Page 7

Made the Time

May

T he legendary CJ Bradley holds a women’s lacrosse stick as he lines himself up to take on our goal. He’s led the league in shot-for-shot midfielder stats since he started playing on the New Haven Woodchucks, drafted in what was technically his junior year. This is where he’s most at home. But for all his bluster, something’s missing in the way he stands.

I throw him a ball, and he cradles it idly for a moment, eyes trained on the goal. The steely gunmetal of his irises glitters beneath long lashes that flutter against the brutal Oklahoman sun, his well-defined jaw ticking in concentration. I might have stopped giving him the light of day – or at least tried – but I can’t deny the fact that he’s got skills. Always did, always will.

Colt lunges forward, and I’m ready for it to be an immediate net. Except, it isn’t. The ball veers far right, and before I know it, the thing has wound around the goal and clangs against the fencing in the back with a sad clink .

What the hell ?

He’s already prepared with another ball for me when he turns back, and suddenly, he’s the one who doesn’t want to meet my eye.

My next shot’s an easy one. Coach had me run these time and time again when I was starting. It’s muscle memory, and for a lax team captain, not to mention alleged goal-bagging midfielder extraordinaire, it definitely should be, injury aside. Despite it all, I stand back and watch as he takes his second shot, and it flies over the net. Well, damn .

‘Best of three, you said?’ I shrug as I jog to the goal to grab the balls. ‘Sorry, cowboy. Looks like that’s a game, fair and square.’

‘May …’ Oh, hell no. I can’t do more emotion from him. I pause, balls in hand, and stop to listen to whatever he thinks he’s got to say to me.

He swallows, removes his cap and smooths down his tousled hair before popping it back on. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he struggles to find words. ‘May, do you ever think about what could have been?’

My mouth goes just slightly slack. Do I ever? About what could have been? ‘For the sake of my sanity,’ I start, the red-hot flame of anger building up in my chest, ‘I try not to.’

‘I do.’ His voice is quiet, gentle. ‘And I wanna talk to you. I don’t wanna make excuses. I just want to talk.’

I don’t know what gets into me. I didn’t tell him a lie. I’m being honest. I try not to think about hypotheticals, and I try hard as hell not to think about hypotheticals when it comes to him. I told myself I wouldn’t fall back into his fabricated niceties, that I’d built myself up part by part, and yet there’s something in the way he almost sounds timid that forces me to crack.

‘I gotta take care of chores at home,’ I tell him, keeping my tone as even as possible. Give away nothing. ‘My mom’s got dance classes till seven. You’ll have to give it till the evening here if you want a word.’

‘I’m willing,’ he says far too quickly. ‘Where?’

‘Moonie’s.’ I toss my crosse from my right hand to my left and sling the bag of balls over my shoulder. ‘Eight.’

My truck rattles over dirt roads as I pull it into the driveway in front of our house, smack in the middle of the ranch. I spot my dad out back, fixing up a fence. Mumma’s probably in the barn with her five p.m. dance class chock-full of middle-aged South Asian women from as far as five counties out. I yawn, clamber out of the truck with my gear on my back, and lumber up the porch, nudging past the screen door with a forceful elbow.

There are houses back in Prosperity where Riders banners hang out on the front porch, bearing the logo with the two crossed sticks beneath the skull, old tornado cellars that have been multipurposed into lacrosse-theme man-caves, but our lacrosse flavour is a little less in-your-face. As I thunder into the house, I tap the first sport-adjacent relic you see when you enter: the framed photo of my first game, hanging on the wall in its wooden frame. It was taken way back when we would drive what should have been an easy fifteen minutes to Oklahoma City. Thanks to inner-city traffic, we ended up braving a thirty-to-forty-minute trip several times a week so I could play on a U8 girls’ team. I remember my mom had finally accepted defeat when I chose lacrosse over dance (a decision that was for the best, though, because frankly, I was, like my father, the definition of impatience).

I round the cramped hall to climb the narrow staircase up to my room. I’d love to collapse in my bed, but I’m still knee-deep in chores and have Instrumentation homework for days. I chuck my gear and backpack into a corner next to my desk and flop into my chair. It’s usually no difficult task to snap into work mode, at least not for me, but today, after the way I just let CJ Bradley back into my life like nothing he caused me in junior year had ever happened, focus isn’t in the cards.

