Page 61 of Give Me a Shot

He let himself run a hand down her arm.

“Sure thing,” he said.

She smiled at him.

“Tell me about blacksmithing,” she said. “When I read about sensory overload for HSPs, I was surprised. Blacksmithing seems like a really loud hobby. Have you been doing it long?”

He wiped his mouth and shrugged.

“Pretty much since I quit rowing. But I really wanted to do it. Took me some time to get acclimated to the noise and the smells. Now those specific noises and smells are reminders of accomplishment, so they don’t get to me.”

“Rowing?”

Mo held in his grimace. He hadn’t meant to mention that.

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “I went to college for it. UM Ann Arbor.”

Jess studied him. He told himself not to blush.

“Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?” she asked.

He shrugged. Rowing was difficult to remember.

“I was injured at the wrong time,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow.

“A lumbar injury will take you out for several months. I hurt myself bad right before the Olympic trials. Four years earlier I’d been an alternate; that year was my opportunity to actually row in the Games.”

“I’m sorry,what?” Jess asked. “Are you telling me that you were an Olympic athlete?”

He shrugged again.

“I guess technically?” he said.

“Do I have to google you, Mo?” she asked.

He chuckled in spite of his nerves.

“Okay, Doug,” he said.

She laughed as she fished her phone out of her purse.

“Mo Sarda rowing?” she asked.

“Mohammed,” he said.

“Thank you for the precision,” she said, typing on her screen. She was silent a moment, and Mo braced himself. He could tell that some results had come up but couldn’t see what she tapped open. Her head snapped up and she gawked at him.

“Excuse me, Mr. ‘New Hope for the Sport,’ ” she said. “Mr. ‘UM rower favorite for the Games.’ That’s an amazing accomplishment. Why did you seem embarrassed about this?” she asked.

He sighed. He tried to think of a good way to explain it, but he remembered Maddie telling him to talk like he talked to her. He took a quick sip of his drink.

“Two things,” he said. He couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her. “One, it took me a long time to get over losing my chance. Just thinking about the sport hurt. And two, I was a complete asshole back then. Quick to anger, harsh with people. Judgmental. I didn’t know that I was an HSP back then, and I was forcing myself to try to live like everybody else. I was constantly worn out by the overstimulation and didn’t know how to compensate. I understand myself better today but I’m not proud of who I was back then, so I avoid thinking about it. It was better to bury the whole subject.”

Jess had leaned closer to him to listen. He hadn’t meant to speak quietly, but that tended to happen with things he didn’t want to talk about. He glanced at her as she sat back.

“I understand,” she said. She put her phone back in her purse, picked up her drink, and took a sip. He waited for the additional questions that always came when rowing came up. She put her drink back down.

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