Page 71 of Just Playin'
“E. . .” I can tell she wants to say more, but the picnic blanket, a basket loaded with wine, cheese and grapes, and two boxes of Mickey’s pizza steal her words.
I give myself a mental pat on the back when she raises her welling eyes to mine. “It’s not my birthday.”
“No, it’s not. But it is mine, and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it than with you.”
Her brows become tighter the longer her confused gaze bounces between mine. “I thought you had plans. . .without me?”
I try not to smile at the uncomfortable delivery of her last two words. I fail. “I said I had plans in the works, but I didn’t say who they were with. You wanted to go out; I wanted to stay in. This is my compromise. ”
Taking her hand in mine, I guide her onto the spongy green field. She giggles when her heels are swallowed by the thick grass. It turns into full-blown laughter when I scoop down low to gather her in my arms.
“So strong and manly,” she drawls in a fake American accent while running her fingertips over my bicep. “Do you work out?”
“Only on Tuesdays.”
Her husky laugh has my dick becoming super friendly with my zipper. “You need to add a time and a location to your answer. Hook a girl up!”
She stops waiting for the high-five I’m never going to give her when I place her back onto her feet on the picnic blanket. “Wow, E. How do you not get scared every time you step out here?” She spins in a circle, taking in the thousands upon thousands of empty seats. “I feel like a worm being eyed by a million kookaburras.”
Her eyes drift my way, preparing to explain to me what a kookaburra is. I beat her to the punch by making the kookaburra mating call.
Well, I thought that was what I was doing before she bursts out laughing.
“Not quite right?”
She holds her thumb and index finger an inch apart. “Close. You kinda sound like a kookaburra being strangled, but I appreciate the effort.”
Smiling, I gesture for her to sit. She does, cross-legged. Her eyes float to mine when I ask if she’d like a glass of wine.
“Please.”
After filling her glass and handing it to her, I crack open a can of soda. She freezes with her wineglass pressed against her lips to watch me take a mouthful of soda.
“What?” I ask, wondering why she’s peering at me funny.
She lowers her eyes to my can of soft drink. “Is it hard?”
“Not drinking?” When she nods, I add on, “Shockingly, no. I just get my highs in non-alcoholic ways now.”
She bats her long lashes. “Such as?”
I wave my hand over the pizza boxes; the cheesy scent is wafting up more than fond memories. When she does her cute eyeroll, I rake the back of my index finger down her cheek. “Neither are good for my heart, but what doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger.”
Assuming I’m playing, she nudges me hard enough some of her wine sloshes out of her glass. It only takes her peering into my unamused gaze for three seconds to realize I’m being forthright. With the vein in her neck thrumming, the remainder of her wine is upended onto the grass before she returns the plastic flute to the picnic basket. “I’m feeling daring today. Hand me a lemonade.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“No, I don’t,” she agrees, peering straight at me, “But I want to.”
WE SPENDthe next two hours eating, talking, and depleting half a dozen soft drink cans. We discussed everything you can imagine: my surprise when I scored the number one draft pick, how she used ballet to get over her grief, Emerick’s unexpected arrival into my family, and how she wants to drag her roommate around the Australian outback with nothing but a backpack of clothes.
The only time our conversation veers into uncomfortable territory is when my mention of the upcoming playoff schedule unveils a disastrous conflict. Her dance recital is scheduled for the same night I’ll helm my teams’ campaign to play in the grand finale.
“I’ll cancel my recital. My score won’t reflect on the national title tally, so it’s not important.”
“Maybe not on a competition level, but it is for you personally.” When Willow fails to rebut, I know I’m right. This is her first competition since she busted her knee, meaning it is as important to her as the day I strapped on my cleats for the first time after breaking my back. “You don’t have to cancel; we’ll just work around it. What time are you down to perform?”
“7:30.”
