Taking Lead

by Dallas Redford

  In the kitchen, we kiss and nip at each other while we make breakfast together but I’m a million miles away. She has to take her breakfast to go. Along with a bottle of Evian and cold pressed juice, she’s set. She’s a yoga teacher, going from studio to studio as she gives classes in the ashtanga method all day long. I kiss her at the door and then I eat my breakfast alone. The apartment is silent. Too silent. I’m alone with my thoughts.

  I haven’t cheated. And there’s no cheating on the horizon.

  But I feel possessed.

  Before I know it, I’m in my bed, touching myself. I run my fingers across my lips and imagine that they are his caressing my face. This kind of touch shouldn’t do it for me, but it makes me feel alive, treasured. Knowing that he has this manly force, this strength that he could use against me at any moment but he’s choosing to hold back.

  Then, he’s moving his fingers down my neck and I’m remembering the kisses that he placed there and that first one under my ear that was ticklish and sweet. Can a guy be sweet with another guy? I’m sure of it now. His touch was imbued with the tenderest of emotions.

  Then, his mouth is on my nipples. That sends lust vibrating all throughout me and I yank my cock out of my boxers, gripping it as I imagine Davis’ hand around it.

  My imagination doesn’t falter where there is no experience. I keep going. Imagining him taking me into his mouth. I can remember him on my tongue but him doing it to me is heavenly. We’re sixty-nining. I can feel the thickness of his cock on my tongue as I feel the swirl of his tongue on mine. The strength of his hands as he grips my thighs, urging me deeper. The muscles of his lower back and ass as I run my hands all over him. I can’t get enough of how he feels. I want to take more of him into my mouth. I want him deeper inside of me.

  By now, I’m jerking so hard. My skin is crackling with electricity. As my breath hitches, my release arcs up and out of me, splattering my chest and leaving me shattered and dazed…

  12

  Chapter 12

  The pace at Basketball Boys Club is languid and that’s fine by me. With my mind running over time thinking about what to say to Rebecca, I can barely concentrate anyway. Eventually I pull it together because I love these boys and seeing them here every day taking a positive step in the right direction when they could be doing whatever it is that boys their ages are doing makes me super fucking happy.

  Still, I haven’t been this messed up since I got to Chicago. And to be clear, when I came to Chicago, I was messed up.

  By the time I’m taking a shower afterward, I’m thinking that I must have known this would happen. It’s not as if Chicago is off-limits to Davis. I just never thought he’d have a reason to come to the city. Now, here I was looking like a dumbass with my parents wondering why I’m unavailable to see old family friends. My dad was willing to accept me and Jordan not being friends, but I couldn’t explain my way out of Davis.

  “You gotta run?” Tyson asks.

  I’m sliding my pants on over my briefs, but I stop. “Actually, I don’t.”

  “I was trying to catch you before you got changed and shit. You want to shoot around a little?”

  “Yes,” I say. Nothing would be better than to shoot the ball some. I need to try and clear my head.

  I swap back into some shorts, a clean backup pair that I always have in my duffle. Then, I’m heading back into the warm evening with him.

  We play a fierce game of one-on-one and it’s good. All my worries, Davis, Rebecca, my parents, it all falls away. When I’m on the court, I’m one with the ball. I can’t think about anything but reacting to my fellow player. And Tyson is good. He’s aggressive and precise. He could have turned pro and at least played in Europe, but he decided to finish college. Then, he discovered non-profit work and realized it was his passion.

  He’s one of the first people I met in the city. He’s like me in many ways. The most obvious is that we both live and breathe basketball. I met him on a court in a park. We grabbed beers and talked and talked, sharing stories about growing up from little guys to men and how getting taller changed our game, what ball meant for our confidence with girls, how we both had dreams of going pro.

  I was never going to go pro, but I’m better than the average player. Basketball is one of those things where you can truly get good at it and it is all within your control. Sure, there’s talent but most of the people that play well do so because they have the patience and the tenacity to keep at it even when they’re putting up nothing but bricks. They love the game.

  Midway, we’re sweating and breathing hard when we stop to drink some water. I drink deeply and set my bottle back down. Tyson’s smiling at me.

  “What’s up with you?” I say. Another thing we share is our sense of humor. I don’t think I’ve met anyone as goofy as me.

  Well, maybe Davis.

  “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You trying to start your own little non-profit on the side?”

  “Non-profit?”

  “Delivering orgasms to the more-fortunate?”

  “What on earth?” Then, it hits me, and I crack up. “You saw me exchanging numbers, I see.”

