Ding.
“Already, eh?” I said aloud through a snicker. I shouldn’t have, but I looked at my phone while driving.
Ricky:The tests came back. I’ve been diagnosed with CTE. It’s a kind of brain injury that causes aggression. I’m not making excuses but the doctors think that’s what’s causing my outbursts. If you think about it, I really wasn’t in control. It was the brain injury that did everything, not me. They’re giving me some meds and I need to take it easy for awhile but now that I know, I think things will be better.
Ricky:So please Alex. Come back to me. We can do this, I know we can.
I turned off the screen and dropped the phone into the passenger seat. Bile rose up my throat and my palms became sweaty as I gripped the steering wheel. “Never,” I said out loud to myself. “Fuckingnever.”
Of that I was sure. But Ricky always hated hearing “no” for an answer.
Chapter Seven
Rome
WEWONTHElast games of our series with the Brawlers. Hurray, but I couldn’t put Alex out of my mind after he left my house. I laid awake, staring at the ceiling, as I replayed the moment he shifted to press himself into me on the couch. He had fallen asleep by then and I kept a spare eye on him. Then, he unexpectedly rolled, threw his hand across my chest, and nuzzled his face into the junction of my arm and chest as if it were his favorite pillow. Boy, was I glad I had the blanket pulled over us.
And then that kiss. I wanted so, so much more but held back. I had to. I didn’t trust myself if I allowed my body to take what it wanted.Ihad to be in control. Mind over body.
He texted me congratulations after the last game and, once again, I broke my own protocol by texting back before bedtime. I’m glad I did, since we had a daylong break before the next game in Canada on the seventh. I promised I’d go on a shoot with him in the morning and we could have breakfast together before my flight to Ottawa in the evening. Then it was a painstaking nine days of travel and games. Ottawa, Annapolis, Allentown, then finally back home. I wanted—Ineeded—to squeeze in as much time with Alex as I could.
Alex had been commissioned to take photos of the recently rebuilt portions of the Charles River Bike Path. In the wee hours of the summer morning, I accompanied him on a long walk down the trail on the Cambridge side. I saw the world through his lens for three hours. His pace always slowed when his eye caught something. He’d cock his head in a slight way, eyes narrowing. An artist’s assessment of something with potential, I imagined. He carried a backpack with him, sets of lenses inside, an extra camera, and enough batteries to power an electric vehicle. Ten minutes in, I demanded he let me carry it for him. Thankfully, the hour was early enough that we didn’t pass by a lot of people and those who were on the trail were either running or biking. I knew I wouldn’t be recognized.
We got back to Alex’s place around ten in the morning, both of us starved and thirsty. He lived in an apartment building in North Cambridge, a stone’s throw from Davis Square. He punched in a code to get into the building. Up on the third and top floor of the building, Alex led us down a carpeted hallway and to a corner unit, 312. I itched to urge him forward, to hurry up and unlock the door so I could peek into his life. Twice now he had seen my place and it was unfair I had yet to see his.
Finally, he pushed inside. Bright light filtering down a hallway hit me first. A washer and dryer to my left, coat closet to my right. A short hallway with wood floor stretched before me. Alex led us down that where the apartment opened up to lofted ceilings, windows doubling in height with a slider leading out to a balcony. I walked up to those windows and snickered—he had a view of a local, intramural baseball diamond. Turning back around, I saw a set of stairs leading up to a lofted second floor, the hint of a bed corner just barely in sight. Downstairs, a couch took up most of the living space with a computer desk against the wall. Beneath the lofted overhang was his kitchen, a modest space of stainless steel appliances.
“Sheesh, you look like the Terminator,” Alex said as he set his backpack down beside his computer desk.
I blinked and cleared my throat. “Sorry. Just taking it in.”
“‘It’?” Alex questioned.
I gestured vaguely to the apartment. “Your space.” Innumerable pictures in frames covered every surface and most of the walls. Tasteful black-and-whites. Gorgeous portraits. Beautiful candids of sacred moments. A few frames were noticeably empty. I pointed to the loft. “Bedroom?”
He extracted his camera from the bag and plugged it into the computer. “Yes, but it’s messy. No admission today, slugger.”
His face flinched after he finished speaking. A nickname for me? I laughed to push the awkwardness out of the room. “Hey, wouldn’t dream of it. Could I get a glass of water?”
Alex cursed and set his camera down. “Shit, sorry. Bad host.” He walked to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water and then lobbed it at me. “Okay. I promised you breakfast. You pro athletes like as much protein as possible, right?”
I took a seat on a stool at the kitchen peninsula as Alex stood at the center of the room with his hands on his hips. He looked around as if he had never been in a kitchen before that moment.
“I’ll eat whatever you rustle up. I am a human garbage disposal.”
Alex exhaled through his nostrils and smiled. “Good. Because my culinary skills are less than ideal. But,” he said as he pulled open the fridge again, “Icanmake eggs. Scrambled?”
“Sounds perfect.”
A stack of leatherbound photo albums lie on the counter pressed against the wall. I helped myself to browsing as Alex pulled a dozen eggs from the fridge and got to work. I was fairly certain he didn’t know how to operate the burners on his stovetop. The expression of surprise on his face when he turned one of the nobs, waiting for theclick-click-clickbefore ignition,was the dead giveaway. Despite his lack of skill in the kitchen, I didn’t see mounds of empty takeout containers, so at least he stayed tidy.
We made small talk during breakfast. Like last time, I quickly said a blessing and crossed myself and tried to ignore Alex’s curious stare. A heaping pile of scrambled eggs and buttered toast only partially filled my belly, but I still complimented him on his efforts and would pick something up on the way home. I had an eye on the time. I had a few things to finish before our nine-day absence from the area. Hiroshi’s girls would be very upset with me if I didn’t squeeze in a game of Pool Toss before leaving.
Alex deftly won the argument of him doing the dishes instead of me. I browsed through another album of his while waiting at the peninsula. When he finished, he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge for each of us, came out of the kitchen, and sat on the stool directly next to me. He twisted the top of his bottle and took a swig like it was beer. My eyes tracked his lips, the way he licked them when he finished his sip. They glistened for a moment before drying. I wanted to make them wet again. Wanted to press my body against his. Feel him move beneath me.
“Can we talk?” Alex asked.
Cold, frigid, freezing douse of water.
