Sparks the Matchmaker

CHAPTER 24

Again, Ollie stuck his nose into a textbook to pass the morning. Just like when he was with Anne, his female situation had proven better for his study habits than for romance, which frustrated him. His Saturday was dragging on and he still had half a dozen hours to go before his evening shift.

Greg turned out to be even worse than before. And with so much of his mind preoccupied with the ins and outs of his love life, Ollie regularly found himself with his guard down. The night before had spooked him into being extra nervous about being attacked, but he couldn’t find a mental balance between his love life and his own physical wellbeing. Every dull moment in Greg’s apartment made Ollie’s mind shift to Joy, Lynn, and periodically to Anne. But any sudden movement or loud noise would snap him out of his trance to realize he’d let his guard down. In the end he was frazzled by the back and forth.

Then it happened.

Ollie had gone into the kitchen to help Greg choose something to eat. While shifting cans around in the cupboard to look at the different labels, one slipped out of his hand, bounced off the counter and rolled across the floor. Before he even bothered to bend down to pick it up, Greg finally fulfilled Sparks’ prediction. He slugged him in the back of the head.

Glad that the punch only staggered him and didn’t send him face down on the floor like he’d experienced on the ball field, Ollie cupped his right hand onto the throbbing spot on the back of his head and bolted toward the front door. Greg was right behind him, still swinging his lunchbox-sized fists, but clumsily missing and stumbling along the way. Halfway through the process of opening the front door, Greg caught up to him and stumbled into his back, sandwiching Ollie between his barrel chest and the edge of the door.

Both men flopped onto the ground, Ollie barely squeezing just outside the door, Greg falling backward into the apartment. Ollie was quick to get back to his feet, sprinting twenty feet toward freedom before Greg had a chance to sit up.

“Yeah, you’d better run, coward! Don’t come back!” Greg yelled, kicking the door shut to punctuate his threat.

Ollie stood frozen, staring at Greg’s front door. His brain had been jolted out of deep introspection, out of daydreaming about girls, into impulsive survival instincts. He was stunned.

The worst part of all was that there was no reason to think the throbbing bump on the back of his head would be the only one he would ever receive. Next time could be even worse. Is this really worth it?

He walked gingerly past Greg’s nemesis— the swing set— and sat on the curb, defeated. There was only one person he wanted at that moment, but she wasn’t close by tonight.

After watching lots of cars speed by, and eventually deciding the night was too cold to sit there any longer, Ollie made his way back to Greg’s apartment. It had been less than ten minutes since Mount St. Greg had erupted, but after peeking through the living room window he could see that Greg was sitting as peacefully as ever at his table. He was shoveling ravioli into his mouth.

That was Ollie’s cue to split: Greg was back to normal. His shift would be over before Greg’s cooling down time would expire, and he’d already given him his meds. Falling asleep was the only thing left on the to-do list, and Greg could practically manage that standing up.

***

Conversing silently once again with the clock in the orange glow of his space heater, Ollie couldn’t help thinking about Lynn. Joy popped in and out of his thoughts too, but Lynn just had something about her he couldn’t shake from his mind. He felt a twinge of guilt when he realized he looked forward to seeing Lynn again more than he did Joy. Uh oh. What’s Sparks going to think? The guilt he felt was mostly because he still felt like he owed it to Sparks to follow his plan. They had made an agreement. Sparks isn’t here, though. Neither is Joy, for that matter.

It wasn’t like he’d be cheating on Joy if he spent time with someone else. They weren’t exclusive or anything. They hadn’t even kissed yet. Plus she had the gall to leave town without telling him beforehand— and with Scott, nonetheless. That alone meant he had the right and the freedom to spend time wherever and with whomever he wanted. Joy wasn’t likely to be home for at least another day, and he wasn’t going to sit around all day with a textbook again, wishing he had something better to do. Tomorrow. I’m doing what I want to do.

***

Ollie spent the entire morning and into the early afternoon cowering from his decision, but once he mustered up the courage, he drove to Lynn’s place. By the time he reached her doorstep he was so full of bravado that he knocked loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear.

“Hey! What a fun surprise,” Lynn said, sharing her bright smile with him like she always did.

“I was just wondering if you wanted to watch a ball game with me,” Ollie said. “Or something else. It doesn’t have to be a ball game if you don’t want. It could be a movie or—“

“You know it. When?”

“Well, kinda right now.”

“Well, I… hold on a sec.”

Lynn bounced back into her apartment, leaving Ollie solo on her doorstep. It wasn’t until then that he realized just how crowded her place was. Some sort of party was going on inside.

“Let’s do this,” Lynn said, sliding her right arm into a puffy sky blue winter coat.

“You sure? I mean, seems like you’re kind of in the middle of something.”

“Eh, none of them are people I won’t see again.” She started walking briskly toward Ollie’s car. “Besides, this game is way more important than any of them. Who’s playing again?”

Ollie stutter-stepped to get ahead of her in time to reach the passenger door before she could. Then he ran around and jumped into the driver’s seat before answering her. “A red team and a blue team.”

“Sounds good to me. Purple is one of my favorite colors.”

“Purple?”

“Yeah. Purple. That’s what you get when you mix red and blue. Purple.”

“You can’t root for purple, though. You have to pick a side.”

“No, I don’t. I can root for whomever I want. That’s the great thing about this country… and its pastime too. Freedom to root for purple if you want to.” Lynn smiled that amazing smile. Even when she was in midsentence it never left her face. “Who you rootin’ for?”

“Red Sox. I just hate the Yankees.”

