Page 110 of Scoring the Player
CHAPTER 27
ARNAZ
“Fervent Prayer”
When I dream of his face
My soul gasps awake
My palm’s sweaty as it hovers over my phone.
Just do it.
I hit twenty-seven points tonight, helped clutch a dub, yet getting up the nerve to hit the call button has me sweating.
Who calls anyone anymore?
My finger plummets, taking my stomach along with it.
“Hey!” Salem answers on the second ring.
“Hey. You, uh, picked up.”
“Of course I picked up.”
“Bad time?”
“Nah. Never. Hold on one sec.” He sounds like he’s smiling. “How are you?” The music in the background fades.
“Yeah, I’m good. Is it cool that I called?”
“I mean, I’ve been waiting over five years for a call like this, so it’scoolor whatever.”
My mouth twists, wrestling the over-the-top bubble in my throat.
“How was your day? You, uh, had off, right?”
“Yep. It was chill. Took Simba to a dog park. Ran errands. Now I’m working on this month’s bake-off challenge. Wanna see?”
“Uh”—I look down at my bare chest and light-gray sweats—“sure.”
A FaceTime call comes in, and I hit accept. “Whoa. There’s a bird sleeping on your cake?”
He chuckles. “The birdisthe cake. Well, the nest and branch are also cake. It’s all cake.”
I scoff at the red beak and legs, jet-black neck, and indigo-blue feathers leading to a black-and-white striped tail. “I’m definitely staring at an exotic bird.”
“A-ha. If you bought it, that bodes well for me. I need to crush Dad.”
I laugh.
“It’s inspired by the Formosan blue magpie. I don’t know. I was about to dump it and restart. He beat me last month.” He blows out a breath. “I need to bring it this month.”
“If the challenge is to create a realistic-looking bird out of cake, I can’t see anything topping this.”
The camera flips around. “You know complimenting my baking isn’t gonna help last time being our last time.”
“That wasn’t our last time,” I tell him, then ask, “You dress like that when you bake?”
