Page 75 of Play the Last Card
“Please,” I beg her quietly. “Please can we just talk?”
Ivy closes her eyes and I watch her chest rise and fall with the deep breaths she takes.
“Okay,” she finally whispers. Relief floods me. “Tonight. Come by tonight and we can talk.”
***
I turn up at Ivy’s door armed with tacos.
And not just any tacos. The tacos from the truck we went to on our first date after mini golf. Am I trying to appeal to Ivy’s sentimental side? Yes. Do I think it’s going to work? Probably not but a guy has to try.
The front door swings open. Ivy stands in front of me, hair still hanging down her back and still in the dress she was wearing earlier. Except now, instead of the boots she was wearing, she wears a pair of thick fluffy socks and an oversized zip up hoodie that hangs loosely off her shoulders. I can’t help the relieved smile that breaks out on my face when she looks up at me.
“Hi,” she whispers, her hands clutching the door as if she is using it for support.
My body burns with the need to touch her but I keep one hand tightly wrapped around the handle of the take-out bag and then the other shoved deep in my pocket.
“Hi, yourself,” I say. She steps back, giving me space to get past her.
“You didn’t have to bring dinner,” she says, glancing at the take-out bag in my hand as I step over the threshold.
“Of course I did.” I hold up the bag as she closes the door and we start down the hallway. “I brought tacos from that taco truck I took you to. You said you really liked them.”
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment, chewing on her lip. When she looks back at me, her words are softer than before. “You remembered.”
I feel a little offended that she thinks I could forget anything about her but then again, I don’t think she really knows what she does to me.
How much space she’s taken up in my head.
How in a little over two months of seeing her, she’s pretty much become my central focus.
It scares the shit out of me.
For as long as I remember, football has been my focus and wetting my dick is something I did when the opportunity arose and I needed a release. Otherwise, I was content with my right hand.
That all changed when I saw Ivy.
When I saw her smile, and laugh, and when I realized she knew nothing about who I was or what I do. I relish in the fact that she seems to like me, for me. Not for the millions I make throwing a ball down a field.
But in my efforts to feel normal for once, I almost lost her.
I refuse to lose her again.
“You wanted to talk?” she asks as I place the takeout on the counter.
“You didn’t text me back.” I repeat my words from earlier.
She holds her hands clasped together, wringing her fingers. “I didn’t really have anything to say.”
“Ivy, I like you.” I practiced a whole speech about why I lied and how I just want to feel normal but standing in front of her now, I only want to lay my heart on the table and pray she’ll take it despite everything.
She doesn’t say anything so I start again. “Ivy, I like you. For the longest time, I didn’t care about anything else other than football and my parents. I lived in a bubble of my own making. Ignored the outside world and just wanted to play ball. But then I saw you through that dirty window at Pats and it was like the world titled and started to spin again. Or I guess, for the first time.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you who I really was but I’m not sorry for taking you on those dates, for getting to know you and telling you about me.” I inhale, continuing as I cross the room and into her space. Ivy looks up at me, not moving away but not making a move to touch or get closer to me either. “I’m not sorry that I was able to be there for you when your pops went into surgery. I’m not sorry for kissing you. For touching you.”
Ivy’s breathing hitches and it’s the only indicator I need to tell me she is as much affected by me as I am by her.
I take the gamble.