Oliver was already halfway out the door. “Don’t you worry about that, Charlotte. The Cowboys? One of the sorriest teams in the league. They’ll never be good again.”
Lee was probably right about the Cowboys, but he didn’t have to be so smug about it. They were one of the most popular teams in the league, and had been good in the early 90s, and totally sorry since then. Still, their owner was a genius at marketing and had conned millions of people around the country and the world into becoming fans of his terrible team. They got on national TV all the time because they had tons of fans, but continued to be bad every year. It was almost comical.
After Oliver was gone I stood up and went to Lance’s door. I could see him through the window, definitely watching TV, but he didn’t look like he was paying much attention to it. I knocked once and went inside.
He didn’t turn to look at me, but by now we had lapsed into such a routine that he didn’t need to. We had gotten comfortable with each other. I didn’t know if that was because the palpable sexual tension between us had been tempered by us already having had sex, but I had a hunch that was it.
I pulled up a chair as usual and sat next to Lance’s bed and watched the news with him for a few minutes. Nothing exciting today; even ESPN ran out of things to talk about every once in a while. There were thousands of professional and college athletes, but even so there were a few hours of the day when none of them were playing or getting themselves in trouble.
Now was one of those times, clearly. “So…” I started, then trailed off.
Lance said nothing, continuing to watch TV.
I tried again. “Sooooooo…”
Again, Lance said nothing, but I could see his mouth quiver a little bit, like he was trying not to smile. So that was it - we were back to playing one of our games. I wondered if I would ever get tired of those.
“Sooooooo…”
“Charlotte,” Lance stared at me, “you gotta move on to the next word, please, for my sake, do this one thing for me!”
“Sooooooo,” I started again, this time on purpose, and Lance grimaced. “Oliver Lee was just in here.”
“Your keen powers of observation continue to delight and amuse me, Miss Charlotte. You are in fact correct - my understudy Oliver Lee was just in this very room.” There were very few men who could pull off doing sarcasm and sexy at the same time, and some how Lance Parker had stumbled upon the elusive secret of just how to do that.
I put my hand on his mattress, looking down at my fingers on the folds of his white sheets and avoiding eye contact again. “What did you guys, uh, talk about?”
“Football, mostly.”
“Football?”
“Yeah, Coach Armstrong wanted me to help him out, give him some advice on how to handle all the pressure that comes with starting for a pro team.”
This was a thorny subject, I knew. “That must have been tough for you.”
“It certainly wasn’t easy, that’s correct.”
We both let that hang there for a second while we watched the highlights from a baseball game. The Red Sox had beaten the Yankees yet again.
After a minute I started again. “So, how did it go? Did you help Oliver out?” I wanted Lance to tell me he had said nothing of importance, nothing of value, nothing that would help Oliver secure Lance’s job long term.
“I did, I helped him out. I gave him some good advice.” My face must have clearly registered shock, because Lance looked at me. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I just don’t understand how you could have done that, Lance. You know Oliver is trying to take the starting job from you. How could you actually help him do that?”
Lance sighed. “You don’t understand, Charlotte.”
“No, I really don’t!” I started to get worked up. “You talk a big game about how football is the most important thing in your life, you make all these rules that keep you from dating or enjoying all the rest that life has to offer for almost half of every year, but when you have the chance right in your grasp to help yourself out, you practically give it away!”
Lance’s jaw had dropped, and he was looking at me like I had suddenly decided to take off all my clothes. “So yeah, I really don’t understand what’s going through your head! Please, by all means, please enlighten me! Tell me what your grand master plan is, because I’m in the dark here!”
He kept looking at me like that, like he was seeing me for the first time. I loved how he looked at me, how it made me feel all these wonderful and frustrating things at the same time, but right now it was more frustrating than anything. “Please, Lance, at least say something…”
“No, no, I just wanted to make sure you were done.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Yes, I’m done. Your turn.”
“Because you were going pretty well there for a second. Full head of steam and everything. It was kinda nice to watch.” His dark eyes glowed, and I noticed the room was getting steadily darker as the sun outside went down. I had forgotten how late in the day it was. “Really sexy.”