Chapter Twenty

TWENTY

"Why aren't you wearing the shirt?"

Donna stands in front of me, chin jutting, gesturing at my torso with one scalpel-like fingernail. Damn. She must've sensed me violating the rules from across the room, like a shark smelling a paper cut.

I attempt a wide-eyed look of spacey innocence. "I lost it."

Donna turns her attention to my bag on the floor. A puddle of blue cotton spills out the top.

"It doesn't fit," I try.

"We have extras in every size."

"I'm allergic to cotton. I'm too cold for short sleeves. This is my lucky sweater?"

Donna skewers me with a ferocious stare.

I groan. "I'm the one behind the camera. No one will see that I'm not wearing the shirt."

"That's a crock of shit. You're not behind the other camera." Donna points.

I don't have to look. Donna is right. It's Selection Sunday, and in twenty minutes the championship seedings and matchups will be announced live on television. The network likes to show the reactions of a handful of teams, and this is Ardwyn's lucky year. There's a camera bigger and fancier than mine twenty feet away.

It's a good thing. The athletes get the attention they deserve, and more eyes on them means more money in the bank.

Somebody has decided that everyone at the watch party—the team and staff, their families, the university bigwigs—needs to wear the same blue T-shirt with the school logo. They've set up chairs and a projector in the lobby of the Church, and boosters sit at cocktail tables with white tablecloths on the mezzanine above. A ceiling-scraping DNA double helix of balloons flanks each side of the double doors. The only people exempt from the T-shirt requirement are the cheerleaders, who are in uniform. Even the mascot is wearing a custom-sized version.

For the record, I am sort of dressed on-theme. My jeans are blue enough to count, and my cream sweater has gray varsity stripes on the sleeves. I've made it through this entire season without wearing team gear, and I hadn't intended to break the streak now. But if Donna murders me, I'll never get to eat one of the hot pretzels from the table in the back, so I pass my camera to Jess and head to the bathroom to change.

I'm queasy, looking at the shirt while I'm locked in the stall. I used to own a ton of Ardwyn clothing. The first week of senior year, I lived in a T-shirt like this one, only older and rattier. Oliver had dumped me (for the first time) a few days before, and I spent most of that week marathoning Black Mirror , lying on the futon with a cup of sangria on the floor next to me, drinking from a swirly straw I got at the dollar store. I had it angled just right, so I could reach my drink without lifting my head. I was wallowing, and it was ugly.

One night Cassie and my other roommates dragged me out to a bar in Philly. It was super swanky, with velvet booths and dim lighting and bronze wallpaper. A bar for grown-ups.

We had each other and fancy cocktails, and at first it was fun, but then I got drunk and weepy. I fell off my barstool, and the bartender kept trying to give me water. I had deleted Oliver's number from my phone, so I was trying to type it from memory, even though I couldn't see straight, while my friends figured out how to get me home. They didn't think I'd be able to handle the train, and Cassie was worried I'd puke in a cab. And then Maynard just…appeared.

He'd been having dinner with friends in the other room and saw us at the bar. It was obvious I was a mess, so he offered us a ride home. Apparently, my response was, "Do you have a puke bucket?" I was too drunk to be embarrassed. Most of the ride was a blur of Cassie trying to make polite conversation and Maynard playing an O.A.R. album. I had to pee badly the whole way.

At one point I said, "Boys suck." He was nice about it. He said something that seemed fatherly, something like, "They do, they're boneheads. Whoever he is, he doesn't deserve you."

That's all that happened that night. But it feels like that's where it started. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it would've happened anyway. I don't know.

Pushing aside my unease, I remove my sweater and slip the shirt over my head. As I exit the bathroom I studiously avoid looking at my reflection in the mirror.

I make it back in time to film Coach Thomas addressing the crowd. Jess is shooting on her phone, and Taylor is posting the best clips right away.

"Get a shot of those kids dancing with Gallimore," Taylor says after the speech.

"I've got it under control," Jess replies.

Taylor cranes her neck. "Oh my god, they brought in Miss Mary." Miss Mary is a one-hundred-year-old fan who attends every home game. "She's talking to Coach Thomas! She brought him a scarf in our colors! It looks hand-knit! Jess, get over there. Jess! "

Jess sighs. She stands up, takes her time re-tucking her T-shirt, and crosses the room.

"Did you get it?" Taylor asks when she returns.

Jess taps on her phone. "Relax, I—oops, it didn't record."

"What?" Taylor screeches. A vein bulges on her forehead. She wraps her own ponytail around her fist tightly. "Were you distracted by Maura staring at you? Because she's being extremely unprofessional and she treated you terribly."

