***
"So," my mom says, clearing her throat. "When do we get to meet yourwife? I mean, I know I met her when I picked up Noelle from your game, but I mean like, a sit-down dinner, where we can get to know her a little more."
The emphasis she puts on the word ‘wife’ doesn’t go unnoticed by me, but I do my best not to let it show on my face. My parents had me when they were really young. They were teenagers in love who thought they knew everything there was to know.
Looking at them now, you would think they never spent a day apart. But, for a short while, I was a kid from a broken family, and I used basketball as the glue to piece it all back together.
At least, that’s what I told myself as a kid. Now I know it’s because the love they had for each other was too strong to keep them apart.
I wouldn’t be the basketball player—thepersonI am—without them.
But yeah, it kind of skipped my mind to invite them to my fake-slash-real wedding. I just didn’t see it as important at the time.
"She’s on a tour break soon for a few weeks. Maybe then." I shrug, taking a sip of my protein shake as my mom watches me from my couch, where she’s made herself too comfortable. Pillows are fluffed around her, and a duvet is over her legs as though we’re in the peak of winter. I don’t bother to tell her that I’ll be meeting Olive’s parents after the award show next week. If I do, she’ll insist on joining, and I couldn’t think of anything worse.
"Hmm," is all she says in response, turning the volume back up on the TV and ignoring my existence completely. I’m busy making myself some lunch, or at least I try to. My mom’s ‘hmm’ has me wanting to continue the conversation, no matter what direction it leads me.
"She’s a good person, you know? Just because we’re in a relationship for publicity, doesn’t mean you need to hound her with questions if you do get to meet her properly," I tell my mom, picking up my plate of food and bringing it to the table to sit down.
All she had to do was make a noise, barely even a word, and I was already jumping to my wife’s defense like my mom was some kind of journalist vulture, not the woman who birthed me.
But my mom should’ve known to expect it. She raised me, she knows the type of person I am. Protective to my core.
She looks over her shoulder at me, her blue eyes—the one feature I got from her—softening when she sees the firm set of my expression. The one she’s seen a million times before.
"It’s not her I’m worried about, Avery. Well, I guess it kind of is." Her face softens as she sighs, pulling the blanket higher up her chest like it’s some sort of armor to protect herself.
"What’s that supposed to mean?" I ask, swallowing my food as I look at the side of her face, catching the flush in her cheeks.
"I don’t want you to break her heart. She seems so…innocent. And I know you’re not. When she inevitably falls in love with you, let her down gently, okay?" I push my plate away with a sudden loss of appetite. "Unless, of course, you fall in love with her too. Then at least we’d get a real wedding out of it someday." She snickers to herself, finding her little joke all too amusing as she turns the volume even louder than it was. "Now let me finish this movie before your father gets back."
Conversation, over. Thank God.
I had nothing to say that wouldn’t make me sound like a total asshole, or like I was actually falling for my fake wife.
None of those would’ve been beneficial to me.
If only she knew.
***
I’ve got a week off. No games, no training, nothing on the schedule.
Which, to Orlando, can only mean one thing.
If it were up to me, this week would be spent doing absolutely fuck all. Just me, in my boxer briefs, eating whatever I wanted, binge-watching the entire John Wick franchise, and Olive… completely naked by my side.
But nope.
Orlando has me following Olive to her latest stop on the tour—Florida—before the two of us present an award at some television ceremony in California.
Timing wise, it works out well considering our next game isinLA against the Lions, but still. Home is so much more comfortable.
Besides, I don’t know what business an NBA player has at an award show, but it’s now something I’m apparently contractually obliged to do. The moment I signed my marriage certificate, I apparently signed a new contract for my job, too.
Be where she is, do what she does, don’t ask questions about it. Be affectionate, but not overbearing. Be obsessed with her, but not in a creepy way.
That is, word for word, Orlando’s last text he sent to me before telling me what time my jet flies out.
