Page 95 of Playing to Win

Alice and I pull apart, still smiling at each other. “You always did look beautiful pregnant.”

“You always said that and I always felt like crap.”

“I guess I missed that.”

“It’s good to see you, Brooks.”

“It’s good to see you too, Alice.”

I follow her along high-polished wood flooring, passing white walls filled with pictures of countryside and beaches, to a large kitchen. Cady is already perched at the farmhouse-style table.

“Richard, this is Brooks. Brooks, Richard,” Alice says.

Richard is around five ten in height and thinning around the crown. He turns from where he’s putting bacon onto four plates, wiping his hands down an apron as he does. He holds out his hand and I shake it. Firm, but not aggressive.

It turns out Richard isn’t the alpha douche I expected, ordering Alice around while he sits with his feet up in checked slippers, smoking a pipe all day. Go figure.

We eat bacon, eggs, and French toast. All cooked by Richard. It’s not the nightmare I have thought about for years. It’s…nice. Alice and I share a few glances and tell Cady and Richard a few stories of when we were kids. It’s surreal but fine.

Eventually, we get on to Cady’s drop-off day at college. We agree to all go with her. College fees are never mentioned. It was agreed a long time ago that I wanted to and would be paying those. But Richard does ask my permission to buy a few niceties to make Cady feel more at home in the dorm. I respect the guy for asking and I have no problem with it.

It’s hard to describe the weightlessness I feel as I drive back into the city. It’s like Alice, or the thought of her, has been a concrete block crushing my chest for so long, and now, everything feels easier, lighter somehow.

As I roll to a stop at a red light, my hand braced on the top of the steering wheel, I also realize for sure that what I felt, feel, for Izzy is nothing like what I have been feeling for Alice all these years. Alice was a sense of loss. Any happiness was nostalgia. If Alice is water, Izzy is fire. What I feel for Izzy is not calm, passive, past. It’s exciting, scary, hot, and so very present. It’s real, tangible, and something I want back.

Alice is happy without me. I see that. She was young when her parents told her she couldn’t be in love with me. Maybe…what if Izzy isn’t happy without me? What if she does want something different from what her parents want for her, and I was too damn scared to wait and find out?

As the light changes, I look down at my bicep and the image of Alice in Wonderland I had inked on me a lifetime ago. I make one more stop before I head home.

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