Interesting. I scan the crowd for Maura, the assistant cheerleading coach and Jess's ex.

"Easy. I'm messing with you." Jess flashes her phone screen at her. "I got it. I wish you could've seen your face." She shakes her head. "Your freckles are ridiculous when your face turns red."

Taylor's mouth opens and closes.

Very interesting.

I check the time. The broadcast should start any minute. Taylor buries herself in her laptop while Jess scrolls through Instagram. I spot Cassie, seated at a table with the other coaches' wives and their kids. Williams's wife is next to her, taking a photo of him with their sons. Surprisingly, she is an absolute delight, friendly to everyone and so perky she's practically carbonated.

"This is hilarious," Jess says, forcing me to stop leaning sideways in an attempt to catch a glimpse of Williams smiling for the photo. "There's a whole thread of comments on our last video asking who the hot guy with the wild hair is on the bench."

"What?" I snap a little too loudly. Ben is sitting next to Eric, talking and making animated gestures toward his tablet. In New York he gave up his Work Hair for good and started wearing it unstyled, the way I like it, even during games. I thought it was cute, that he listened to what I said. But now I've sicced the horny people of the Internet on him? The price may be too steep. "Let me see that."

Jess leans away from me, still reading. "?‘Sex on a stick,' one of them says!"

"We should delete those comments." I turn to Taylor for help. "That's not appropriate. Think of the children."

The clock on the projector screen hits zero, cutting off all conversation. A hush descends on the crowd.

The South region is announced first, and our name isn't called. The East region is up next.

"The number four seed in the East region is the Ardwyn Tigers. And they'll be facing off against the thirteen-seed Monmouth Hawks, champions of the Colonial Athletic Association."

I knew it was coming, but it still delivers an electric shiver all the way down my spine.

The congregation rises, possessed by one spirit. People cheer, pom-poms shimmy, more balloons drop from the heavens. Coach Thomas stands off to the side, letting the athletes savor the spotlight. All he does is nod once. In the words of JJ Jones: "That dude is so chill he'll give you brain freeze."

The players have thirty minutes to celebrate, and then they'll be whisked off to learn about their opponent. I make my way through the crowd with my camera. I catch JGE squeezing his mother, lifting her off the ground as her feet wiggle. When he puts her down, he reaches out to me for a fist bump. Gallimore and Andreatti hit one of the big blue balloons back and forth like a volleyball, arms swooping and wrists flicking. When they spot me, they bat it at me and shout my name in unison. Quincy makes the rounds, high-fiving all the little kids, meeting the looks of wonder on their upturned faces with a joyful grin from above. And when he stops in front of me, he wraps his arms around me in a big hug.

When I film, they're supposed to pretend I'm not here. I'm going to have to do a lot of editing.

Meanwhile, Ben hunches over his tablet, shutting out the world. I don't have to see his screen to know what he's doing. He probably pulled up Monmouth's stats the second the announcer uttered their name, trying to see how much of their code he can crack before everybody sits down in the film room.

I'm multitasking, one eye on the camera and the chaos, the other on the rest of the bracket still being populated on the big screen. There's one other name I'm waiting to hear. Waiting to see it filled in on one of the sixty-four lines, waiting to find out how far it is from Ardwyn's, how long and how much it would take for the two to meet.

Finally it comes: "The number one seed in the West? The Rattlers of Arizona Tech." I whip my head around. The West. The opposite side of the bracket. The only way we'll play Maynard's team is if we both make the finals. It's only then I notice the tension in my shoulders, which are somewhere up near my ears. My body relaxes like one of those encapsulated toys that unfurls when you drop it in water.

I lower the camera. I have what I need. Ben looks at me with an indecipherable expression, and I smile at him. I squeeze through the masses to the back of the room, but the pretzel tray is already empty. Damn.

On the way back I run into Verona and Lufton, in the middle of a debate about the competence of the selection committee, and they pause to ask my opinion. Then Eric grabs Quincy and me so Cassie can take a photo of us together. Eric wants to send it to Mom.

"Why do you look weird? Are you sick?" Eric squints at his phone, looking at the photo.

I have no idea what he's talking about. Maybe my hair is flat? When I lean over to look, my first impression is that it's my head on someone else's body. "Oh." I laugh. "I never wear blue. It's not my color."

A hand touches my waist. "You always look good," Ben says in my ear. He pulls me in for a quick hug, the kind nobody will question tonight unless they're already suspicious. Cassie clocks it but doesn't say a word.

