She almost laughed at his certainty, the brazen, bedrock confidence in every line of his body, shoulders, hands, hips, and thighs, until she realized he meant it. Believed it. It would be different because it was him. Because it was them. Charlie and Jamie.
“No,” she said. “I can’t do that again, give everything I have to something that doesn’t really exist. I want day-to-day, I want someone to wake up with and go to bed with, someone who’s around.”
His thumb stroked once, sure and hot, over the swell of the muscle joining her arm and shoulder. Just once. A shiver raced down her spine and she shuddered. “Truth, Charlie. Was I ever not around for you? You were with me every second of the last ten years.
She couldn’t lie to him. She should, but she couldn’t. “I looked for you, every game, on every street in every city in Europe. It’s always been you, Jamie. But we’re grownups, not dreamy teenagers. I’ve seen dozens of relationships fail under the strain of distance, time apart, separate lives. Don’t tell me you haven’t. The odds are stacked against us.”
“Fuck the odds. You’d rather quit than fail?” Coming from Jamie, it was a command. A demand. A challenge thrown down like a gauntlet onto the polished parquet floor of the Metropolitan Club, so similar to a basketball court where they’d battled out all their frustrated desire years ago. “You’re no quitter. You always play to win.”
She looked at him. “My competitive days are over. I’m a teacher and a coach now. I haven’t even been playing seriously the last couple of nights. They were just fun pickup games.”
She’d thought this was obvious, but at that his face changed like she’d slapped him. His hand dropped from her upper arm and his shoulders straightened, squared up, making him bigger, broader, more intense. “You weren’t really playing?”
In a flash she knew what she’d done. She’d betrayed their on-court truth, bringing less than her best game, and the look in his eyes cut her to the bone. “We were shooting around,” she said, hating the words even as she spoke them. “It was casual. Everything was casual,” she said again, repeating herself, stumbling over the words to explain what she’d thought was patently obvious.
He leaned toward her. “I don’t do casual,” he said, his voice tight, his eyes boring into hers. “I’ve never done casual. You didn’t, either. That’s why we light up the sky every time we’re within fifty feet of each other. It’s why the games made us better players. You and me, we’ve never been casual. But if you’re bringing me a half-assed version of who you are,” he said, gesturing between them with his right hand, coming close enough to the bare skin of her collarbones and breasts for her to feel the heat, “then I’m out.”
“Jamie, wait,” she said, but when he turned around, she couldn’t say the words. “I drove you here? How will you get home?”
He just stared at her, like he couldn’t believe the inane words coming from her mouth. She couldn’t believe them either, but heard them and winced at her own stupidity. His father, mother, and brother were here. Former classmates, friends, people who’d be happy to drive him up the Hill. “Jamie, I’m sorry,” she said.
But that wasn’t what she meant, either. He waited another beat, then turned and walked away.
*
An hour later the room was clear except for the current players, who were all sprawled in the chairs around one big table, shoes off, false eyelashes in a growing pile on the table, shooting the breeze. Charlie approached the table to congratulate them on a job well done, and got a faceful of sullen teenage girl in response. Grace wouldn’t make eye contact as she said, “Thanks, Coach.”
“Do you have a problem with me?” she asked her players.
“No, Coach,” Grace said, obediently.
“I do,” Lyssa said. “You’ve made a big mistake.”
Charlie and the rest of the table stared at her. Silent, observant Lyssa, calling her out.
“He loves you. You love him. The whole room saw the way you looked at him while he was talking. We all knew who he was really talking to,” she added. “You’re always telling us to not give up. We can go to college, get degrees, because an education lasts forever. But the thing that will last the longest, the thing that makes it all worthwhile, is love. If all those things mean you can’t have love, what’s the point?”
Charlie stared at her. It was the longest speech she’d ever heard Lyssa make, and she nailed it with a profound truth. Love was what she’d been missing, all these years. Jamie’s love.
Lyssa mistook her stunned silence for disagreement. “Everything you taught us said that even if we lost a game, we’d learn something important in trying. That the effort was worth it, no matter the outcome. Did you mean it, or not?”
Context. Context was everything. She meant it when it came to education, a career, the game. But love?
She had to find out, and she knew exactly where to do that. “No curfew tonight,” she said to her players, and watched them brighten a little. “Be smart. I’ll see you all in school on Monday.”