Page 53 of The Tip-Off
She lifts her hands up to her face and peers at me through a rectangle she makes with her fingers. “Work your angles. Smize. Yeah, like that. Now take it off. Sloowly.”
“You’re a little too good at that.”
“I watched every season ofAmerica’s Next Top Model.”
“Never heard of it.”
She makes an exaggerated gasp. “Tyra Banks? Nigel Barker? Well, we must rectify this situation. Grab your golden statue, honey, we’ve got to get home and watch every season naked. Your career depends on it.”
“Always trying to get me naked.” I chuckle and step closer. “What would you do with me if you did?”
Her blue-green eyes widen, and she watches my fingers with rapt attention as I move them to her cheek and push her hair on the left side of her face back giving me a better view of her.
“Whipped cream bikini, pillow fight, naked wrestling, maybe we could stop by the store and get one of those kiddie pools and fill it with Jell-O.”
I open my mouth to speak, close it, open it... I’ve got nothing.
“You should see your face.” She laughs and then fixes her features back into a stoic expression. “But seriously.”
“Life with you is never boring, is it?”
She shrugs and a little bit of her mask slips. I’d always thought of Gabby hiding behind her hair to cover her external scars, but maybe her words hide the ones I can’t see. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
“Your penis? Because if you’re not about to get naked, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.”
I’m shaking my head as we step away from the party, the voices and the laughter becoming distant noise as we get farther away. Being with Gabby is like wearing my headphones except instead of music drowning out the noise, it’s her making everything else fade to the background.
“Where are we going?” she asks as we enter the darkened hallway.
“Almost there.” I take her hand as I lead the way, navigating the place like I live here. And basically, I have for the last four years. I give a glance over my shoulder to make sure no one sees us. Last thing I need is someone following along.
Gabby looks intrigued, if not a little skeptical about our location. All else fails, I’ll take my dick out and pretend it’s the main attraction. It’s not. On second thought, Gabby might be more excited about that than what I have planned, but this is important for me. I can’t sleep with her, can’t treat being with her as if it’s all part of a list.
Yeah, I’m leaving, and I think she understands that, but I need to know for sure that if we have sex, she’s not going to regret that it was some guy who took off a couple weeks later. You can’t un-ring that bell. She treats it as if it’s as insignificant as doing a beer bong at a party, but deep down, I know it’s important to her.
“Oooh the boy’s locker room,” she croons as I place a palm on the heavy wooden door and give it a push open.
“Here we go.” I flip on the light to my home away from home away from home. The locker room at Valley is well-kept and clean. The lockers are light oak and have double doors. Every player has his own with his name and number displayed on a screen, and in front, a chair for those game-time pep talks. It’s nothing like people expect. They’re probably thinking something keen to their high school locker rooms with rickety metal lockers and a smell that never seems to go away, but they take care of us here at Valley.
“Wow. This is nice.” Gabby turns a circle as she takes in the room. When she sees my name, she walks toward the locker and touches it. My dick twitches, which is weird, right? But I’ve never brought a girl to see my locker before.
“Back here.”
I motion for her to follow me past the lockers to an open area we use to watch game film. I walk around the roadrunner mascot painted on the floor. “Don’t step on Ray or it’s seven seasons of bad luck.”
Propped up against the white screening wall is my number fifty jersey, framed and ready to hang. I stop in front of it.
“Is this your game jersey?”
I nod. “Yeah. They’re retiring it.”
“Zeke, that’s amazing.”
“Thanks. Yeah, I think it’s pretty awesome that I get to leave a little something behind.”
She kneels to look it over for a moment before standing and facing me. “You’re leaving behind more than just a jersey.”
“Yeah, I know. The team did great things this year and our names will be in the record books forever, but this is all mine.”
