Chapter Nineteen

NINETEEN

A stiletto pokes out from folds of palm-print silk and finds the ground.

"Here we go," Eric says, rubbing his hands together. There have already been two proposals, both of which were accepted. But Jasmine won the fan vote, Logan won the contestant vote, and Brianne won the most challenges, so the outcome of their love triangle will determine who wins the money.

Or something. I'm still not exactly sure how this show works.

Everyone leans toward the television. The lights are off for once, to enhance the atmosphere. The camera pans up, revealing a woman with short hair. Brianne. A mix of groans and cheers rings out.

"Damn," I say. "He's making a big mistake."

Ben looks up at me from his spot on the floor with a self-satisfied smirk. "And this means I'm going to beat you."

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said. I'm busy watching the show," I say, pretending to be transfixed by Logan's breakup speech to Brianne, which mostly involves a lot of talking about how difficult the decision was for him. I kick Ben lightly and he catches my foot, rubbing the side of my ankle with his thumb.

He continues to do this through the rest of the speech, and Brianne's tearful departure, and Jasmine's arrival in a coral jumpsuit. No one notices. Their eyes are suctioned to the screen.

"Jasmine," Logan says, his forehead slick with sweat, his cheeks red. The lack of shade is not doing him any favors. "I sent Brianne home because she and I aren't right for each other."

Jasmine smiles, a display of physical perfection.

"But—and it's so hard for me to say this—you and I aren't right for each other either."

A collective gasp sucks all the oxygen out of the room. Cassie brings her fingertips to her temples. Eric's jaw is hanging. I dig my nails into Ben's shoulder. Our rapt attention dissolves into debate. Why did he do that? Is he allowed to do that? And who wins the money now?

"Guess this means I beat you after all," I gloat to Ben after the final points are tallied.

On the walk home, he kisses me under streetlights and then again in front of my building. He doesn't ask to come up. He's letting me take the lead, thanks to my initial skittishness. I don't invite him in either. There's been a fair amount of kissing the past few days, but like tonight, all of it has occurred outdoors and in a vertical fashion. It's enough, or at least that's what I keep telling myself. Obviously, I want more. But I want more the same way I used to want another drink at the bar at one in the morning. More isn't always better.

I can't allow this thing to pick up too much speed, or I won't be able to control it. If we keep doing this and only this, no one will get hurt.

"Okay," he says, detaching his mouth from mine before burying his face in my hair. "I better go, before—"

I skim my teeth along his earlobe. What? It's right there, I can't help it.

He chokes out a muffled, frustrated laugh. "Radford. What are you doing to me?"

I duck under his arm and step away. "See you tomorrow!"

The next day I'm in the weight room, weaving my way through the jungle gym maze of machinery, past the long dumbbell rack toward the treadmills at the back. I find JGE where I expect him, jogging at a modest pace on the last machine in the corner.

"Mind if I film for a minute?" I ask, raising my camera. "I'm doing a ‘day in the life of Ardwyn basketball' thing."

"No problem." He's not winded at all. Running before a road trip is part of his routine because his legs get restless on the bus, and we leave tonight for the conference tournament in New York.

"What about me?"

I turn around to find Quincy on the floor, stretching out one long leg and grasping his shoe. "I already got you this morning."

"Yeah, eating," he scoffs. "You get this guy running, and me stuffing my face?"

"You were showing the world what a nutritionist-approved breakfast for athletes looks like," I protest.

"I'm messing with you. I have to go shower anyway." Quincy hops to his feet. "Podcast club tonight?"

"Yup," JGE says from the treadmill.

"What's that about?" I ask after Quincy leaves.

"Quincy and I have been listening to podcasts and talking about them. Like a book club," he explains. "We did a whole series about leadership skills. For tonight, we listened to this fascinating deep dive into the NBA's collective bargaining agreement. He's trying to convince me to do this one about the history of Super Mario next. Not so substantive, but at least he's exploring his interests."

"That's great," I say. "He's doing well, don't you think?" Quincy has been seeing a sports psychologist since he came back from injury, learning how to tune out the hype and concentrate on basketball. I'm glad he's been connecting more with JGE too. He's got his head on straight, and his focus on long-term goals is a good counterpoint to all the voices urging Quincy to cash in as fast as possible.

After I get my shot of JGE, I leave the weight room and cut through the practice gym. It should be dark and empty, but instead there's a group of sweaty men milling around, sucking on water bottles. Eric is one of them.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, rubbing his face with a towel.

"I was filming in the weight room. The ‘day in the life' video."

He spreads his arms out. Dark, wet rings saturate the underarms of his T-shirt. "Want to film us?"

I shudder. "You look like you need a shower. I'm trying to attract views, not scare people away."

"The Internet's loss." He shrugs, moseying off toward the locker room. "We just finished anyway. And I am going to shower."

