by Leslie North
When Chase passed Henry the ball, he sat on it. His exhales still emerged in fast vapor clouds. “If Marcus were here, you’d tell him.”
“Get off. I wouldn’t.”
This had always been a sore spot for Henry. Marcus and Chase went pro, had more in common, saw each other more, had the funds to travel and live the same lifestyle. Henry had stayed close to Sol and Irma, to the gym that had brought them together, the martyr of the group. No education. Just his fists and a mild level of success on the fight circuit. Each one had their righteousness about something, but Chase never once considered Henry anything but his equal. Now he had the chance to prove it.
Chase lay on the concrete court, knees up, his hoodie bunched at his neck like a pillow. Typical Pittsburgh sky in winter: muted blue, no clouds, cold as death.
“It’s a woman.”
“Knew it. Which Hollywood girl this week?”
“None of them. This girl’s completely different. She’s Irma, man.”
“Ain’t no one Irma.”
“This girl…she’s close. She’s got nothing. As far as I can tell, she comes from nothing.”
“Gotta watch out for those, man. See you and your ninety mil coming a mile away.”
“Thing is, she doesn’t care. We had an arrangement. Ten grand for a favor. I put the money in an envelope on the table. It’s still there next to coupons she clipped out of the paper for diapers to take to the women’s shelter. I wrote a note on the envelope last night—why haven’t you taken this? This morning, she had written back—favor isn’t finished. Never once has she apologized for who she is. It’s fucking intoxicating.”
“Just don’t let her intoxicate your ass out of the game.”
They talked about the next game against Miami, Marcus’s shoulder injury, the city putting eminent domain pressure on the very block they occupied. The time was good—he rarely took it with Henry anymore—but Chase’s blood had cooled and he needed to head home.
A standing shadow eclipsed the dusky sky.
Henry and Chase glanced back at the same time.
Willow stood in medical scrubs and a sweater, her arms wrapped around her body in the chill. His gaze ascended to her lips. Lips he had claimed. Lips that were your favorite candy that would haunt your system all day if consumed too much.
Chase’s heart staggered out of rhythm.
“They told me I would find you out here.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but Henry beat him to it. With more energy than Chase had squeezed out of him the whole game, Henry bounded to his feet and scooped Willow up into a full-body hug.
“Hey you. Been too long. Is it free clinic day?”
“Third Thursday of every month.”
Had Chase not already been on the ground, his body would have plummeted on mental impact. That she was here—no doubt the reason she gave him her blessing to head to Sol’s gym unmonitored, that she was comfortable with Henry in a way Chase had yet to feel her against him, that she continued to surprise him with infinite layers of knowing everyone and being everything to everyone left him without words.
“Wil, I’d like you to meet my good friend, Chase.”
Chase felt Willow’s smile all the way to his toes. Secret. Conspiratorial. Somehow more than what she had just given freely to Henry. The gesture edged him back from the toxin that had settled in his chest—whatever the fuck it was—irritation, protectiveness. Jealousy.
Shit.
“We’ve met, silly,” she said to Henry.
Henry’s face pinched. “Right. Bolt. Sorry. So how long are you here?”
“Just finished up. Girls aren’t here today, so I’m headed home.”
The word home—his home—dropped so effortlessly from her lips, did crazy things to his gut. Jesus, if this encounter was a three-count tap out, he’d already be on two. He had yet to determine exactly when Willow had transitioned in his thoughts from pain-in-the-ass to jump-her-ass, but he guessed it was right about the time she wore a skin-tight shirt with a crawfish on her right breast and wiggled up on his counter to let him inside her menagerie world for the umpteenth time. Father Arnaud was backfiring. And Willow occupied his mind because she occupied his place. Simple as that. If he wasn’t careful, Lawd yeah, he’d be the cray one.
Henry tried to bait her with a dinner offer—some place that was, supposedly, her favorite fusion restaurant.
