Page 14 of Play Maker

It hits my chest, and I catch it reflexively.

Cozy. Jesus.

I should be irritated. I should be looking for an excuse to leave—call one of the guys on the team somehow, sleep in my damn truck, walk back to the townhouse on foot if I have to. But I don’t move.

Because it’s warm in here. Because the storm is howling outside, and I don’t have anywhere else to be. Because there’s something about her—firelit, still halfway annoyed with me—that makes my ribs feel too small for my lungs.

I sit down, and she walks to her kitchen. “Coco?”

“Got anything stronger?” I half-joke as I toe off my boots and shrug off my jacket, but honestly, I could use something right now to take the edge off.

She heads to the fridge. “I could use a drink myself.” She looks inside. “It looks like milk or Oenbeer.”

“What now?” I ask.

“Oenbeer. Beer and wine hybrid we’re …” She stops and shakes her head. “Milk or the other.”

“Oenbeer me.”

After she walks over and hands me the brown bottle, she sits down, not right next to me, but not in the chair. She curls her legs up under her like it’s no big deal. Like we haven’t spent years orbiting each other, dragging history that moment caused behind us like anchors.

I twist the cap off the drink and hand it to her then take hers, open it, and take a drink.

I set the glass bottle down, the sweetness sticking to my tongue like a memory I never made, and cock an eyebrow at her.

“Thoughts?” she asks.

“Tastes like grape soda grew up and got some dirt under its nails.”

“What?” She laughs as she reaches behind the couch.

“Offense & Vinyl?” I ask. “What—you just pulled names out of a hat?”

In her hand is a small spiral notebook with a pen attached to it. She opens it up and scribbles something down as she says, “My parents graduated in the 90s, back when everybody thought CDs were the future. But my dad … he swore vinyl was untouchable.”

I nod, because it sounds just like something Ryan Brooks would believe. He doesn’t say much, but his buildings, with as much reclaimed materials as he has … “Makes perfect sense.”

She grins. “Yeah. Sundays watching football in the garage while he was getting tools and materials ready for the week ahead.”

“What team?” I ask.

“When Uncle Lucas played, it was his, not that I remember much of those days. When Trucker played, it was always the Giants.” I nod, and she continues, “He used to crank it up on Sundays, hated the commentators for pro games. Oddly, he hung onto every word the broadcasters of the college games muttered,” she says, voice getting softer, more faraway. “Pearl Jam. Nirvana. Tom Petty. Tupac sometimes.”

That makes me laugh under my breath, easy and sharp.

“He always said, ‘Good offense wins games, but good music wins your damn soul,’” Lo adds, a tiny smile curving her mouth. She shrugs like it’s no big deal, but there’s this glow in her eyes, like she’s seeing that garage, that life before they bought the team and moved it here. Her memories growing up are a hell of a lot different than mine.

“So, when we started bottling these”—she nods at the label between my fingers—“I wanted one that tasted likethat—a memory.Like Sunday afternoons.” She laughs, voice different now as she holds up the notebook. “So, tastes like grape soda grew up, got some dirt under its nails?”

“It’s sweet. Rough around the edges.”

“Like life had its way with a grape.”

Had its way…

I tip the glass toward her, voice low and honest. “You made a whole damn world in a bottle, Brooks.”

Her cheeks flush, but she just shakes her head and mutters, “Maybe. Or maybe I just miss when life was that simple. Like that college football stage.”

---