I look around. There are a couple guys from the athletic department, an assistant football coach, and a few others I don't know. This is the usual pickup group that plays together every week. Which means—

"Hey," Ben says behind me.

I turn around and swallow hard. He's wearing gym shorts, his hair is the best kind of disaster, and he's shirtless and covered in a sheen of sweat. I've never seen this much of him. He has a former athlete's body, like a stick of butter that's barely softened, which is a compliment. No marble six-pack or anything, but strong and toned.

Unlike Eric, I would be glad to get this on camera, for purely selfish reasons. The idea of sharing this image with the Internet gives rise to an instinctive sense of possession. Mine.

"What are you doing?" I ask faintly. The answer is obvious, but I can't string together enough words to say anything intelligent.

He takes a sip from a bottle of Gatorade. "We wanted to get in a game before we leave for New York."

A bead of sweat runs down his neck and lands in the hollow at the base of his throat. My entire body is scorching hot. "I didn't know you played shirts versus skins."

His mouth curls into a smile. "Sorry to disappoint, but we have pinnies." He holds up an old mesh practice jersey with peeling lettering.

"I'm not disappointed. I've seen all I need to see."

Something ignites in his eyes that makes my head feel heavy and woozy, like I'm swimming deep underwater. He holds the pinny to his heart. "I'm feeling a little objectified. Are you trying to objectify me?"

Not now. Maybe later. My eyes dart back and forth, trying to gauge whether anyone is paying attention to us. "In your dreams."

"Yeah," he says in a low voice.

"Yeah," I repeat. We stare at each other for what could be ten seconds or ten minutes, until one of the other guys yells to Ben from across the gym to ask if he's ready to go.

Ben breaks eye contact. "Yeah, one sec," he responds. "Gotta run."

"Goodbye, then," I say to his chest with a forlorn sigh.

He laughs and scrubs his hair with one hand.

"Hey, Callahan?" I call as he heads for the exit, pulling a sweatshirt out of his bag. "You should leave your hair like that all the time."

A convoy of buses ferries the team to a hotel in Midtown. We're technically "in New York," but we're shuttling back and forth between the hotel for meals and sleep and Madison Square Garden for practice and media events, and the only time I stand under the weak blue March sky is when I find fifteen minutes for a brief escape to pick up coffee.

A ninety-four-by-fifty-foot basketball court stands between Ben and me everywhere we go. When we're at the arena, we're both working. Sometimes he's there and I'm back at the hotel, editing in a conference room reserved for the media team.

Everyone sits down to eat together for breakfast and dinner—the signature Ardwyn Family way—but we congregate with our own departments, so Ben is across the room. Something in my body pings his location at all times, so I know when he's standing at the buffet or sitting at his table. The media team is traveling with us for the rest of the season, so I'm sharing a room with Jess. Ben is stuck with Kyle, like always. The most we get is a few clandestine kisses behind a giant potted palm in a quiet corner of the lobby.

Working on-site during a tournament is different from working in the office. At home the pace isn't so brutal, and I know what's on the schedule next. There's planning involved. But here, there are no days off between games, so it's a constant scramble. We win our first game on Thursday, but have to wait until almost midnight to learn who we'll be playing on Friday. Then on Friday, we play the late game, giving us less than twenty-four hours' rest before Saturday's finals.

It's exhausting but freeing, in a way. I sit down at the table in the windowless conference room, and one part of my brain turns off and another part turns on. Hours later I emerge as if from a cave, with a finished product I don't quite remember making.

That's why when Cassie shows up on Saturday morning, I'm surprised.

"You're early," I say, tearing my eyes from the screen.

Cassie looks perplexed. "I'm an hour late. It's eleven thirty."

"No way." I check the time. Wasn't it just six in the morning? There's a crumpled ball of tinfoil next to me. Right, at some point Ben brought me a bagel. I thought that was a dream, but apparently not. Wasn't Taylor just in here with her laptop? Or was that three hours ago?

"You look like you need sustenance," Cassie says. She's right. The bagel was a lifetime ago. The video is done anyway. I played with sound in this one; it's all heavy bass and menacing synths, and I tried to sync the punchiest parts of the music with visuals of lockers slamming shut, our cheerleaders' crisp arm movements, and a particularly epic blocked shot. I want people to feel the intensity of this one, the way it feels more intense for the team now that the postseason is here. For the last hour, I've been watching it back and tinkering with little details. At this point, I can't make it better but can definitely make it worse, so I send it to Taylor and stretch my arms above my head.

We pick up smoothies and set off on a walk. There's not enough time to go far, so we stay in Midtown and wind our way through the streets around Rockefeller Center, past tourists taking photos and shoppers scanning window displays insisting that spring is here! Most days in March, the daffodil-printed dresses and pastel-colored chocolate boxes behind the glass would be lies, but today is one of those warm, sunny days when Mother Nature throws us a bone to tide us over until the real end of winter.