“Thanks, anyway. I have an important commitment.” Her gaze trickled to Chase. “Next time.”
She hugged Henry, wrapped her sweater tighter around herself and headed back inside the gymnasium. The two childhood friends looked after her until she had disappeared.
Henry chest-passed the ball. Hard. “Now, that, my friend, is an Irma.”
Willow had to back out of being bet monitor.
She lay on Estelle’s ugly couch, dressed as a scrum—messy bun hair, un-showered, caramel popcorn between her molars. Estelle’s rabbit-eared television picked up the Alloys-Heat game but the reception looked like it had been flown in on a sea pelican with a transmitter strapped to its back. At times, Tarek looked like a character out of Monsters, Inc.—stretched tall, animated eyes. Chase? Still looked perfect. Even through the blips.
Willow had to back out of bet monitor.
She smeared Bludgeoned Hearts polish on her toenails—a saucy, deep-red nod to all the single women out there with unattainable Chase Holbrooks in their lives—and ear-tested the excuses she would tell him.
“My life is just too crazy to babysit an athlete.”
“It isn’t you. It’s me.”
Ugh. Like she hadn’t heard that odious line before.
“Our lifestyles are incompatible. But I know an octogenarian who would get all up in your wealth.”
“Why don’t you just try the truth?” Estelle stomped into the room and plopped unceremoniously into her rainbow afghan-covered recliner.
“All right.” Willow straightened her spine and summoned something that would knock Estelle for a loop so she would stop butting in. “As much as I loved your erection pressed against my thigh and your examination of my tonsils that rivaled my oral surgeon, a man doesn’t change. Especially if he’s wearing leopard-patterned Magnum boxer briefs.”
Estelle barely flinched. This was the woman who had a torrid affair with Liam Neeson’s body double. “Better.”
Willow smiled. Her life would spin out of control without Estelle’s stable, sourpuss presence. The woman had been in her life since forever. She had taught her the beauty of candor and friendship and service to others. Which was why Willow had stopped to visit Estelle’s landlord on her way over and paid two months of back rent. The only thing Willow could afford to eat now was her fingernails, and there was no way she would invade Chase’s pantry. Thus, soup at Estelle’s for dinner.
“Men are seasons in your life, Willow. Some are summer—hot and sweaty, seemingly endless nights. Some are the excitement and newness of spring or the fleeting, elusive nature of fall. And then there are winters.”
“Cold and detached?”
“In Pittsburgh? Unwavering. Lasting.”
“Your point?”
“It’s okay to enjoy the summer every now and then.”
“Like your Irishman?”
Estelle flashed what few teeth she could still claim.
“I want all seasons. I want what Mom and Dad have.”
Estelle’s stare grew weary, nothing at all to do with the abnormally high turnover rate on the part of the Alloys’ offense. “Ah, yes. As rare as your underwear player missing a free-throw.”
Willow smiled. Estelle’s mind often failed on all but the essentials.
“I’ll let you in on a secret. They, too, had their seasons.”
The cheese puffs bloated in Willow’s stomach. She analyzed this news in her mind. Apart from the rare argument of Dad not entirely standing up to his family regarding Mom’s wishes, they were iconic, granite, flirty summer and stable winters and everything in between.
“Estelle...what aren’t you telling me?” Cheese powder caked her throat dry, lodging scud around her words.
“Your mother showed up on my doorstep not long after you were born, four boys and a baby in-tow. Said she was done, that they had lost who they had been and couldn’t find their way back.”
“What happened?”
“Two days later, they found it again. What they have is reality, child. Takes work. If you set expectations too high, reality never stands a chance. Hopefulness is good for a while, but it’s a lonely place to live out your life.”
Estelle had remained single her entire life. Too brazen for a convent, she had curled up in a fantasy world where Irishman left his wife. He never did.
