Page 110 of Beautiful Broken Love

“Yes,” he said, peering out the window.

I huffed a laugh. “More for me.”

Abe was quiet. He was always quiet, but I hadn’t seen him in so long and wanted to make conversation. The one thing I could think of was something I didn’t want to bring up, but I went with it just to hear Abe’s voice again.

“You know I worked with an NBA player for my company?”

At that, my brother whipped his head to look in my direction. Like a fish on a hook. “What team does he play for?”

“The Atlanta Ravens.”

“Is it Javier Valdez? He’s a really good center. He has long arms. And I also hear that he’s a nice guy even though people think he’s mean because his wife died.”

“Well, Ihavemet Javier Valdez, and he’s pretty cool, but it’s not him I’m talking about.”

Abe’s eyes stretched, and for a split second he looked me in the eye. He pulled away just as quickly to stare at his lap, hold his hands out, and say, “Is it Deke Bishop?”

“Ding ding ding!”

Abe’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smile as he kept staring at his lap. “He’s really cool. I check his stats all the time. I want to play like him, but he has much better control of the ball than me. Did you know Mama put me in basketball camp again? Yeah, it’s for teens like me. It starts around the time school starts, and I think it’s for three hours aday. But I watch so many of Deke Bishop’s videos and highlights. He’s such a beast. I wish I could play like him. Did you know he’s had the most assists on the team since ...”

My brother was on a tangent now, and I loved it. He only talked nonstop about the things he loved, and what he loved most was basketball and math. He’d been a lover of basketball since he was a kid. As far as math goes, you’d never catch me talking about it during casual conversations.

We made it back home, and Abe was still talking about Deke and the Atlanta Ravens, even when Mama greeted him with a peck on the cheek.

“Sorry.” I laughed. “I got him going.”

She gave him a kiss on the forehead, when he sat at the table, and placed an already-prepared grilled cheese down for him. “Go ahead and eat, Abe. Then I want you to shower and put on your comfortable clothes.”

“’Kay, Mama.”

He dug into his grilled cheese, and while he did, Mama went to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of merlot, and said, “Vina, let’s have a drink on the porch.”

FIFTY-NINE

DAVINA

The sun was setting, and I had a cool glass of much-needed wine in hand. There was a cool, soothing breeze going, causing the wind chimes to collide.

Mama was sitting in one of the chairs, I occupied the other, and Octavia had joined us. She was sitting on the ottoman for my chair.

She and Octavia talked about Aromantic while I scrolled through my phone. As I was reading a few of the comments on the GOC page, a text notification popped up from Tish, and I tapped it. I refrained from rolling my eyes as I clicked the link.

The headline was:

DEKE BISHOP’S FIRST GAME A BIG LETDOWN

Oh boy.Really?It was obvious she wanted me to feel worse, as if I didn’t feel bad enough. She wasn’t in support of me leaving while he was sleeping, but when I explained how I felt and that I’d had a panic attack, she understood.

I darkened the screen of my phone, took a sip of wine, then climbed out of the chair to use the bathroom. Abe was sitting on the couch in fresh clothes, the scent of his citrusy bodywash filling half the room.

His phone was in his hand, and though the volume was low, I could hear people speaking. When they said a familiar name, I stopped in the hallway to listen.

“I’m sorry, Doug. I know you like the guy, but he’s starting a brand-new season withweakattempts. Bishop claimed he had intense training over the summer, but I gotta tell ya. I’m not seeing it! He lost control of the ball four times in the span of thirty minutes, and he was eight for twenty, which is the lowest I’ve ever seen for this guy, even when he was in college.”

“Yeah, Deke Bishop normally brings the heat, but all I saw were ice-cold bricks,” another said.

The commentators laughed together, and that’s when I hurried into the bathroom.

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