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The door swung open and Rachael stormed out into the hall and almost bumped into me. Both of us froze.
“I am so sorry,” I blurted out. “Are you okay?” For such a pretty girl, she wasn’t a pretty crier; her face had turned red, her eyes watery and scrunched up.
She tried to smooth out her face and paste on a smile, but it was wholly unconvincing. “I’m fine. I just need to. . . ” Her voice broke and she ducked by me and into the bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face.
I turned and hovered in the doorway. “Can I help?”
“No, it’s fine. ” Her eyes met mine in the mirror, looking extra green from the red that surrounded them. “I’ve been in this world for two years now, and it still barely makes sense to me. ”
“What’s wrong?”
The words burst out of her in an explosion that seemed to have been bottled far too long. “I don’t know! They act like such boys sometimes, like they’re just roughhousing in the backyard, and it’s no big deal, like it’s always no big deal, because it’s part of the goddamn fucking game. . . ” She broke off and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m ranting and I barely know you. Tamar, right?”
“Yeah. ”
Realization crossed her face and she slowly turned around and spoke with finality. “And you’re a reporter. ”
I shook my head quickly. “I wasn’t asking because—”
“I believe you,” she said, but too quickly, like she’d only said it to be polite. She pulled up a half smile. “I just. . . overworry, I guess. That’s what you do about people you love. ”
I thought of Abe, and then was irritated I had. “If there’s something illegal. . . ”
“No, no. No. No. . . no. So! You know Abe. Abe knows your dad. How does that work?”
Despite my painful curiosity, humor bubbled up in me. “That wasn’t a very good transition. ”
She made a face, but I was glad to see it was one with more color than the expressions she’d worn earlier. “I know. I’m not very smooth. ”
I decided to give her a pass, given that she hadn’t been the one who invited a reporter into her home. “Abe and I grew up together. Our moms are best friends. ”
True surprise lit her face. “Really?”
Too much surprise. “He never mentioned me?”
“No. ”
My stomach twisted in a cold, hard knot. “Oh. ”
Sympathy flooded her features, and I distantly noted that both she and Abe showed their emotions easily. Maybe that was why they were friends.
Why hadn’t Abe told his friends about me?
Why was I enough of an idiot to think he would have?
“Tamar. ”
I looked up.
She seemed to have difficulty wrangling her words “Abe—talks about a lot. A lot of. . . outward things. Or to other people about their lives. He doesn’t always. . . talk about what’s important to him. ”
I’d never heard it put into words like that, but it was an interesting observation. I wasn’t positive I agreed, though, because Abe had talked plenty of times about his family or his worries about his grandma’s health or when he’d been stressed out about football scholarships or getting drafted.
She looked at me intently. “He’s always been special. Better than the others. ” She smiled to herself, small and secret. “Galahad, perhaps. ”
I smiled despite myself. “Not that pure. ”
She laughed, but sobered quickly. “No, but he’s always wanted more. He’s always wanted friends outside the team, and he’s always been so aware of how everyone interacts. He’s a good friend. ”
I didn’t say anything.
“Anyway. ” She turned back to the mirror and frowned, and then seemed to give up. “We should head back. ”
I trailed her back into the living room. I spied Abe sitting on a couch at the far end of my room and made my way over to him. He smiled when he caught sight of me and kicked the teammate beside him off the couch so that I could sit beside him.
If I stayed very still, I could see the effects of the game on the people gathered around us. A crooked pinkie. Curved fingers. A bruise creeping out from under more than one player’s sleeve. A scar beneath the hairline. They called football war without death but it was not without damage, and these men, laughing and joking, were the casualties that kept living.
I knew that football was filled with disposables: a cast of thousands with only three or four names above the fold. Abe lucked out by landing in this golden circle with Carter and Lindsey, but he’d always moved in extraordinary ways.
When we left, we cut through Central Park so I could catch the Q or N train at the southeast corner. We crossed Sheep Meadow, the wide-open green still bright as jade, though the round trees that ringed the grass had turned shades of red and gold. We walked near them, over the shed leaves that crunched beneath our feet, a patchwork carpet of an autumn we never saw at home. Everything here was crisp and sharp; the streetlamps bright, the moon clear in the blue-black sky.
“Thank you for bringing me. ” I shoved my hands in my coat pockets as we walked. “I had a lot of fun. ”
He turned his head to smile. “I’m glad. ”
I hesitated, a little unsure of how to proceed, how to let him know that this was more than a form of gratitude. “No, but Abe—I mean it. Thank you. It meant a lot, that you brought me there. It couldn’t have been easy, since my job and yours puts us a bit at odds. ”
“They’re my friends,” he said simply. “I want you to know them. ”
I stopped. We’d reached the pond, and the water below us reflected back the shining lights of the city, like a gleaming fairy-tale world. It felt like we were the only people that existed. “Why did you want that?”
His hand reached out; the back of his fingers touched my cheek. “It’s important to me that everyone I care about gets along. ”
I couldn’t breathe. My feet tingled and my heart beat wildly. “Abraham. . . ”
His voice turned husky and low. “When you say my name like that, I want to. . . ” His mouth opened but no words came out.
I couldn’t resist. “You want to what?”
His eyes were dark as night yet bright as the moon when he looked at me. How was that possible? “You want me to spell it out?”
Though my stomach danced and spun, my outer body stayed perfectly still. “Sometimes I do. ”
He groaned and leaned back. The lamplights silhouetted him perfectly, light and dark. Dreams made real. When he looked back, he cupped my face in his hands. “I’ve been resisting doing this for years. ”
I just stared. I was melting. I was hot clay under the summer’s sun.
He let out a soft sound of desire. The air between us simmered with need, and my whole body yearned toward him. I could barely think, couldn’t blink. Small breaths slipped in and out of me like the hopeful flutterings of a hummingbird and then his lips were on mine.
His were warm and firm, a gentle pressure against mine. My heart rate spiked. It was bliss. I had dreamed about this moment for so many years, and it was everything I had always imagined—more. I could never have dreamed of the way his lips would move, the powerful, drugging effect of his mouth on mine. Ecstasy lay in that kiss, in the way his tongue slowly tangled with mine. Heat spiraled tightly though my body, and my back arched. I gave everything to the kiss, falling into it like a flower to sun.