Willow’s cell phone rang. Dylan’s photo filled the screen. She hesitated to answer, to leave Estelle adrift on a raft of sad memories, but the older woman had already rowed to shore, hollering at the game.
“Ref needs to get a wife so he’ll stop screwing us.”
Willow bit back a grin and answered the phone.
“You see that bad call on my boy?” said Dylan.
She hadn’t. “I know, right?”
“Make any headway on that game? Mike is stoked. Between you and me, he could really use it right now. Got some bad news yesterday.”
Willow didn’t know if this was code for Dylan getting his news or if there were truly two young men in this world who had just been unfairly screwed out of long, fulfilling lives.
“That sucks, Dylan.” For Mike. For you. She needed something to fill the quiet, vampire-ish void that sucked all the life out of the conversation. “I’m looking at the Knicks game coming up.”
“Are you serious?” The news kick-started his voice. “I can’t wait to tell Mike.”
“Let’s keep it on the down-low, ’kay? Just until things are solid.”
“I got ya. Hey, I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Squirt. Tow a straight line. Do everything your doctors tell you so we can make this happen, yeah?”
“You got it. Tell your boy Holbrook to penetrate more when his threes are missing. It’s like he’s window-shopping out there past the arc.”
Her boy. Right. “I’ll pass it along.”
“Love,” said Dylan.
“Love.”
Willow hung up the call and thought about the envelope on Chase’s dining room table. It was past time to refocus. Finish the bet. Take the money for Dylan. Guard her heart.
She had plans to make, nursing school to finish, restaurants to open, none of which included a summer man in winter.
Near midnight, Walt called Willow to let her know the floor team had flipped from ice to wood in record time. He would wait near the delivery bays to let her in. She asked about his bingo woman. He informed her she had moved on to another guy. Turns out, even women came in seasons.
Willow herself was most likely fall: fleeting, drifting, ever-changing.
She packed up two servings of her homemade chicken noodle soup and toasted cheese floats she had made for Estelle, grabbed her athletic bag, and headed to the arena. Her gaze lingered on Chase’s note affixed to her dash. She should have trashed it, but she liked the wallop of her stomach when it caught her eye, a little like the g-forces on a rollercoaster.
At the arena, she ate soup with Walt, explained to him about the seasons when placating words failed to help—still unsure if she bought the theory—then changed and got to work. She had been thinking about a new routine for days, one that would keep the audience guessing which Alloys player she imitated. Tarek was easy—his signature move after a particularly sweet goal was legendary. Wilcox was the juke master, nearly giving cameramen looking for close-ups whiplash in the process. Booth had a release that looked more like the pointed hands of a diver intent on sailing off a cliff. But Chase? His angle had stumped her for days. He was nothing if not straightforward, and the thought of slipping Bolt into a pair of Magnums was too on-the-nose. She was pretty sure the brand didn’t come in tent size, and in contrast to Estelle’s commentary, Chase was so much more than an underwear guy.
Two hours later, she had failed to have an epiphany. She decided a long, cool shower and some sleep would clear her mind. Her best Bolt ideas came in transitional moments when she wasn’t really thinking about her routine at all. She had just packed her bag when a familiar voice cut the stark, sterile hum of the vacant arena.
“Forty-six.”
Chase’s voice wrapped around her. Though her body was spent, the rich tenor of his declaration was an energy shot injected straight to her heart.
He stood at a distance, half a court, maybe more.
She knew the point tally, of course. Had watched the game until the final buzzer. Forty-six was the number she had predicted when she slipped from under him the previous night. The team charter would have just landed. He wouldn’t have even had time to go home.
He had come straight to her.
She didn’t know what to say to him anymore—there was such a chasm between intent and want—so she simply repeated his accomplishment.
“Forty-six.”
He dropped his duffle on the Alloy’s center logo and half-walked, half-jogged to her. With each clip, he moved faster, his eyes layered with greater intent. By the time he was within arm’s reach, she knew what would happen.
