“Sounds like, uh, a fair arrangement. Night, Ren.” I rub the back of my neck where it burns with the idea of sharing something with her, even a stupid trophy dinosaur. I wait to shut the door until she’s swung her legs into the seat and started talking to the driver.
I don’t open my phone until I see the car turn at the light.
And I don’t call a ride either.
I go to social media. There are a lot of likes and comments, but I’m really only looking for one thing. I scroll until I find it.
@renjacobsattheroyal: @mcb7—please, we both know you’re the dinosaur enthusiast here. heard a rumour you take in tours @theroyalmuseum on theweekends??? lucky educators, having you join them, and lucky me, having you as my trivia partner??
There’s a lot of words. But I only really pay attention to four.
Lucky me, having you.
Miller
Vai’s torture works.
I’m back on top after two games. Three double plays in the first, and two home runs in the second.
Yas texts me the photo from the grocery store, a link to the SportsCentre highlights from last night, and some article about me setting a new standard for being good on both sides of the ball.
Keep it up and you might be the hottest player of the week—on and off the field.
I hit her with a thumbs-up and ignore the highlights and the article.
Those types of things are usually accompanied by discussions about Matt.
I do check the comments under the photo from the grocery store.
Nothing about Matt. A lot of things about me I’m used to seeing, that I might have gotten a kick out of before. But things about Ren, too.
The usual: Who is she, what a meet cute, internet sleuths identifying her as the collections manager at The Royal, and claims calling paleontology the next big thing.
The unusual: The tightness in my chest that’s usually reserved for the absence of Matt tugging taut when I see comments about how beautiful she is.
She is. No doubting that. Most beautiful woman I’ve seen in real life.
But it’s the way that tightness cracks a rib, breaks it, sharpens the edge, and gets ready to defend her from the anonymous commenters of the internet, because she’s mine.
Even if we’re just friends. She feels private. The first thing I’ve hoped for and looked forward to in a long time.
I look forward to seeing her today, too. Back in the stands for the last game in this series. The idea of playing really, really well in front of her appeals to me in a way that makes me feel a bit like a sixteen-year-old boy again.
That part of me wants to wave to her, manically, like I did when I was ten, and Matty and I were playing on the 13U AAA team, and we’d spot his parents in the stands.
But I try to act like a twenty-seven-year-old and move through my stretches instead of watching like a hawk to see when she sits down.
I’m finishing my lateral lunges when Joel finds me, stretching his throwing arm across his chest.
He grins down at me, a hand above his eyes to block the sun, drawing a shadow across the deep, bronzed brown of his skin. “Girl from the game is here again. They put her on the screen. Sat in your seats with a friend.”
My chest constricts again, and I imagine a weird sort of war for space going on in there. The absence of Matt being pushed out, made smaller, maybe, by the enormity of having a friend likeher. I cut him a sideways glance, pushing my palm into my thigh to try and deepen my stretch. “She’s got a name.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
I breathe out, leaning further into my lunge before switching sides. Her name comes out rough—entirely unlike the woman who belongs to it. “Ren.”
“Pretty name,” he muses, nodding.