“So… you’re not really rooting for the red team, you’re just rooting against the blue team.”

“Yeah, pretty much. I’m not really a Red Sox fan either.”

“All right, then. Two people rooting for purple.”

“Purple it is.”

***

Ollie’s only goal was to spend the day doing what he wanted to do without worrying about what Sparks might think about it. Inviting Lynn over for the game was as far as his planning had gone. He had no intention to go further than just hanging out and watching the game together, but in the sixth inning he crossed the Rubicon... by accident (of course).

He had started the ballgame with the remote control sitting at his side, but Lynn had no interest in sitting on the opposite end of the sofa from him, so she had moved it and taken its place. Spotting the remote and wanting to check in on a different ballgame, he reached across her to grab it. She mistook his gesture for something else and quickly snatched his hand out of the air, like a lynx after a low flying bird. His hand had been intercepted; she wasn’t about to let it go. He looked down at their intertwined hands and studied the situation, then back at her glowing smile.

He didn’t need to pull his hand back. And he didn’t need the remote after all. Besides, Joy had left him alone, and on a weekend, too. Joy kept brushing him off, she was not responsive anymore.

Plus he was enjoying it, this game of capture the hand.

Guilt briefly flared when Joy’s face flashed through his mind, but it was replaced by satisfaction when Sparks’ did. Ollie would sit back and enjoy the ride. I might even go an extra day before inviting Sparks over again. He didn’t want to pull his hand back. Lynn could continue to borrow it; he didn’t need it at the time. In fact, for the first time since he’d met her, he found he was just letting himself go… and that hadn’t happened in a very long time. As she pressed her cheek to his chest, he couldn’t have been any more relaxed. This is comfortable.

“This game’s as good as over,” Ollie said.

“Aren’t there two more innings left?” she asked, her head still resting on his chest.

“Yeah, but they’re bringing in Rivera to pitch now. Games like this are kind of his specialty. He’ll quickly get these last six outs and the game will be over.”

“Sad.”

“Tell me about it. This is the last game the Yankees need in order to make it to the World Series.”

“I mean it’s sad the game is almost over. I don’t really care if the Yankees win or lose. I’m just comfortable right here.”

The silence was deafening.

“Maybe,” she continued, “one of the red team will tie it up and it’ll have to go into extra innings. Or maybe a purple team will come charging out of the locker room to save the day.”

It was true: He was comfortable too. Even though he should have been worried about what Sparks would say or how things were going to be when Joy got back from Colorado, he didn’t want to worry about any of that right then. So he didn’t. He let himself relax.

As it turned out, Lynn was as good at predicting things as Sparks was: In the bottom of the ninth, just like she said, the Red Sox tied it up and sent the game into extra innings. Ollie was delighted. The game kept going on until the bottom of the 12th, when a homerun by one of the Red Sox sluggers ended it. The game had gone on for a whopping five hours and two minutes, giving them lot of time to relax together on the couch.

So the game was over.

But neither of them moved. Ollie probably could have reached the remote without any problem, but they were enjoying their time as the boring post-game interviews rambled on.

“We don’t have to watch this anymore, ya know,” Ollie finally said.

“I don’t mind. If you wanna change it, that’s fine. Either way.”

“What were you and your roommates planning to watch tonight?”

“Oh, some chick flick. One of those movies where the guy takes a girl out on a bet or something and ends up falling in love with her, but then she finds out it was a bet and she hates him and tries to run away, but he chases her down, yadda yadda yadda.”

There was something about her smile— something about the way the left side of her lips curled up slightly more than the right side. He’d noticed it before, but every time he’d seen her smile, it was from a greater distance. A couple of inches away, so many more of her features were brought into focus, especially her eyes. Just like her smile, her left eye and her right weren’t exactly the same either.

“Did you ever notice that you have a bit of blue in one eye and not in the other?”

“Creepy isn’t it?”

Her face was perilously close to his own. “No, no. Not creepy. Kinda… I dunno. It’s fun.”

“I guess I’m not very good at just sticking with a straight boring traditional green. Had to mix it up a little to spice up my peepers.”

“I like it.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe… sometime…”

Conversation was slowing. Even with words falling out of their mouths, neither was really paying attention to what the other was saying. As they gradually lost their grip on words, gravity took over, pulling them together. When the distance between them became too small for their eyes to focus, her eyes closed in anticipation. That could only mean one thing, and Ollie didn’t have long to make his decision. It wouldn’t have taken him very long to again weigh the pros and cons of the situation, but any desire to think things through rationally took a back seat to his emotions, which took over. He only knew what felt right and what felt good. He lost any desire to resist.

They met halfway, not that there was a whole lot of distance left to cover. He had expected her lips to be soft, but he had always enjoyed the way she could surprise him. Her lips were unique. Different. They weren’t soft, but they weren’t firm either. They were somehow… in between… and perfect. He took his time feeling things out, since neither of them had any reason to pull away.

When he did finally pull away, her lips curled up into her beautiful smile, a dimple showing on one side. He returned a smile.

He didn’t say anything.

She didn’t say anything.

Nothing needed to be said. Words were no longer necessary. He could see in her eyes that she was thinking the same things he was, and their lips came slowly together again. Time vanished. The rest of the world disappeared.

It would have stayed that way too, if it weren’t for the doorbell.

“Hold that thought,” Ollie smiled.

“Were you expecting anybody?”

“No. It’s probably just someone for one of my roommates.”

Ollie walked to the door, his lips still tingling, Lynn the only person in his world now. He turned the knob and opened the door.

It was Joy.