Seriously? Now she’s just being cruel. Does she think I want to know that Drew had a girlfriend? A fucking beauty queen girlfriend? An ugly, too-close-to-raging-jealous feeling weighs down my gut as I glare at her. “This is the South. Any halfway pretty girl with an ambitious mama has at least one crown on her mantle.”
Iris snorts as if I’m full of shit, and I swear to God if she tells me this old girlfriend rescued baby yaks in Tibet I’m going to punch her. But she simply shakes her head. “Do you have any idea how many women would kill to be in your place? How many of them are probably waiting for the opportunity to take it? Or maybe they have. As you keep pointing out, you’re just hooking up.”
My throat feels scratchy as I find my voice. “Why are you saying this to me?”
Her slim shoulder lifts, and I want to hit her. But I just sit there as she stares at me with sad eyes. “I’m only pointing out that you never know. You think it’s all good. You think he wants only you. But if you’re with someone like that, you never know.”
I rub the back of my arms and resist the urge to cower.
She doesn’t even see me. “Maybe it’s a good thing you’ve kept it casual. Save yourself the pain.”
I STAND IN front of shelves lined with small cast-iron casserole pots in a rainbow of colors. “What the hell do you use these for,” I ask Gray.
In the act of crouching down to inspect a much larger pumpkin colored pot, Gray glances up. “Individual servings.”
“For who? Barbie and Ken?”
Gray snorts and stands. “Probably. I don’t know, I guess you’d use it for an appetizer. Soup, maybe?” And now the little doll pots are the center of his attention.
When Gray picks up a bright blue individual pot, his hand nearly engulfs it. He frowns and sets it back on the shelf. “Yep. It’s fucking dumb. I don’t even want a soup serving that small.”
With assured authority, he moves on, and I follow with all the awkwardness of a guy who is in foreign territory. I roll my stiff shoulders, feeling like an ox in a dollhouse. Women cast wary glances our way. We’re not the only guys in the kitchen supply store, but we are the youngest, biggest, and scruffiest with our battered sneakers and worn jeans.
Gray’s irritated expression shifts to thoughtful. “Man, wherever I get drafted, it had better be to a city that gets cold enough for soup.”
“Soup? That’s your criteria?” I don’t know if Gray has an actual team and city in mind. It’s an unwritten rule that you do not say what team you want to play on. The disappointment would be too harsh if it didn’t happen, and chances are it won’t. For that reason alone, I’ve never stuck my hopes on any one team.
“Never underestimate the power of soup.” Gray shrugs one shoulder. “I like cold weather. Fall. Winter. I don’t want some tropical shit.” He flashes a grin. “Even if it means freezing my ass off playing in the snow.”
“So you won’t say no to Green Bay then?”
“Let’s not go crazy now. I’d like to refrain from freezing my balls off too.”
“Man, please. We’re from Chicago. It’s a miracle we got through puberty without freezing our balls off.”
We both snicker.
“What about you?” Gray sounds almost melancholy. I get that. We’re so close to it now. Early on, when the NFL was more of a distant fantasy, we would entertain ourselves by lying around and talking about what we wanted from our careers: Super Bowl, MVP, passing records, yardage records. In short, the obvious stuff. Now, it’s only months away. And though we’ve both been courted by scouts from just about every team, in all likelihood, we’ll no longer be playing together. Which sucks.
“Honestly? I want the team dynamic. I want the same synergy.”