Page 45 of Passing the Red Line
I guess my mind is getting a few hours ahead of itself.
“I think Rodriguez is broken,” Blake, my teammate and friend says, breaking me out of my headspace.
When I found out I was coming to Chicago for the day, I sent a message out to Liam, Blake and our other teammate Logan so that we could grab a bite to eat before I headed back to California for the next three weeks. I didn’t need to, I could have just flown in and out of Chicago without them noticing, but they’ve been hounding me about spending the summer so far away from them that I decided to shut them up and to not be a shit friend and take them to lunch.
Liam and Blake said yes, and Logan said he was in New York for his brother’s wedding.
Now here we are at a sandwich shop by the river, taking in some of this Chicago muggy heat, joined by Sophia, Blake’s supposed best friend forever.
If you ask me, the dude has feelings for her, but he is too scared to admit it.
“What makes you say that?” Liam asks him right before he takes a bite of the sandwich in front of him.
“Because he's smiling, I’ve never seen the man smile,” Blake answers him, eying me like he is trying to figure out if I’ve been replaced by a robot or something.
“That’s not true. He smiled when you guys won the cup,” Sophia adds, shoving her best friend.
“He also smiled the first time he held Emma,” Liam throws out mentioning his two-month-old daughter. Which reminds me. I still have a bet to pay off.
Last December while Liam Chloe’s girlfriend was pregnant with their daughter Emma, Blake and I had a little race during one of our practices. The loser had to change Emma’s diaper for a whole day once she was born. Because I had decided to let Blake win, I got stuck on diaper duty. As much as I love the kid, I don’t want to change dirty diapers.
So, I will refrain from reminding Liam and Blake that the bet hasn’t been paid.
“Those times are different,” Blake says, almost yelling out the words. “Those were smiles of enjoyment. What’s so enjoyable about eating a deli sandwich with three of your friends?”
Jeez, a guy has a good morning eating his girl out in the shower and then taking her from behind and he gets judged for smiling a little bit.
“Aww Jacobi has his panties in a bunch. If you don’t enjoy our company, Blakey, you can just say,” I tell him, finally saying something and adding to the back and forth.
“Your company is sometimes debatable,” he says, giving me a shrug.
“Blake!” Sophia reprimands him with a slap on the arm before turning to me. “Don’t listen to him. It’s nice to see you smile. Whatever the cause may be.”
“I know the cause,” Liam answers from where he sits next to me on our four top.
“You don’t know shit.” And he doesn’t. Other than the night at the bar, I haven’t mentioned Eliana to him. He doesn’t know that I started sleeping with her that night or that she’s been in my bed ever since.
“Oh, really? So that smile on your fucking face has nothing to do with that picture on your phone?” My best friend asks, nodding to the device on the table between us.
“What picture?” I think he’s been hit in the head too many times.
“The one on your lock screen. You know, the one of a sunset overlooking the beach where you have a woman's legs on your lap. That picture.”
No way he saw the picture on my lock screen that closely and was able to point out Eliana. There’s like an inch of her showing.
“It could be a stock photo,” I say to him, trying to throw him off.
“Or it could be the same picture that someone posted on their Instagram page a couple days ago.”
Fuck, I forgot that she was going to do that.
Every night after eating dinner, Eliana and I go out to the balcony and watch as the sun goes down. It has become our little nightly routine.
Earlier in the week, after we had finished dinner, we went out to the balcony and sat on the couch like we usually do. For some reason this time around, I felt inclined to take a picture of the sun setting. There isn't much to the picture, just the ocean, the sun, and a fraction of Eliana’s legs.
Nothing special. It was just a nice way for me to capture some of my favorite things in one click.
Eliana liked my photography skills so much that she had me send a picture to her so that she could post it. Since I don’t check any of my social media accounts, I didn’t know she actually did it. I don’t even know if I’m following her, but apparently Liam is and as soon as he saw the picture on my lock screen, he put two and two together.
