Page 33 of Three Pucking Words
Yep. Definitely fucked up.
“I should get going too. Did you still want to meet up later this week? We haven’t even touched on the full roster yet, and you never know when someone could be subbed in.”
It isn’t something I like to say aloud often or else it’ll jinx us. The last time somebody mentioned using a sub, one of our bestdefensemen tore his ACL and needed to undergo surgery and rehab. He was out for an entire season and a half.
Honor nibbles her bottom lip, and I can sense her nervousness as she frees it from her top two teeth. “It wouldn’t hurt,” she admits, almost as if she’s trying to convince herself. “My supervisor gave me all the login information for the team’s socials, and I need to start going through pictures and figuring out captions to post. God forbid I say something wrong or mislabel who a player is, I’ll never live it down.”
It wouldn’t be the first time one of our social media pages had the wrong information plastered everywhere. Mackenzie was only one of the page’s admins. There were two other interns who were meant to keep an eye out for daily and weekly trends, help reply to fan messages and comments, and share important scheduling dates. I remember when the head of PR had a conniption when a graphic was made and posted before it could be approved advertising discounted tickets to one of our biggest games of the year, which resulted in a lot of pissed off people when they realized it wasn’t going to be honored at admissions.
Needless to say, that intern didn’t last much longer. Granted, she also put the wrong names down on a few players and was a little more passive aggressive in her replies to online keyboard warriors, so her chances had dried up.
“What about Friday? We’re watching game tapes, so we should be out early, and Gemma has a sleepover at her friend’s house. It’ll give us an opportunity to go over some more.”
We start walking slowly toward the end of the hall, where we’ll go our separate ways. She glances at me briefly through her thick lashes, her inner cheek being pulled in by her teeth like she’s biting it.
“Or you can tell me what works best for you,” I offer, watching as her eyes widen a fraction. “I can’t say I’ll beavailable, because I have Gemma on and off. But I can try making it work.”
I have a strong desire to make her feel comfortable. Mostly because I hate that I make her feel anything but. If that means moving around the few plans I do have, so be it. It isn’t like Gemma hasn’t been to the aquarium, zoo, or park a million times already.
We stop at the end of the hall that splits in two different directions, and I wait for her to give me an answer. It gives me time to see how she fiddles with her hair, and tugs at the hem of the purple shirt that makes her eyes look brighter than they usually are. Honor is a gorgeous girl. Something I wish I didn’t think to make this a hell of a lot easier.
Her eyes meet mine and she releases her cheek. Something in her relaxes, easing the tension coiled in her squared shoulders. “Friday works,” she says quietly, rubbing her arm and moving her weight from one foot to the other. “I’ll see you then.”
I chuckle, backing toward the opposite side of the hall that she’s going down. “I’m sure we’ll see each other around here sooner. And I expect a full report on what you think of the bread, Pixel Picasso.”
Honor deadpans. “I don’t want to make you cry if I come back in with a Yelp review you don’t like. I’ve been told I can be too critical when it comes to food.”
Something tells me that isn’t true. She didn’t have a bad thing to say about Nina’s gyros, or the soup, or the dessert.
“And no to the nickname,” she adds.
I flash her my best smile. “I’ll think of a better name, just give me time.”
She watches me, studying me a little closer than before, before shaking her head. What she’s thinking, I don’t know. But damn do I want to figure it out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Honor
The rest ofthe week flies by quicker than I expect it to considering half of it is spent trying to translate what people’s comments mean on the team’s social media pages. I have to use Urban Dictionary to figure out why some women are “simps” for our center, Akira Mendell, or if some people forgot to finish typing their comments when they leave one letter responses like “W” or “L” during our weekly polls. I also learn that the word “bet” has nothing to do with betting, and that “living rent-free” doesn’t pertain toactualrent.
I haven’t felt this old since my neighbor’s daughter in Chicago asked me why I had tinsel in my hair. It was a silver strand. My very first one. Zoe, the extroverted eight-year-old, will be happy to know I’ve gotten at least ten more since her discovery of the first.
Other than my newfound revelation that I am, in fact, getting older, it’s been a good week. I’ve been getting praised by Karina for the photographs I’ve been taking, and the work I’ve been doing online. And maybe part of my good mood also has something to do with the banana bread that is way better than I expected thanks to its chocolate contents.
Life has been…okay.
Up until today, anyway.
Today, a ping of hurt stabs me in the heart as I close my laptop after my telehealth visit with Dr. Hobart ends. I already knew what she was going to say about the scans I did two weeksago. My body told me it wasn’t good long before I got the email alert about the tests in my online chart being ready.
Over the past few months, my periods have been more irregular than normal and accompanied by horrible cramping and back pain that ibuprofen can’t touch. But those are only some of the symptoms I’ve dealt with. Don’t get me started on the travel tweezers I have to carry with me to pluck the stubborn hairs on my chin that grow in a little too much thanks to my hormone imbalance. I’ve tried every trick in the book to get rid of them and am thankful to have the money for treatments that are dermatologist recommended. But I know the results could be temporary as long as my diagnosis continues to worsen.
I didn’t have the heart to look at the results before the appointment with my gynecologist because I knew I’d be consulting Dr. Google and spiraling at whatever WebMD said.
As suspected, Dr. Hobart gave me a sympathetic “I’m sorry” accompanied by the warm smile that told me she was genuine, but the apology doesn’t change the facts. My PCOS is advanced, and the only way to ease the pain is yet another surgery to remove the cysts, or a total hysterectomy to eliminate the problem altogether.
And the thought of officially losing my chance of having biological kids hollows my chest. It isn’t something I’ve thought too deeply about. Not in a long time, at least. Max and I were young when we got married, and I knew we weren’t ready for that step. Then things started going sideways between us, and my health made it feel like that option was unlikely.
