Page 22 of Scoreless Nights

“You moved to South Beach. Worlds apart, Cuz.”

“Yeah well, I just talked to you yesterday. You said the same exact thing. How about you make my mom give you a day off and come hang at the beach.”

“Nah,” he laughed. “I’m close to that down payment on my car.”

Deon could have asked me for the money and I would have given it to him. We were close enough that I wouldn’t even ask for it back. But my mom’s sister, my Aunt Roberta, made sure he worked his ass off for the things he wanted.

“Well, do you remember that favor I did for you?”

“Yeah…” he sounded worried and it made me want to laugh. “Am I going to regret it?”

“I have this thing for Archer Athletics, and I need a date.”

“Who, me?”

“No you crazy motherfucker,” I laughed. “But didn’t you say you knew someone? Think she’d be up for a no strings, no commitment, no sex night out?”

He mumbled something in Spanish, but his voice was too low for me to make it out. It was easy to assume he thought I was crazy.

“I’ll let you know,” he said again. “But I gotta go, your mom is a slave driver.”

“Give her my love. Tell her I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said before hanging up.

Well, that didn’t go as planned either, but it was all I could do for now. The next few hours were all about the next game, and that was where my focus needed to be. If I didn’t keep Austin FC scoreless, Archer Athletics may not even want me at their event anyway.

* * *

It was six o'clock by the time I got home, and I noticed Lily’s car in the parking garage. I practically bounced to the elevator and into the apartment, anxious to see how her interview went and surprise her with what I had planned for dinner. It was just the peace offering we needed.

“Lily?” I yelled, realizing I had, at some point, started thinking of her by her nickname again. One I was pretty sure only I used. “How’d it go?”

The apartment was quiet, so I peeked out onto the balcony but she wasn’t there. The bathroom door was open and the light was off, so she wasn’t in there either.

Hesitantly, I nudged her bedroom door open and found her sleeping on top of her made up bed, fully clothed in her pants suit and jacket. She had a blanket that I recognized from years ago wrapped in her arms like she was hugging it tightly. That blanket used to hang over the end of her bed, but I had once heard my dad tell her she shouldn’t leave it there just because I was in town.

When I was sixteen, I would have thought that she was lame, or acting like a baby. Now that I was older, I wondered what the sentiment was to her. As I started to back out of her room to let her rest for another hour, I took one more glance at her. There was black under her eyes. Leaning in closer, I saw that it was her makeup, and had been smudged as if she had been crying.

“Lily?” I sat on the edge of the bed, putting my hand on her shoulder and nudging her so she woke up. “Lil? Are you okay?”

Her eyes blinked open until she realized that I was there, then she sat up quickly and squeezed the blanket to her stomach. “What’re you doing?”

“Checking on you. You look like you have been crying. What’s wrong?”

She wiped at her eyes as if she could hide the evidence but the damage had been done, and I needed to know why she was so upset. Maybe it was the “big brother” feeling finally coming out of me, but I wanted to beat the ass of whoever made her sad. And that was saying something, because I wasn’t usually a fighter.

“I got offered the job,” she nodded but refused to look up.

That wasn’t what I asked.Putting my hand under her chin to lift her eyes to mine, I practically demanded she tell me more. “Why the tears?”

“Cruz,” she sighed, “I really don’t want to talk about this.”

“I do,” I gritted between my teeth, trying not to let her notice how worked up I was getting.

“Who do you think you are?” She snapped, pushing my hand away from her. “I don't have to tell you why I got upset, or anything for that matter.”

“I’m asking because I care.”

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