  “Yes, I did,” he says. “I thought ‘that low-down dirty dog.’”

  “A dog? Come on now, bro.”

  “I thought you were one of the good guys. You’re trying to find you a little suga mama.”

  I start laughing. “No. It’s not like that. She asked me for my number. Besides Rebecca and I…” I let that fizzle. Normally I can tell Tyson everything. How do I get into the fact that I might be in love with a man?

  He doesn’t press the issue. He throws the ball at my chest. I catch it.

  “Just don’t fuck up my Crazy Old Lady Foundation money, man! Nah, I’m playing. You did good the other day. You ready to come on full-time bro, once that money hits?”

  “Full time?” It’s the first time he’s mentioned that it would be a full-time gig. “Fuck yeah!” I say, a smile lighting up my face.

  Doing this full-time is what I’ve been wanting. And someday down the road, we’ll grow to be even larger. By the time that happens, I’ll have my degree and much more experience. It’s crazy to dream that big but someday, Basketball Boys Club will be a national program.

  We keep playing and I beat him 36-24. We shower, singing and splashing. I comment to him how Ian’s improving, and he agrees. He talks about what it was like for him almost going pro. He thinks Ian might have what it takes. I think so, too. After showering, we dress and it’s time for home for me.

  The bubble immediately bursts.

  I know that Rebecca has something big planned for us tomorrow on our anniversary and I need to talk to her tonight. The last thing I want to do is humiliate her tomorrow because of my own shit. It’s wouldn’t be fair.

  When I exit the facility, there’s a black car there with tinted windows and I only notice it briefly as I pass it. I’m checking my phone for messages. Oddly enough, there’s a text message from Jordan which stops me in my tracks.

  This is it, I think. Time to take one for the team. I’ll buckle down and agree to show him and his dad around. Somehow, in the back of my mind, I always knew I would talk to him again.

  I open the text and it says: Hey.

  I close it again, just staring at my phone. First, I want to laugh. Then, I’m heated.

  If after all this time all you have is three letters, I really can’t be bothered. Turns out, I’m not ready to be the bigger man after all. Anger surges through me.

  Then, another thought hits me: maybe if Jordan hadn’t been such a dick the whole scene with his dad wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have gone in the house.

  Immediately after I think it, I know that’s not true.

  Still, fuck Jordan and his New York ways. I put my phone away. I barely register a vague feeling of being watched but it resolves itself when a voice calls my name. I turn around to find an unexpected guest, the reason for the car. “Get in,” she says.

 
; It’s Priscilla, hanging out of the door of the black ride.

  “Hey,” I say. I head over. Fuck, I think, as I slide in next to her. This girl is forward as fuck. I’m regretting encouraging her as we pull out and start to move down the road. She holds up her finger. She’s finishing up a call. I’m not listening because I’m watching Chicago slide by from behind the rarified windows of a car service trying to think of ways to get out of this.

  Whatever this is.

  Davis, Rebecca and now…Priscilla?

  She bumps me with her shoulder and hands over an open bottle. I glance down at the label. It says Perrier Jouet. I shrug and take a gulp from it. She pauses, a champagne flute in her hand, and gawks at me before she sets the glass back in the small cabinet. She starts to laugh quietly and takes the bottle from me.

  “Yes, Yes,” she says into the phone. “I’m due to speak with the artist tomorrow. I’ll be in touch with your people.” After another thanks, she hangs up.

  “You know, you’re my kind of guy,” she says laughing and gesturing with the bottle. “You don’t have Ebola, do you?”

  “Only the 24-hours kind.”

  She laughs. “Oh good, I can live with that.” She takes a swig off the bottle. “I quite like this. Drinking from the bottle. We can be winos together. Like proper winos.” She smiles and there really is something magical about her smile.

  We don’t get a moment to discuss what all of this is about before we pull up in front of a building with the word Feast written across two wooden barn style doors. Her driver hops out and comes around to her door. I’m already getting out on my side. “I’m a little bit hungry, do you mind?” she calls across the top of the vehicle.

  “No,” I say, unsure of why I’m even going along with this. But then again, I do know. I want to do the best for Basketball Boys Club.

  We march through a second set of doors, these are metal and embossed with the outline of a butcher knife. The interior is at once homey and luxe. Maybe barn chic? There are three broad wooden tables draped in soft white linen and small flower settings on each one. Lilac and calla lily.

  There is a set up near the front, a short stage and a microphone. A broad wraparound bar takes up the entire back wall and I can see my counterpart at work flaming a snifter. Small sparks—cinnamon, perhaps—float in the air.

