“I said what I said. Now get out of here.”
The guys give me a look, knowing about Whitaker’s push to get me seen with women more for my “brand.” But they love and adore April and know that she’s my best friend, not my girlfriend, which spells one simple word.Fake.
Unless I’ve been wrong about the friend zone. My teammates treat her like we’re a couple. Pierre even once said we’re perfect together. My family adores her. Have I been blind to what’s truly between us?
I get home late that night, absolutely bushed. The dogs stir, but I hush them since I don’t want to wake April, who’s house sitting, as usual.
After I flop into bed, exhaustion swings the pendulum in my thoughts in the opposite direction of hope. I struggle with doubt as stress grows and warps my thinking. Between playoff anticipation and Friday’s dinner date—fake dinner date—my brain refuses to shut down.
Thankfully, Badaszek gave us the next morning off.
I wake up to find April looking adorably sleepy as she brushes her teeth and feeds the dogs breakfast. She’s wearing leggings and one of my old, soft, faded Knights t-shirts. Her curls are piled in a messy heap on top of her head and she’s not wearing makeup.
April is beautiful.
“Morning,” I say, bleary-eyed.
Her gaze comes into focus, likely remembering that I’m back. “Good morning,” she manages, turning in a circle as if looking for an escape route. “I wasn’t expecting you until later.”
“We took a pink eye.”
Hers widen.
“No, not conjunctivitis. No one has pink eye. I shouldn’t try to make jokes this early. It was just shy of a red eye. Some of the guys had to be back for family stuff.” I wasn’t paying attention. Just fixated on getting home, to April, for our date.
April floats toward the coffee maker. “I need caffeine.”
“Let’s go to the bakery. My treat.”
“I should freshen up.” She looks stricken as if I’ve never seen her first thing in the morning.
“The dogs think you look good.” And I think you look great.
She wilts slightly, but pulls on her paw print sneakers.
We head out into what is indeed a perfect spring morning. The air smells like fresh grass. Trees are budding, flowers are blooming, and Cobbiton looks like a postcard.
When we get to the Busy Bee Bakery, I go in to order April’s latte while she waits with the dogs. I also grab us each alemon poppyseed muffin. When I come out, she takes a sip and closes her eyes briefly. Then, as if coming to life, she says, “Do you mind doing the 4th Street loop?”
“On a day like today? I definitely don’t mind.” The sun is bright, but there are some clouds off toward the horizon.
“How’s playoff fever treating you?” April asks as we navigate the dogs around a particularly interesting fire hydrant.
“Intense. I can say with a high degree of confidence that Coach giving us the morning off is a red herring. Later, he’ll be having us run drills until we collapse.”
“Classic Badaszek.”
“He did say something weird yesterday, though.”
“How weird are we talking?”
“He asked if I would finally be able to get past the first date.” I’m not sure why I tell her this. Maybe I’m still half asleep despite my large cup of coffee.
April glances at me. “Well, you do have a pattern of first dates only.”
She noticed? I let out a long breath. That’s because they’re not with her.
“What did you tell Badaszek?”
