Page 48 of Break Your Fall

Tommy. In the guest house. With the back of his hand.

“It’s been on the ground,” I say as an excuse, motioning to the food I’m trying to prepare on the same surface. “Why were you in my bedroom?”

Now I’m glad I relocated my box of condoms to the bedroom drawer in here.

“I’m going to ask again,” Dad says, shoving his hands inside his slacks pockets, ready for a discussion. “What’s going on with you, Tommy?”

I still have nothing to tell, nothing I’m ready to talk to him about, so I tell him what he wants to hear as I grab my peach jam from the fridge. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Mhm,” he says with a mix of skepticism and agreement. “Don’t be ungrateful for what you’ve been given. So many athletes would kill for the opportunity you have.”

I toast my bagel. “Who says I’m ungrateful?”

“You can’t slack off—”

“I’m not slacking off,” I argue, a direct stare. “I left the ball in my room. It’s a yard away, Dad.” I gesture toward our yard right outside the front windows. “I can get it anytime.”

“A year ago, that would’ve been the first thing you grabbed.”

“A year ago, you were still in love with Mom.”

The bagel pops up from the toaster, but our stares don’t waver.Yeah, I heard that, too.One argument in the middle of the night while I was supposed to be asleep confirmed that my parents aren’t in love anymore. They just stopped loving each other. What kind of shit is that? I can’t even imagine. How that happens is beyond me, and makes me wonder if they were ever in love in the first place.

“I want the best for you,” Dad deflects, and I pluck my bagel from the toaster with a sigh.

“I want the best for me,” I repeat, speaking up for only myself. Because I know Dad’s idea of the best for me involves playing college ball. My father wants Thomas Holloway, star athlete. He wouldn’t understand the struggle I’ve been having.

Before I picked up a basketball, my dad was just my dad.

Father and son became coach and player.

“I’m fine,” I reiterate. “Focus on you and Mom.”Please.

“There’s nothing to focus on.” Dad is resigned, only a slight hint of sadness in his voice. He’s had time to get used to being without Mom in the near future.How could you? How?“Your Mom and I are going our separate ways.”

I raise one-half of my jam-coated bagel. “Well, have fun on your journey, Dad.” I manage a chuckle at my reference, but Dad’s face lacks amusement.

A silhouette appears in my periphery. “Hey.”

Julian announces himself from the door my dad left open when he raided my man cave.That’s a good one.His eyes bounce between our now focused stares, his silently asking me if he needs to mediate this conversation. I shake my head. His presence is enough for Dad to know our talk is over.

Until it comes around again.

“Hey, Julian,” Dad greets as he retrieves my basketball from the floor, then rolls it onto the couch. He walks past him with a last look at me before he marches through the grass back to the main house.

I bite into my bagel at the now stilted silence in the room, and some peach jam falls and runs down my chest. My body stiffens, my mouth scrunched around the bite it managed to catch until I look down at my stained and sticky skin.

Julian laughs. “Need a shirt, man?”

“Nope,” I say around my chewing as I set my bagel down. I wet a paper towel and clean myself off.

“This might be the only place we have no memories,” Julian notes as I shoot the sopping paper towel into the trash can.

“You want this to be the first?” The tension builds again before dissipating as soon as our eyes connect. I try to hold it. I want my wall to stay in place until he drops his for Reyna. “Don’t you have work or Camille or something?”

“Not today,” he says with a chuckle, relaxing back against the entry table. “I have a Banks.”

“Now you really are contagious,” I say through a chuckle of my own. If I wanted to keep the joke going, I’d grab the disinfectant Mom keeps under the sink and display it on the bar.

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