Ivory sighs while drawing her seven letters to start her board. She passes the bag to me avoiding eye contact as she responds. “I just haven’t had the best experience with competitive men in the past. They’re always looking for a way to one up the people around them. And they don’t handle a woman being more successful than them. One of my exes felt like our work and our success was a competition. It was exhausting.”
“I can imagine. Men like that are the worst of the worst. I’m competitive in my craft because it’s required to be a successful professional baseball player, especially for as long as I have been. I get competitive in games and activities with my friends because it's fun and we love to give each other shit. Otherwise, I don’t exist in life to compete or play the comparison game.”
Ivory nods to let me know she hears me as she arranges her letters and plots her first move but still doesn’t make eye contact, so I reach out and lift her chin with my first two fingers. Her forest green eyes meet mine and I swear she can see straight into my soul.
“You should be proud of your success. You fought hard for it and it couldn’t have been easy with all the external pressure and public interest. Fuck whoever thinks your success is anything less than magnificent. You are magnificent, Ivory, and you deserve someone that will show you every day how truly special you are. Someone that will show you that your success and your career aren’t the most important things.”
“They aren’t?”
“No.” Moving my hand from her chin to tuck her fallen hair behind her ear, I confess, “The most important thing is you. You are the treasure. Your heart and your generosity. Your drive to make a difference in the world. Your eagerness to learn and experience all that life has to offer even if you don’t know how. You aren’t made for the shadow or the byline, Ivory Crenshaw. You are the star, no pun intended. The main event. You shine so brightly and I hate to think anyone made you feel like you had to dim that light to make them feel better.”
She swallows heavily and her breathing hitches as silence engulfs us and our eyes just stare into each other. My speech rattles even me and is partly a confession of the way I feel about her. None of what I said is a lie. The only part I left out is that I want to be the one that helps her shine. The one she shines for and confides in.
Finally getting her bearings, Ivory clears her throat and drops her gaze.
“Now, are you ready to lose, Hollywood?”
She scoffs, and in the most ironic turn of events, spells out “loser” in the middle of the scrabble board.
“No freaking way!” I exclaim
Ivory throws her head back and laughs brightly. My heartjumps in my chest at the sound. “It was too perfect. Mr. Big Shot talking about me losing and the whole time I had the makings for the word loser on my rack.”
“I can’t believe this.” I laugh with her.
“Good luck.” She smirks at me and draws more letters out of the bag.
“What if we play twenty questions while you kill me in Scrabble?”
“Is that your first question?” she asks.
“Sounds like that was yours.”
“Touché. I’ll let you go first.”
“Did you always want to act?” I ask.
“Heavy hitters right out the gate.”
“What can I say, I swing for the fences.”
Ivory chuckles, and then a look of serious thought comes across her face. “I don’t know that I ever really thought about it, to be honest.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one ever asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Acting felt like the path all along. My mother put me in modeling and acting classes when I was young. She was a model before she met my dad and she pushed me in that direction. When modeling didn’t work out, acting was justthere. I got picked up on Heartbeat High and the rest is history.”
“Do you like it? I know you said that you wanted to do more, but do you enjoy acting?”
“I do. It has its challenges but I do love bringing characters to life. My turn. Did you always want to play baseball?”
“Pretty much. I’ve been playing since I was five years old. For a while as a kid, I also played football until I decided my heart was on the diamond. There’s something about it that just speaks to my soul, ya know?”
“That’s really special.”
“What’s something that you haven’t done that you want to do?”
“Oh gosh, I don’t know. Like what? Give me an idea.”
