Offensive Rebound

by Mj Fields

  This home has yet to become one to me. Hell, I have been in it less than a week.

  It also makes me think back to his apartment. Most of his things were stacked up in boxes everywhere. I assume he’s been staying here, in the main house, a lot more than he let on.

  Sensing that I’m staring, he looks over at me. “Ice cream melted, but everything else looks fine.”

  “That’s good.”

  He sighs. “I know that was probably uncomfortable—the whole phone thing.”

  I shake my head. “It was nice to see your world pre...” I pause, pre-me on the tip of my tongue, “Stallions.”

  “Yeah, how exciting must that be?” He chuckles uncomfortably. “The highlight of my day used to be keeping Callie calm and potty training.”

  “And you miss it.”

  He shrugs then nods. “I don’t want to ruin your fantasy of the man standing before you probably being one of the all-time best basketball players in the world and is definitely the best you’ve had in bed.” He looks at me expectantly.

  “Without a doubt.” I laugh, playing along, but it’s not make-believe; it’s true. His touch is awe-inspiring.

  “When I got hurt, I thought my life was over, like I would never breathe again. Honestly, I didn’t care if I did. Then I learned about Callie, and I had to breathe for her. Didn’t take long to realize that she gave me more than the game ever did, and I love that game.”

  Falling.

  “You should go visit. I mean, how far is it to...” I pause. All I can think is Utah. I don’t even know where he lives.

  “Chance Valley, Idaho,” he finishes for me, opening a cupboard and pulling out a cutting board.

  I hit Google up on my phone. “It’s an hour flight.”

  He nods. “I know.”

  “Then go this weekend.”

  “I don’t know.” He shakes his head.

  “Two hours and—”

  “It’s hard, Court. Sucks, actually. Then you came and it’s not sucking so much.”

  Falling faster.

  “What if I don’t come back?” I must look shocked at his question because he smiles. “I have a contract.”

  “And a Nike wife.” I nod, making him smirk. Then I laugh and tell him without thinking, “I’ll go and drag your behind back.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He chuckles.

  “That’s what Nike wives do.”

  “If she throws in a blowjob, I’ll consider it.” He smirks. “Nah, I’ll go, but you don’t have to.”

  “What if I want to?”

  He looks up at me through his lashes. “Callie’s changing. Could be hard for her, you know.”

  I want to go; want to know that part of him. Everything, and I mean everything, about him is...everything.

  Again, the uncomfortable silence.

  I stand up and grab the two contracts I was studying before walking over to the counter and sitting. “What are you going to make?”

  We talk about his eating plan, which is insane. His breakfast is an omelet with cheese, ham, broccoli, and spinach every day. He drinks down a smoothie that contains more calories in one drink than I eat in a week. The Stable chef provides the players’ lunches, always including salad, and again, an astronomical amount of vegetables. Then, after he gets home, he eats his first dinner—one of two—and one of them always includes steak.

  He tells me that during off season, before Callie and then right after he signed with the Stallions, he started waking up at eight in the morning. He ate his breakfast, warmed up with stretches, core strengthening exercises, and heavy lifting. He then headed to the court where he would do inside work, jump hoops, short jumpers, and Mikan drills. Then he would move to perimeter and work on ball handling, face up moves, and shooting. It was about a three-hour routine. Then he would come home and eat, and then head to the neighborhood courts and play whoever was around. He did this five days a week, taking weekends off for rest and recovery, yet including a run, mainly to clear his head, and eat tacos.

  Regular season is different. Three games a week and lots of travel—he doesn’t love that part. Eating, sleeping, and working out, everything he trained his body to become accustomed to is now off kilter. He hates sleeping in hotels, since most of the beds are uncomfortable. He prefers to cook for himself, and not have someone who doesn’t know exactly what he needs do it. And his body needs the amount of exercise it was used to, which isn’t conducive to traveling. He plans to hit the hotel gyms as soon as the team gets to each destination to try to keep his strength training up.

  We talk about going into work on Monday, and what we both will face. We agree that our schedules won’t change, and that we won’t discuss our personal life with anyone. I agree to let him handle Brock, and he agrees that I will handle Coach. Then I suggest we discuss what happens during the day at night, over steaks, and he approves.

  I tell him that I hired James as our in-house announcer, and he gets very quiet.

  “I don’t like him,” he says after a few silent moments.

  “He seems to like you.” I smile.

  “He knows too much, Court. He knows things I don’t even want to remember.”

  “He’s my employee. No contract. He steps out of line, he’s fired.”

  “It’s gonna be a problem.”

  Christa walks out onto the patio where we sit, having finished dinner. Her hair is a mess, eyes puffy, and she looks like she could use another four hours of sleep.

  “Hungry?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “Sit down. Trae made steaks.” I give her half of mine, which is still more than I would normally eat, and then get up to get the salad.

  “I’ll give you two some girl time,” Trae says as he picks up his empty plate and walks into the house.

  We sit on the patio, not talking. Then she finally looks at me and says, “The condom broke.”

  Oh, shit, is my first thought, but I know now is the worst time to freak out. She needs me to help her put this in perspective.

