Page 26 of Not Catching Love

I caught him watching my dance class and had to pretend like I didn’t notice him hovering right outside the door. If I didn’t see him, I didn’t have to invite him in, and if I didn’t invite him in, I wouldn’t have to spend more time with him.

It was airtight logic.

Except for how fucking distracted it made me that I kept stepping on feet and running into walking frames. It was a disaster of a class, and I owe these people better.

“I’m telling you,” Manny says from where he’s driving next to me. “Once you see the lot we’re in the process of subdividing, you’re going to lose your mind. You can turn the whole thing into a bug house if you want to.”

The further we get from Seattle, the less settled I am. I’vebeen to Manny’s house for dinner and out this way to visit our old teammate Elias a couple of times too. Every visit is the same though, like a weight slowly pressing down on my chest the further I get from the city. Usually I make up some excuse not to go, but when Manny showed up earlier, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. At least he’s one person in my life who won’t let me retreat into nothingness.

“Why are you quiet?” he asks, looking over at me through his huge black sunglasses.

“No reason.” There is a reason. I’m on edge, waiting for my phone to ring.

“You really haven’t been yourself lately, and I thought it was maybe something you were going through, but this mood has stuck. Should I be worried?”

Manny doesn’t know about Xander, and I’m not about to tell him either. It’s bad enough everyone I work with knows how my entire life is at a standstill. I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily embarrassed by it, but I probably should be. There’s a line between helping someone and becoming a doormat for them, and I’ve pole-vaulted right over into the latter.

All I can do is hope that this land Manny is showing me suddenly injects some goddamn life back into me.

“Work keeps me busy,” I explain. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

He throws me a skeptical look. “There’s more to life than work. I thought you got into nursing so you could travel and help people.”

“You of all people should know plans change, Mr. Super Bowl.”

“Yeah, but I was never close to being good enough to go all the way. That wasn’t me changing my plans; it was me being shit. You, on the other hand, are already a nurse. That part’s done.”

“Almost sounds like you’re trying to get rid of me.”

Manny laughs, scenery speeding by outside his window. “You’re my bestie, bestie. I want to make sure you’re where you want to be in life. Where’s that fun-loving guy I’ve always known?”

“Geez, get out of my head. I’m already well aware of how old I’m getting, thanks.”

“Old? We’re mid-thirties. That’s not even close to being old.”

“Feels it though.”

Manny snaps his fingers. “There. See? That. Where did this grumbly old man come from?”

The fucking rut I’m stuck in. “Tell me, if I do end up buying this land from you, am I going to have to deal with you nosing into my life every other day?”

“You don’t give me enough credit. I have no issues doing thateveryday. Whether you live by me or not.”

“Not helping your case.”

“But thefootball field,Derek. Remember the football field.”

“And all those children I don’t have.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

I withhold rolling my eyes as he turns the car onto his property. We’re well outside of the city, and I’m trying to turn off the reminder of how long it would take for us to get back there if I have a phone call come through. Definitely not fast enough to beat Xander to the pharmacy, and if he’s there, sitting, waiting … ifSusantells him I’m not coming … I picture the way her offensively pink lipstick sinks into the lines in her lips whenever they strain under a smile. It’d give her a thrill to send Xander away.

The images are all false and made up in my head, but the irrational anger stoking at my rib cage is real.

Manny bypasses the big house and drives further down his land. It gets more overgrown as we put distance between ourselves and the main property, until at last, he pulls up on theedge of what’s been maintained. There are marker pegs in the ground.

I follow Manny out of the car.

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