Page 19 of Dangerous Play

“I’m not, actually. I study psychology… and you can wipe the shock off your face.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I was always curious about happiness. How it works, what makes people happy and how our brain decided we are happy. I wanted to learn more.”

“And did you find it?” She tilted her head, some messy strays of hair falling over her face.

I resisted the urge to tug on them, fisting my hand. “Still searching.”

“You know… we need to know some stuff about each other, if we are going to sell this,” she mentioned, as if I didn’t know. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one opening up first.

I nodded. “But we can stick to the hooked up, started dating and still getting to know each other timeline. What’s important is that we entered into a relationship after one hookup and we are already exclusive. That’s a rushed timeline, so we need to find an excuse. I don’t date and you… just came out of a relationship. People will immediately think it’s a fluke.”

Ivy crossed her arms. “Maybe we can say we texted over the summer? Met while surfing?”

I almost choked on air. “Surfing? I don’t surf. I know I look like an all-American dream, but I’m from Arizona. I hike most of the times.”

She grimaced. “I do kite-boarding… I could teach you.”

“Not a chance. I want to play professional soccer and not kill myself chasing uncontrollable waves.”

“Do you like video games?” she tried another angle. “I study computer science, hence people assume I’m a nerd because girls shouldn’t know how to code. Minecraft is my favorite videogame.”

“I play FIFA on my Switch when I travel. That’s about it.”

Ivy exhaled. “We must have any interest that overlap… like… what do you like to do in your free time?”

“Free time?” I asked jokingly, glancing out the window. My life has always revolved around soccer ever since I decided I wanted to go pro. It was my whole personality, there wasn’t really much else. “Play soccer? Watch soccer? Work out? Run?”

“Running is good!” She looked at me with a newfound spark. My chest felt a strange tug looking at her expression, but I brushed it off and focused on her words. “I run too… or used to. Okay, so maybe we met on a running trail.”

“In California?” I asked back with a raised brow. “I still spent most of my summer in Arizona. One of the only times I was running there during the summer was when I did the Santa Monica half marathon.”

“You ran it?”

I nodded, shrugging. “The guys dared me to sign up when I was complaining that I needed to work toward something to keep me motivated over summer break. It wasn’t too bad, I ran it in an hour and a half.”

“That was beginning of July… that gives us enough time to say we met there and hung out from there onwards.”

“You were there?” It was my turn to sound shocked.

Ivy nodded. “Yeah… it was a huge fail. I haven’t run or trained since dating Ander. After we broke up, I wanted to just pick up where I left off, but it wasn’t that easy. Let’s just say it was a humbling experience.”

I thought about it for a second, but there were so many people, it was impossible for me to remember her. “Why did you stop running if you enjoyed it?”

Ivy turned to look out the window, her shoulders tensed.

I nudged her gently, keeping my voice light and calm. “What happened with the deep stuff?”

She scoffed, still not turning toward me. “Ander got jealous and told me to stop running as I was a better runner than him. I was so stupid, I wanted to please him. So, I took up kite-boarding actively, and while I love it, it’s not really the same. Running… helps me work through things, it relaxes me. For kite-boarding, I need to be fully present. I can’t get out of my head and just let my body take me. If I do that, I end in the mouth of the wave.”

I watched her sad eyes reflect in the window and I wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was to such a heavy confession. I always knew Ander was a dick, but with every new thing Ivy shared, he was burring himself deeper and deeper in my eyes.

“Ivy…” I started, not even sure what I wanted to say, when my stomach rumbled loudly, interrupting my non-existing sentence.

She glanced my way over her shoulder, and I gave her my sweet boyish smile. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

A small chuckle escaped her, and a fait smile played on her pink lips. Warmth spread in my chest from being able to bring her back from her bad memory.

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