  “Aren’t you on the pill or the shot?”

  “No,” she snaps. “I had no reason to be.”

  “Okay, okay, we’ll figure it out. Get you the morning after pill or something.”

  “No, I won’t take that pill,” she says, taking a bite of her steak while shaking her head. “Plus, it’s too late.”

  “Is that why Parker is upset?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so. Not like it matters.” She shrugs. “We both got what we wanted. Not like we’ll be getting married, and not like I’d want to, anyway. He’s borderline mute.”

  I laugh then cover my mouth, knowing she’s upset and probably doesn’t think it’s very funny right now.

  Then she laughs, and all is right in the world.

  ***

  WHEN I COME OUT OF my bathroom to get in bed, Trae is sitting on the end of it.

  “I need to tell you why I don’t like James.”

  “He told me about you killing the story.”

  He nods. “Everything he said about us was twisted. But so were we.”

  I feel a knot form in my stomach, nervous about what he will reveal.

  “Brock and I got stuck rooming together in college. Two totally different guys. He came from something; I came from...well, not a damn thing. I had a scholarship; he didn’t.”

  I sit on the bed and pull the covers up to my chin.

  He turns and looks at me. “First weekend, he dragged me to a party. I saw a girl; he encouraged me to go after her. I did. Made a date for the next night. Was pretty happy. We went out a couple times, and he rode me about not fucking her. I told him I wasn’t interested in just fucking her.”

  “That’s good. Your mom would be proud,” I say, trying to ease the guilt he seems to carry.

  “Couple weeks went by, I ended up sleeping with her. Was on top of the fucking world.” He shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

  “Was she your first?”

  He rolls his eyes again. “
Yeah. I mean, my mom had my ass terrified growing up that I may end up like my dad.”

  “She said that?” I ask, sitting forward.

  “Not exactly. I mean, she implied it like all parents do.” He shrugs then continues, “The next week, Brock came home from a party I didn’t go to because I took the girl out instead. He tosses a flower and a hair comb on the foot of my bed and says, they’re a dime a dozen. Don’t waste your time or money on hos.”

  “Was it her hair comb?” I ask, knowing damn well it was.

  He nods. “Yeah.”

  “So, she went to the party after she left you?” I ask, and he nods. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Nah, don’t be. She was nothing really. Nothing compared to you, anyway.” He looks down.

  “Well, same back at ya.”

  He smiles slightly, looking back up.

  “Trae, none of it matters. I mean, we had an immediate attraction, and I can be honest and say, aside from Christa, I have never felt like someone’s ever had my back the way I feel you do.”

  He blows out a long-held breath.

  I lean forward and ask, “Was it Callie’s mom?”

  He shakes his head then continues his story, “I took my frustration out the way I do—on the court. I got better, stronger, more precise, and I was the best shooting guard Kentucky ever had.”

  I smile. “Healthy alternative.”

  “That fucker still rode me.” He stands up. “Still treated me like I was shit on his shoes.” He starts to pace. “Then, one night one of the girls he was trying to get with was looking at me, and I took her back and fucked her.” He shrugs. “We dated, fucked, hung out, and then, when things got busy, she got needy. I didn’t even really like her, but was trying to do the right thing. I was honest and told her ball came first. I was on a scholarship and wouldn’t fuck that up. Opted out of a party or two, and she hooked up with Brock.” He looks at me, expecting a reaction, but I knew things like that went on.

  “You do know I went to college, right?”

  He nods.

  “So this player thing you had going on, I’ve seen it.”

  “Were you...?” he asks.

  I smile and roll my eyes.

  His jaw tenses as he balls up his fists. “Someone hurt you?”

  “No, Trae.” I laugh.

  He looks deep into my eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I was a total nerd,” I admit. “Books before boys.”

  He smiles. “Good.” Then he takes a step forward like he’s going to get in bed with me, kisses me senseless, and then stops.

  Dammit.

  “This thing between Brock and I kept going on and became a game. Only, I wasn’t a full-time player. But it made him respect me. That and the fact that, on the court, nothing else mattered but the win. He stepped up his game, we became friends, and made the whole bros before hos pact.”

  I nod, encouraging him to go on.

  “A friend of James’s fucked Brock beginning of our senior year. She got knocked up. She seriously thought he’d be with her full-time.

  “She went to a party one night; he was with someone else. She came back to the room, and I opened the door to a fucking loon who tore apart his bedroom to get a fucking gift she had given him. A pair of sneakers of all things. I tried to calm her down, and she told me that he had told her that, if she got an abortion, they could be together, that they could have kids someday. After she did what he asked, he did that shit to her.”

  He cheated on me, and that was unforgivable, but this makes me almost physically sick. I can’t believe I let someone like that put their hands on me.

  “We fell asleep together that night. I didn’t fuck her; I consoled her. And when he came back to the room with another girl, he flipped shit. We got into a fight, and they both left. The next day, the chick he was trying to get with found me and told me she thought I was honorable. Those words meant something to me. They meant something because that’s what I wanted to be—a good man, and not like him, or my old man, or who I was becoming.”