"For me?" Eric asks, pointing at Ben's hand.

He's holding a soft pretzel. "Absolutely not," he says, and hands it to me.

Be still my heart.

"I'm heading upstairs," he tells me.

"You have fifteen more minutes to party," I tease. I'm surprised he's lasted this long.

"Come say goodbye before you leave," he says, giving me an extremely unprofessional look, and strides off.

The party stretches on long after the team goes upstairs. Everyone is excited and loose and silly. The people with the checkbooks like to hang, drinking serviceable wine from the ticket booth masquerading as a bar. I sit at a table with Cassie and Taylor and Jess, and other people who come and go. Williams's wife wanders by, tipsy, and tells a story about the time her husband caught their oldest son sneaking out of the house. She has me in tears.

"And to top it all off," she says, gesticulating with one hand, "since he climbed out the window, every time we dropped him off or picked him up somewhere for the next month, Travis made him use the car window to get in and out. Even when his friends were watching!"

This is a perfect night, the kind you miss before it's over. There's a lot to take in. I'm brimming with it all, like a plant gorged on sunlight: elation and relief and an unexpected sentimentality. I've had nights like this before. I've had nights like this before in this building. But those are wrecked in my mind and this one is solid and warm, like bread tucked fresh into a crisp paper bag.

I made an assumption when I came back here. I convinced myself this job was going to be as shitty as any other, and three years here would be like a punishment. That I didn't lose anything valuable by leaving here the first time.

But it's not as shitty as every other job. The institution of Ardwyn University, my employer—I'm indifferent about that, after everything I went through. But the work, and the people? They don't suck at all. In fact, they're great.

I've spent the last eight years steadfastly choosing jobs that did suck over this. I lost eight good years by leaving. Maynard took them from me.

I don't know what to do with this realization. I'd like to say Dad would have the perfect advice if he were here, but it's not true. This was the one subject area where he struggled to understand what I needed. He tried, but he couldn't comprehend why I didn't lick my wounds and bounce back stronger, like a player after an injury. "Try again somewhere else," he urged me for years. "Don't let your talent go to waste." I felt like a failure for not being strong enough. I think he felt like a failure for not protecting me, for introducing me to this industry, for not knowing Maynard's true nature despite being well-connected. Eventually, we stopped talking about it.

Tonight isn't for reflecting on painful things, though. Tonight is for celebrating.

Eventually people say their goodbyes, and the few conversations still going rattle in the big empty room. Cassie slips away to head home, but the rest of the group decides to head to a bar. I run upstairs to leave Ben a note telling him I'm gone. I could text him, but I want to include a drawing of Williams in the driver's seat while his son's legs hang out the car window.

It must be later than I thought, because Ben is back at his desk, not at the team meeting. He's in deep concentration, working his bottom lip between his teeth. I wait a moment—yup, there goes the tongue, sticking out of the corner of his mouth. An internal pom-pom shakes in my stomach.

"Hey," I say breathlessly, hanging onto either side of the doorframe and leaning into the room.

"Hey," he repeats. "Are you drunk?"

"What? No. Why?"

He shakes his head. "You just look really happy."

I am really happy. Being here makes me happy. Being with you makes me happy.

"Tell me about the meeting," I say.

He's almost vibrating as it spills out of him: his analysis so far and the strategies they're putting together. The defensive matchups, the other team's playing style. He's completely unself-conscious as he rambles on. His hair is everywhere, one piece arcing over his forehead, and his face shines.

"Everything we've worked for is happening," he says. "Tonight is a good night."

It's how I feel too. And the longer I stand here, the fainter my plan of going to the bar with Taylor and Jess becomes in my mind. And what replaces it is this thought: The kissing is not enough.

It can't hurt, to celebrate together. We deserve this. At most, there are three weeks left. And there's his mouth, and his hair, and the way he looked at me earlier. The sweat in the hollow of his throat after his pickup game. That first kiss. I'm harboring so much tonight, everything I've absorbed, and I want to turn it outward. Toward him.

I pull my keys out of my bag. "Are you almost done working?"

"Yeah, I've got nothing left. I can't look at a screen anymore. I was going to see if you wanted me to walk you to your car. You heading out now?"

I fidget with the metal in my hand, prying the metal loops of the key ring open with the tip of my thumbnail. "Yeah, I'm ready to go," I say. "Come home with me."

We exchange looks, asking questions and answering them wordlessly. His eyes do this hot hypnotic thing that grabs me by the solar plexus. And then he practically hurdles the desk, grabs my hand, and pulls me down the hall.