"How's work?" I ask, shrugging off my coat and tying it around my waist.

Cassie takes a long sip of her smoothie. "That's why I was late. The managing partner asked me to join the DEI committee and my first meeting is on Monday, so I was prepping some stuff."

My heart sinks. This is the opposite of what Cassie was supposed to be doing. "You joined a new committee? What happened to saying no?"

She winces. "I know, but it's important. How could I say no to promoting diversity within the firm? I did tell him something has to give in another area in order for me to do this."

I make an effort not to sound too skeptical. "And what did he say?"

"He said we'd figure it out." She sees the look on my face and sighs. "I know. I know that means nothing."

We walk in silence for a block, past big glass office buildings and a chain steakhouse, until Cassie says, "I'm thinking of leaving and starting my own practice."

"Seriously?" I stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk and have to apologize to the people behind us. "That's amazing!"

Cassie shrugs, trying to downplay it, but her smile is hopeful. "It's going to take me a while to figure out the details. But I know I'd be able to handle cases on my own. And this way I can manage my own workload."

"You don't have to convince me. I'm already in full support."

"I just feel guilty. The partners I work with have invested a lot in my career development. I think they'll be shocked."

"You can't think about that. You have to put yourself first."

Cassie's mouth pinches. "I know, but it's not that simple. I've worked at my firm forever. I'm close to these people."

I make a hmm sound. I don't know what to say. All of this used to seem simple. I do believe Cassie should put herself ahead of her law firm, but I also used to believe in keeping my distance from my colleagues and not getting emotionally attached to work.

A stream of people exits the subway, and Cassie maneuvers around them. "What about you? What's new?"

I take a deep breath. It's become exhausting, keeping quiet about this thing that occupies so much of my thoughts. Also, Ben and I aren't being sneaky enough. Potted plants don't provide great cover. Someone is going to see something, if they haven't already, and Cassie needs to hear it from me.

I stir my smoothie with the straw. "Promise you won't freak out."

A look of dread crosses Cassie's face. "What is it?"

"It's not a big deal, I swear."

"Okay, so tell me."

"Something…is happening…between Ben and me."

"Something?" Now Cassie is the one stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. "Oh. Oh, Annie."

Her eyes are so wide I can see straight into her brain, where two trains of thought are at war. One side says I think your wedding dress should be a sheath with a low back and Let's go on weekly double dates for the rest of our lives. The other side knows what all my relationships since Oliver have been like: brief, nonserious, and underwhelming.

"He's pretty great," I say.

"Yeah." She nods vigorously. "Yeah, of course he is. On one hand, it makes complete sense. You guys complement each other. But on the other hand, I don't want to see either of you get hurt. He's different from anyone else you've ever dated. More…sincere."

"We're not dating," I say reflexively. "It's casual. It can't become more than that."

Cassie steers me off the sidewalk toward a large fountain at the base of a skyscraper. We sit on the edge, surrounded by office workers on their lunch breaks. "Tell me why," she says, "because to me this sounds like you self-sabotaging."

I give her a sharp look. "I'm not self-sabotaging. I'm realistic. One of us is probably about to get laid off, and that's going to cause a lot of resentment."

"Not if you care about each other."

I barrel on. "And it means one of us will probably be moving away."

"That's not ideal, but it doesn't automatically mean—"

"And whether it's him or me, at some point in the next few years, guess where he's planning to go coach? Arizona Tech."

Cassie stops, and her shoulders slump. "Oh, goodness." She studies my face. "You haven't told him, then."

I squint, watching the cars stuck in traffic. "Nope. I think I'm going to, though. After the season is over."

" Wow. You must really like him."

"Sure," I concede. "But I'm not going to tell him as a way of, like, furthering our relationship. I'm going to tell him because he's a good friend—"

Cassie rears back. "Good friend? Get out of here."

"—who is probably going to be working and living somewhere different than me no matter what, which is good and fine, and I'm not about to have a good friend going to work at Arizona Fucking Tech. That's all." I shake my head. "Basketball season is…all-consuming. When I'm in it, it becomes my whole world. That's the best thing about it, but it's also the most dangerous. I spend all day in this magical bubble with a hot guy, so is it any surprise that we want to make out with each other sometimes? Winning makes people horny. That's just science. When it's over and we're not working together anymore, we'll be friends."

I rise to my feet. Ominous rainclouds are rolling in, and I'm aching for a power nap before tonight's game.

A skeptical expression crosses Cassie's face, but she can't argue with the facts. Her bottom lip pokes out. "It makes me sad if you guys are a good match and this is all you get."

"This" gets one step closer to ending that night, when we lose a tight one in the tournament finals. We've beaten Saint Mark's twice this season, but they play a tough, physical game, and our guys are exhausted.

There's no time to reflect, because March Madness is here. It's time to find out if we can pull off the near-impossible.