  He pauses, runs his hand over his head, and says, “I ended up fucking her. She ended up pregnant.”

  “Callie’s mom?”

  He nods.

  “Trae?”

  He looks at me.

  “You gotta stop telling me things like this because it’s going to make April harder.” He opens his mouth to say something, but I shake my head. “Come to bed?”

  “Yeah.”

  As he climbs in, I kiss him. I kiss him, and he holds me.

  Falling so hard.

  ***

  I WAKE UP TO A cup of coffee and a kiss. Then he starts walking backward, hands up like I may attack him.

  “What are you doing?” I giggle.

  “You’re not a morning person,” he whispers.

  “I am this morning.”

  He stops and puts his hands on the doorjamb, smiling.

  I hold up my cup and say, “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  I drink my coffee and smile. Our marriage has been a partnership in the way I described I wanted, and our sex life has been his call.

  We agreed that, at the end of the season, he would leave, and I would stay, and that we would always remain friends. However, I am falling in love with him, and I don’t want to stop.

  My first love isn’t so different than the majority of the population. I won’t try to shield my heart from a man like him, one who seems to have tried to guard his own, and one who has protected me since the first time we met.

  What makes the inevitable heartbreak feel manageable is that I know when it will end. It must, for him, for her, and for me. Therefore, I am going to just do it. Because doing it—the trusting, the friendship, the sex—is so good that it can never be bad.

  ***

  ON THURSDAY, I AM SITTING at my desk, looking out the window at the bay. The week has flown by, yet I want it to slow down.

  The stress here with secretly trying to find a way to get rid of Coach D, who is even more troublesome to me than Brock, is driving me insane. Regardless, I have to act like nothing's wrong, so I avoid the team completely.

  Trae...Well, he’s a dream, literally and figuratively. When we sleep, our consciousness is suspended. During sleep, we dream, and a dream is images and stories that our minds create during sleep.

  When I’m not with him, I am aware of everything that goes on and hypersensitive to every little thing. Emails from coach, vendors backing out of the opening day happenings, James and Christa walking into my office because they are at odds about something and I must parent them. It’s ridiculous that I have to send them to separate corners or, in this case, to their separate offices, focusing them on tasks that don’t involve one another. Yet, somehow, they always end up back at odds.

  I watched it once. They seek each other’s advice when, in fact, they are not really seeking. No, they are rubbing their accomplishments in each other’s faces, and then running to me for final approval. It’s maddening, but I now have three people I know who have my back. More importantly, the success of The Stable and the Stallions is all our common objective.

  When things get to be too much, I look at the picture on the wall, and Dad is here. When it’s really overwhelming, I look at my finger, and Trae is here, both figuratively and literally. They are my dream team.

  At home, we are not owner and player; we are partners. Well, sort of. He has cooked all week. Well, he has cooked since I moved in actually, and I...I pay a cleaner.

  It works because, at night, between his first and second dinner, we—Trae, Christa, and I—do things like canoeing, kayaking, shopping for groceries, and taking a ride around the lake in the Spyder, which I am definitely keeping for now and going to learn to drive. And when he leaves, it’s his divorce present.

  After his second dinner and Christa goes to bed, we fuck. We fuck, we make love, we talk, and we kiss, and it is evident that I am no longer falling.

  I have fallen.


  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  In My Arms

  TRAE

  SHE SPENDS MUCH OF THE night in my arms, making these little sounds that echo contentment, and in those moments, I find it, too.

  When she sleeps, she moves a lot. I don’t like that she moves. I like when she’s still because it’s almost like time is standing still. As much as I love my little girl, I want as much of this woman as I can get. Therefore, when she moves, I hold her tighter until she is eventually still again, and it appears that so is time.

  I wake up before her, finding her not tight in my arms, but lying on her stomach, facing me, hair fanned out on the bed, and knee touching mine.

  Just like every morning I have awoken in her bed, I watch her sleep. But there is no contentment in those morning hours. Those moments, I want to fuck her, mark her body with my mouth, tie her up, and keep her away from everyone who will distort her view of me, of us, of our perfect season, of our handless watches.

  I have kept them from her. I have kept everything from her. I have kept the way the team is split in half, and the way Coach D pushes and provokes me while placating Brock.

  I know why he’s doing it. The son of a bitch knows that, if he holds on to Brock, he has something. And after our near brawl in his office Monday morning, I know he is aware his time here is coming to an end.

  I may have actually told him that, followed by telling Brock that, if he looks at my wife, I will kill him with my bare hands. And if he goes near her, I will make it slow and painful.

  Four days, four perfect days, and I am already fucking shit up. I can’t help it. She makes me crazy. Her body, her strength, her trust in me, the way she doesn’t look at her fucking watch anymore. Hell, she barely wears it now.

  I love watching her when I thrust deeply inside of her. The way her mouth opens, and she can’t seem to get a breath in but doesn’t care. The way her hips circle slowly as she tries to get comfortable with me that deep inside her. The noises she makes when I pull out of her hot, tight, wet cunt just a bit so she can catch her breath, and the way she looks when she wants me to thrust inside her again.