Page 6 of False Start

“He asked if you were my girlfriend.”

I bit back a laugh. “See, that just proves my point. He’s self-absorbed.”

“That’s a leap.”

I cringed at him protecting a literal stranger. Derek was my best friend. “According to some articles, he’s a ‘once in a lifetime’ talent who might lose his spot on the team because he drinks and parties too much. Which is why I didn’t expect you back until the morning.”

“Oh, you’ve read articles now?” Derek grinned. “Well, I can’t speak to his press reports, but he seems like a decent guy. A little immature, sure, but at least he’s trying to stay out of trouble. Besides, you’re no fun now, anyway.”

The stack of textbooks in my bedroom and flash cards all over the house confirmed that I’d been zero fun for two years now. And with my credentialing exam only two months away, I’d be even less fun. Negative fun. A fun suck.

“Just don’t replace me.” I scrubbed my face, eyes heavy and body achy.

I needed a good night's sleep, a reset, a vacation. My natural pessimism, usually a nice counterbalance to Derek’s friendliness, had been thrown out of whack by a full-time joband sixteen credit hours of coursework. My best friend starting a bromance with an infamous sports star hadn’t helped help.

“You? With him? Never. Unless he starts splashing money around, and then you might be in the market for a new roommate.”

I rolled my eyes and playfully punched his arm. “You wish.”

If Trent had bailed after that first practice, I wouldn’t have been surprised. A leading NFL receiver joining a losing kickball team during off-season? Practically an impossibility.

And the opposing teams seethed with jealousy. From my spot on the bench, the co-captains of the Upper Deckers shared a dumbfounded look immediately followed by flat-out jealousy as Trent confidently strode to the pitching mound next to Derek. They’d missed out.

Between the two of us, Derek was the social butterfly. When we moved to Norwalk, he’d embraced the challenge of finding new friends in a city big enough to swallow us whole when I would have been happy to fade into obscurity. But he ingratiated himself with everyone we passed: the local bodega owner, the loud couple in the apartment above ours, the homeless guy who hung out in the alley behind our apartment complex.

Kickball had been his idea.

At his core, Derek was a frat bro. It wasn’t just the wardrobe, though he loved a tailored button down and a pair of Sperry’s. He liked the camaraderie. He enjoyed being part of a group. He needed a team.

But Norwalk’s kickball league wasn’t for the faint of heart. It wasn’t some social event with beers instead of base coaches and player umpires. No, the young professionals of Norwalk tooktheir recreational league sports as seriously as they did their NFL team. After a season spent begging another team to take him on, Derek formed his own.

Or, rather, I got sick of listening to him complain and I signed us up, assuming that he’d browbeat his coworkers at the bakery into joining us if I pulled the trigger. An assumption he brought to life.

And Derek had kept our roster full by taking in any free agents looking for a kickball home. Some stayed, others left after the season or only hung around for a few practices. Trent’s name hadn’t differed from the others: immediate rejection by the other teams in the league while Derek insisted we could fit “one more player.”

A perfect opportunity for me to take a season off, but I hadn’t. As much as I grumbled, I liked kickball. I enjoyed being halfway decent at a sport, as lame as that sport was. And while school and work hadn’t kept me away, something about Trent’s presence made me want to duck out. Years of grade school teasing and bullying came roaring back to me, personified by a single cocky athlete.

On the field, an umpire laid out the rules. A familiar pep talk about good sportsmanship and clean play. Derek and Trent listened intently, faces trained on the umpire, and I couldn’t help but compare them.

Despite being a hair shorter than Derek, Trent took up an amazing amount of space. Like a gravitational field surrounded him, drawing everyone else into it. He was the type of person people noticed. Really noticed. Wanted to be noticed by.

But unlike my best friend, Trent had a layer of calculation running under that pull. A weighing and assessing of worth. Subtle, sure, buffered by a gentle southern twang and a handsome face, but noticeable. To me, anyway.

Trent wasn’t bad looking. Sure, he wasn’t movie star hot. No square jaw and piercing eyes with smoldering looks. His blond hair almost turned to red under the sun and he had an interesting face: a smattering of freckles across his cheeks, a slightly lopsided smile that pulled up higher on one side than the other, and expressive green eyes. A charming youthful face completely at odds with the rest of his body.

He looked like he should have been tall and lanky. Maybe if he didn’t play football for a living, he would have been. Instead, layers of muscle filled in any lankiness. His arms strained at his Foul Boules t-shirt, shoulders broad and legs defined. The type of body salivated over at a beach.

Despite his natural charisma and attractiveness, my bullshit detector went wild whenever he stood near me.

“We’re kicking first,” Derek yelled to the team after the umpire dismissed the captains.

Trent’s eyes locked on mine, a faint, confused smile forming on his face before I turned away. My cheeks burned, and I busied myself with searching for a water bottle.

“Hey,” Trent swept in beside me, unearthing his duffle bag from under a discarded sweater.

I snatched my water bottle from the bench. “Texas.”

“Texas? We have nicknames now?” He laughed, low and rumbly. “Okay. How do you feel about Kitten?”

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