  “I need a drink,” she says, “Don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I say. I follow her to a table where she plops down her phone and her purse. I can’t help myself, “What exactly is this all about?”

  She calls the server over and orders a bottle of vodka. Then, she turns to me. She says, “I just wanted to touch base with you.”

  “Touch base?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  The bartender brings over a bottle of Ketel One and a couple of rocks glasses. He pours vodka tonics for us. We take up our glasses, there’s a slight clink as we hit the glasses together.

  “So, we’re thrilled to make the contribution to Basketball Boys Club,” she says.

  Fuck yes! It’s happening. I want to jump up and down, but I say, “Okay. Is there a but? Some hang up?”

  She waves my question away.

  I realize then that is about me and her. This is when she makes me the proposition and somehow Basketball Boys Club will hang in the balance. I brace myself for it. When she looks up again, her eyes are shiny. “You know that my grandmother isn’t well.”

  I let out a low exhale. That was not at all what I thought she was going to say.

  She goes on, “Sorry. It’s just hard for me to talk about it. Grandma Ella means the world to me and she’s really all I have left in the world. She’s my family. Are you close to your family?”

  “Yes. Well, yes and no. It’s harder these days being here.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They live in Michigan.”

  She nods. “Oh, we have a house up there. Anyway, so, I’ve only ever known Grandma Ella. And besides school, I spent all my time with her. She’s been chugging on for these last few years, getting out when she can, donating where she can help. Just doing her thing. I don’t know how much longer we have and we’ve been talking about her legacy and everything.”

  “Well, the work at the basketball club can be a part of that,” I say, wondering why this conversation is happening with me and not Ty.

  “That’s what I’m hoping. I don’t know how big you and Tyson are thinking but I’m thinking of a chain of basketball clubs. I’m thinking big. Of course, I would want to name them after her.”

  “It’s not my call but I don’t think that would be a problem.”

  I sense that there she wants to say more.

  “Okay,” she says, breathing a sigh of relief. “That settles that. The other thing is that…I’m not really from here and I’ve just got back from the UK and New York. I have friends in those places, thankfully. We all know New York can be a bore unless you have friends around. The thing is, I don’t have anyone I really care to see here. Can we have dinner and discuss how we can make the basketball clubs work?”

  A proposal indeed. A dinner proposal. I’m kicking myself for thinking the worst.

  “Sure. Just tell me when,” I say. “Oh, you mean, today? Right now?”

  She nods. Laughs. “Yeah. I just a planner, a matchmaker. I like to get all my ducks in a row. We’re on a bit of an accelerated timetable, you know.”

  “Yes, of course,” I smile. “Yeah. Let’s have dinner.”

  I shoot a text to Rebecca that I’m going to be working with a friend and that I will see her later. Priscilla and I drink and dine at Feast. The whole dinner is bizarre. We discuss the basketball club, but I also feel like she’s sussing me out at times. She asks about my status and I reveal that I have a girlfriend. She doesn’t seem bothered by that fact though. That makes me feel somewhat better. I can tell she’s attracted to me, but this won’t go any further.

  Maybe she just wants sex? I can’t figure it out.

  Later, we head over to O’Reilly’s for drinks because, as it turns out, she’s a lot of fun. Karaoke follows. I don’t know why go along with an extended night out like this, except that it feels good to just hang out with someone who has no expectations of me. Being with Rebecca is fun, but there is a lot about it that feels automatic. She’s growing her yoga business and I am just another brick in this little this perfect life that includes me and her cat and downward dogs.

  Shouldn’t something like romance set you on fire?

  It strikes me that even without the imposition of Davis, I would have to break up with Rebecca. It’s harder because she’s sweet to me. She does all the right things, but I don’t know if she does them because she cares or because she thinks they are what a girlfriend should do.

  Where does that leave me? Free for Davis? If there is no Rebecca, what is there to hold me back?

  Soon I’m climbing in bed next to Rebecca. Theo’s already there. She meows in protest, but she moves out of the way and over to her pillow in the corner.

  My mind races until sleep claims me.

  13

  Chapter 13

  When I wake up in the morning, Rebecca is already gone. I check the time. I’ve slept a little later than usual. In the kitchen she’s left me a hangover cure smoothie (tastes like wheat grass) and a note to call her (smiley face included). I call her right away but she’s in class or something because she doesn’t answer. Before I put down the phone, I notice that at some point in the night I received a call from Jordan.