Too many.
I don’t know how much longer I can allow myself to care before I shut down that muscle, numb it, and pretend I don’t give a shit. But I don’t think it’ll be very long.
As a younger man, there might have been resentment toward my parents for scoffing at my dreams of playing rugby, instead of falling into line in the financial sector, like the men in my family who came before. They made their protests clear by refusing to attend matches or pay for the travel teams. So I practiced my ass off and became good enough for scholarships. Onto the elite squads where I was visible enough to be recruited by Penn State.
During my junior year, my parents divorced. Bitterly. Money had become an issue after my father made some bad business decisions, eventually being asked to step down at his firm. He is remarried now and making ends meet, but my mother…she won’t allow me to give her the help she needs. I have the means for her to live more comfortably and she won’t take it, because I make my living in rugby. The profession she always laughed off.
I’m over the past. But she isn’t.
And so we live life in a constant stalemate.
Me wanting my mother’s support while she laments the time she spent not giving it.
My eye is drawn back to the stands and this time, I picture Elise. Warmth pushes down my arms into my fingertips, the digits of my right hand flexing around the whistle.
Damn. I’d love to see her there. For me.
She would get all of this. She would understand the importance I place on winning.
Somehow I know she would. Without question.
I raise the whistle to my mouth and shout my players into a scrimmage to round out the end of practice. I check my phone and only seven minutes has passed since the last time I looked. Seven minutes closer until tonight.
But I can’t seem to make myself wait to speak with Elise. It took some cajoling, but I was able to get her phone number off of Gabe. At the risk of pissing her off, I pull up her contact information and tap out a text.
* * *
Me: Hey. It’s Banks.
Elise: Gabe strikes again, huh?
Me: He handed over your number for a meatball sub.
E: That’s fair. I’d hand over state secrets for a meatball sub.
Me: Good to know.
* * *
Some of my players are looking at me curiously and I realize there’s a mile-wide smile stretched across my face. I replace it with a frown, signaling them to pay attention to the match. Apparently I’m resigned to being a shit coach today.
* * *
E: Take a picture of what’s in front of you, Banks. No cheating.
Me: Nope. I have half a brain, so there isn’t a chance in hell I’m sending you a picture of two dozen sweaty rugby players.
E: I had no idea you were so selfish.
Me: With you I am.
E: I noticed.
* * *
I’m bombarded by the memory of her trapped between me and the counter in that tiny room at the Times. Her legs were just beginning to creep up around my hips when sanity returned, but Christ, I really think I’d have banged her into oblivion then and there, if given the green light. When I’m touching her, my surroundings have no meaning. There is only connecting with her. Feeling as much of her as possible as quickly and greedily as I can. Still…
* * *
Me: The plan is to try and not be so selfish. To learn to share. I realize that.
E: I think we’re making up the plan as we go.
Me: Maybe. But you’re part of it, so I’m in.
* * *
A minute passes. And then a picture comes through.
It’s a selfie of Elise.
She’s rolling her eyes, her index finger pointing into her mouth.
* * *
E: Gross.
* * *
My laugh stops everyone mid-scrimmage and I shock them all by ending practice early.
* * *
Gabe
* * *
I drop down onto a bench, take off my hard hat and swipe a sweaty forearm across my forehead. It’s fall and the weather is cool, but I’ve been hauling my ass all over this building site since eight o’clock this morning, hence the perspiration soaking the front of my Local 401 T-shirt. I open the brown bag in front of me and take out half of a meatball sub, leftover from yesterday, plus a can of Coke, cracking it open.
Both lunch items have vanished within two minutes and I’m still left with fifty-eight minutes of my break. Normally I would catch a nap in the back of my truck or something, but I can’t relax.
Tonight is my date with Elise.
I’m definitely going to fuck it up somehow. I don’t know how yet, but I will.
I’m good at construction. I build. I frame, insulate, do masonry, interpret plans from the architect with ease. Building is my one and only skill. What I know about women is slim to none and I was married to one. Actually, I think I know less about women now that I’ve been married—a fact that has never been more troubling as it is right now. When I’ve got this beautiful, badass chick meeting me tonight. She wouldn’t like me calling her a chick and that only makes me smile more. There is just something about a woman who snuggles with a man one second and tells someone to fuck off in her next breath.