10
Chase’s long fingers threaded through her messy hair. He dipped his head as if a powerful thirst had driven him to a well-spring and he fully intended to drink her in. His lips captured hers, no pretense, no excuse, no hesitation.
And no tongue.
The kiss was as chaste as it was all-consuming.
He released her. She blinked back her surprise, not at the ambush but at being abandoned in the aftermath of a scorched libido.
“What was that for?”
“I just had the best string of games in my career. I owe it all to you.”
It was absurd, really. The notion of him thanking her. For what? For her bet-monitoring aptitude? For the meals she left in his oven to fuel his quest for offensive greatness? For stopping him from what was sure to be the biggest sexual regret of his life? It wasn’t as if she had banked all those shots.
“You’re welcome.” Her words hung suspended somewhere between statement and question.
“I am so stoked. And starving. Let’s grab a bite.”
“At this hour?”
“There has to be something around. I’ll eat anything.”
“Anything?”
Her first thought was hazelnut chocolate-stuffed crepes served on her bare abdomen. Her second thought: Alejandro.
She had left the innuendo behind. Mostly. Clearly, he was jet-lagged.
“Anything that doesn’t lose me a bet, warden.”
His smile disarmed her. God, he was a charmer. This level of sexy annihilation was the very thing that had left a minefield of broken hearts in his wake. So now she was warden. She could live with that. So long as it kept the bet in place and their lips where they belonged—wrapped around the sarcasm they exchanged so well.
Anything more than that and she was sure to be his next casualty.
“Head in the Flautas.”
Chase read the name on the side of the guacamole-green food truck parked near the all-night bars. Beneath the letters, a baby sporting a sombrero rode a street taco like a go-kart. His stomach growled.
“You said anything,” Willow reminded him.
“No, yeah. It’s great.”
“Best tacos in the universe.”
“Quite a claim coming from the head of the Gordon Ramsay fan club.”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Never.”
She rolled her eyes and bounded over to the order window.
This was good. This was what they did best—the banter, the friendship—not the tongue jockeying that drove him to distraction. The kiss had been, well, fuck. He hadn’t meant for it to happen. He was just so fuc
king grateful. She was the secret ingredient behind his streak. Her positivity. Her magnetism. Something. That meant everything—absolutely everything—had to remain status quo, no matter how much he was tempted to peel back layers that had nothing to do with her selfless personality and everything to do with her tight, compact, thoroughly animated body.
“Willow!” A middle-aged Hispanic man with a horseshoe moustache set down his pen and ticket book and made his way to the truck’s door. He bounded out onto the dark street, smooched Willow on both cheeks, and dropped a line of rapid-fire Spanish that Chase was certain not even Sol’s Puerto Rican wife could have deciphered.
“Alejandro, meet Chase.” Willow held the man’s hand and led him to the order window.
“Nice to meet you, sir.” Chase gripped Alejandro’s offered hand.
“Di Chase? Aya, big fan. Huge.”
“Thank you,” said Chase. “Willow is a big fan of your food, I hear.”
“Best ambassador in di city, this one.” Alejandro squeezed Willow in a bear hug. “What can I get you, mi amor?”
“The usual. Make it two.”
Chase loved that she tried to pay. How long had it been since that happened? He pushed her hand aside and gave Alejandro a fifty, dropping the change into the tip jar.
“The usual” turned out to be three mini street tacos—one shrimp, one chicken, one brisket. Nothing but the freshest ingredients, stuffed to the brim, messy as shit. One bite and Chase was sold.
They settled side-by-side on a concrete picnic table nearby, a gateway to a larger city park beyond but close enough to the street to be well-lit. It was below freezing, probably mid-twenties, and he was eating tacos out of a truck in the middle of a cold March night in Pittsburgh. Icicles on his ears were a distinct possibility, but he didn’t care. He struggled to remember better food or company.
“How did you find this place?”
