if necessary.”
Rodgers smiled, thanking me as he hopped up from the bench and jogged out to join his team warming up on the field. I packed away the tape in my training bag, looking over my notes on all the players to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anyone. My pre-game responsibilities felt natural to me now, and I loved that I had a routine.
“Coach!”
I followed the sound of someone calling out to Jordan, smiling curiously when I found an older man I recognized from when he’d helped Randy work on our busted pipe in our kitchen one afternoon years ago. He had dark brown skin and soft, kind eyes — and a crooked yellow grin that widened the longer he stood there. He wore a fedora on his head, one that matched the suspenders he wore, and he tipped it at Jordan as he made his way over to the sideline, leaning over the railing that separated us from the fans in the bleachers.
“What say you, Eli?” Jordan asked, pressing his back to the gate next to where Eli stood. It made it where they could stand next to each other and talk, but he could still keep an eye on his team, too.
