I know I promised I wouldn’t let it, but our conversation plays like a loop over and over in my head. Settling itself in my consciousness like a rainy day.
“You okay, Teach?”
Freak clasps my hand as he helps me into the back seat of the Uber.
“Mm-hmm.”
It’s rare for Freak to have the day off of practice, but the team doesn’t have another game until their bowl game on Christmas Day, so they’ve been given a little time to rest. That doesn’t mean we haven’t seen each other, though. We have, mostly after practice at his place.
We’ve had two movie nights where we watched his favorite, the original version of The Evil Dead. I hated it. I’m not a big horror fan. And then we watched one of my favorites, The Devil Wears Prada. He didn’t really get a lot of the references in the film and had the nerve to agree with the Nate character’s opinion on handbags.
* * *
“The boyfriend is absolutely right. You only need one handbag to put your junk in.”
“That is so untrue.”
“You only carry one purse.”
“Because I’m in nursing school and I can’t afford anything else, Bacon Boy.”
Then when he doesn’t want to debate with me any longer, he resorts to the medieval tactic of tickling me.
“Stop,” I laughed hysterically. “This is assault!”
“Like how you tried to blind me with salt in my eyes when we first met?”
“Seriously,” I tried batting his hands away. “I can’t breathe.”
“If you’re talking, you’re breathing.”
* * *
When we’re not making out, we’re spending quality time together. One night I baked him my famous chocolate chunk Christmas cookies and another evening we exchanged war stories about high school while I gave him a massage. He’d had a tough practice that day.
To say that I’m falling hard and fast for the crazy footballer is an understatement. How do I know? Because I pride myself on being very practical and methodical about the way I attack my life plan. First college, then grad school, I’d become a working nurse, and then head of nursing. But lately, the way I daydream about a very different future, which always includes Freak, is becoming a bad habit.
In the dream we’re married, of course, living on the island (Long Island) but where the rich people live by the water, not the area where I’m from. He commutes to practice with The New York Nighthawks every day, where he’s the starting quarterback, and I work as an ER nurse at Long Island Med. We have a girl and a boy, in that order, and maybe a dog. A big one like a Great Dane. My mom lives with us in the in-law suite on our property and watches the kids while we both work. And when we’re not working, we travel to all the places we’ve ever wanted to see together. A spiritual quest to the Pyramids of Egypt. Making love on the water in a floating villa in Bali.
It’s the ultimate fantasy, a dream for somebody else, someone prettier or born wealthy, but sometimes I swear I can almost see it.
Sometimes, it seems so possible.
“Where’s my kiss?”
Normally, I greet him with a long kiss hello. Today, I lean in and give him a chaste one on the lips. He immediately knows something is wrong.
“You’re good with hanging today, right?” he asks, fishing for clues.
“I told you I was.”
“Yeah, but I forgot about that study group thing you do on Saturdays. Aren’t you supposed to be there right now?”
“I can miss one meet up with them. The semester hasn’t even started yet.”
Actually, my study group was pissed that I blew them off today, but I’m not going to tell Freak that. In fact, I’ve missed about four meetings with them. We’re preparing for the NCLEX, an exam for our RN licensure that most students take after graduation. It’s important that I pass it on my first try because it’s an expensive exam, so it was my idea to come up with this year long study group to prep steadily for it. I used to be a bit obsessed with it, but these past weeks with Freak have shown me that there’s more than just nursing.
There’s balance.
