Page 109 of Lessons in Forgiving
>The New York Timeswants it.
> Call me when you get the chance.
And I would, right after I had lunch with the people I loved most, all of whom I had at least a year to catch up on. More with my parents.
Henry had silenced his phone, gave me a kiss, and whispered against my lips, “I’m so proud of you.”
“So what?” I pondered. “Does that officially make me your girlfriend again?” The question slipped past my lips, high on the bliss of a good article, the truth out in the open, and, well, Henry’s hand in mine just a few feet away from my parents. He snickered, looked at me as we walked to the restaurant.
“You know what they say,” he mumbled into my ear, nudged my shoulder with his and then planted a kiss on top of my head. “Second time’s the charm. Or something like that.”
EPILOGUE
LATER, July
Give me a second,” I blurted into the phone, trying to cut off the voice on the other end. “I’m almost—can we talk about this when I’m home? I can’t take notes—No, I can’t take notes. I’m in the elevator—”
I slid through the doors as soon as they opened on the twentieth floor, trying to wrestle the keys out of my tote, phone clutched between my ear and shoulder. “Marty!” I shushed. “Please wait five seconds until I can sit at my desk and write this down, will you?”
Somehow, I managed to get into the apartment with one hand, let my bag slide to the ground and threw the keys on top of it when I closed the door with my foot. “Yes,” I exhaled, crossing the entrance into the living room. The plan had been to get into the study—to my laptop and pens and paper—as fast as possible. If only to get Marty, Henry’s manager andmyboss, to stop throwing ideas at me I couldn’t write down somewhere. It was stressing me out.
But I stopped in my tracks when my eyes were drawn to the white sofa in the middle of Henry’s living room. As the centerpiece of the open floorplan, it faced the flatscreen on the wall. It probably cost a fortune, designed by someone whose name peopleooh-ed andahh-ed at.
Henry Parker Pressley did not sit on it. He sat on the floor, leaning against the back with his long legs extended and a packet of cat treats that must’ve fallen out of his hand. His eyes were closed, neck craning in ways that looked more thanuncomfortable and would probably leave him with aches for days.
He wore one of his new jerseys. Blue Eagles’ signature color and his name and number on the back. The same as his dad’s.
Number seven, Pressley.
To his side, Pip had curled up with a single treat still hanging out of her mouth. She, too, was fast asleep. I was surprised my tumultuous arrival hadn’t startled them both awake.
“Paula?” I straightened at the reminder of Marty on the line. “You still there?”
“Yes.” I lowered my voice and threw the two a last glance before I tiptoed into the office regardless. “Repeat what you need me to know for Lee’s profile please?” I grabbed my notebook, threw myself into the chair and rolled the few missing inches to the desk. Which had a perfect view of the Upper East Side. “I can write now.”
“Oh,” Marty huffed. “No, don’t worry about it. My assistant has all of that. She’ll email it ASAP.”
I suppressed a groan.He couldn’t have said that before I’d sprinted an entire block to get here?
“How’s the profile coming along, though?” He continued casually, as if he hadn’t bombarded my phone and email with the same question.
Josh Lee was my third Blue Eagles profile, and as the team’s star player—as the one with the longest contract, the highest pay and the most media attention—it was understandable that Marty was… interested. Involved. More involved than with the others.
“Good.” I shrugged unhelpfully. “As the one before was. And the one beforethat.”
“A fluff piece, then?”
“As fluffy as can be.” The occasional trauma sprinkled across the pages, of course. If only to make it more relatable. As fortrauma, Josh Lee had a truckload. He’d said I could have my pick of three before we’d started, and… boy had he given me a selection.
Marty’s hum came through the line, tone rough and agreeable. “We’ve been thinking.” He began. “Well—no. Let me paraphrase. Henry has been thinking. Then asked for my opinion, which gotmethinking.”
I remembered the boy currently passed out against the couch, and it made me uneasy.
When Henry thought, and then brought the outcome of his thinking to others, it almost always meant something big. Like when he’d thought it would be a good idea for me to write a profile about him and forced my editor to make it happen.
“There’ll be quite a few away games in the coming months,” Marty said, like it wasn’t a constant on my mind. They’d be hopping from city to city, from opponent to opponent until they’d maybe, if they were good enough, play for the MLS cup in December and win it.
By then, five months would’ve passed with me back in New York, watching and watering Henry’s plants. One glance to my right, and there were two of them in his bookshelf now.