‘Jeez.’ I yawn, dragging my notebook and laptop over. I open the book to numbers and calculations marching across the lined pages. Measurement error and wind shear and precipitation swim before my eyes.

‘MAYDAY!’ my dad’s voice yells from downstairs. ‘Don’t worry about the fence, mija , it’s fixed! Finish your homework!’

‘Thanks, Papa!’ I yell back, still on the verge of slumping over all the math in front of me. I love what I’m studying – it’ll set me up for a fantastic career either after graduation or after lacrosse, whatever happens this year with my precarious situation on the team – but these numbers are a colossal struggle. I need all my attention for this stuff, and it’s just not there.

Clear as day, I still remember him walking backwards and waving as he disappeared down the gym hall of Prosperity High School to cheers and chants. That’s the crap everyone else saw: the man, the myth, the legend. When someone asks me what I last remember of CJ Bradley, I don’t tell them about his triumphant send-off. I tell them about the text. And the strawberries. I refuse to glorify him the way the rest of this sleepy lacrosse town does.

‘Where you going?’

I grab my purse off the hook by my vanity and shoot a smirk my mom’s way. ‘Meetin’ up with my sneaky link.’

‘Your who ?’ Mumma’s jaw goes slack for a minute before she detects the fact that I’m clearly working overtime to not laugh my ass off. ‘You’re gonna give me a stroke, May.’

‘It’s what I do.’ I grin. ‘I’m going to Moonie’s. Feed the cows tomorrow morning, I know. I’ll be back by midnight.’

‘Mm-hmm.’ Mumma doesn’t look convinced, but she cracks a smile, patting my cheek. ‘Have fun. Be smart.’

I often hear people tell me I’m 100 per cent my mom – down to the types of jeans we both wear, currently different fonts of the same Wranglers – but I like to think the bit I didn’t inherit was her sense of responsibility (and her unfaltering kindness). I have my father’s snark and penchant for poor decisions. Like the decision I made regarding Colt today.

‘I will.’ I give my mom a little hug, and her quiet chuckle tells me she knows as much as I do that ‘smart’ is probably the least apt word to describe some of my choices.

I say a little prayer as I get into my truck and do the short drive over to Eagle Rock’s only bar and dance hall. My toes feel stiff in my boots, as if I’ve just thrown on a brand-new pair without properly breaking them in first. Why am I nervous? I shouldn’t be nervous. He should be nervous.

By the time I’ve pulled in, the music is already thrumming from inside the bar, some twangy Brooks and Dunn. The dancing has clearly begun, but I’m here on business only. I push the door open and keep my eyes peeled for the problem at hand.

I wish I could say that uppity CJ Bradley is too city to understand the assignment. Unfortunately, he blends in effortlessly, with a Henley that fits a tad too well and a pair of bootcut jeans. Somehow, he’s managed to acquire a cowboy hat, and it rests in his lap as he makes happy conversation with at least five people at once, three of whom are certainly loyal female fans, two of whom are guys from the men’s team at Okie. I almost laugh out loud. He’s still such a big jock it’s not even funny. It was the same in high school – he always had a clutch of admirers floating around him – and it’s the same now. Unfortunately, unlike most people I know who peaked in high school, it seems like he never experienced the subsequent plummet to rock bottom.

His eyes flit my way the moment I’m in his radius, and his entire face lights up. ‘May!’ he calls.

I try not to harrumph too hard as I join his circle of conversation. I give everyone, including Colt, a curt smile. ‘Hey, y’all.’

‘What’s up?’ He slides his beer towards him and takes a sip, and I don’t miss the attempt at a concealed once-over that he gives me. It’s awfully similar to the looks we started to exchange freshman year – days I’d personally love to forget.

‘Well, I’m here on a Thursday night,’ I remark, beckoning the bartender. ‘If that ain’t something to talk about, not sure what is.’

‘Interesting.’ Colt’s biceps flex against the fabric of his shirt as he sets the beer on the bar. He rakes a hand through his dumb lax hair. It’s something I’ve known few guys to pull off well, but it’s also a stupid lacrosse superstition. Dudes who play never shut up about their ‘flow’; something to do with a superstition surrounding the length of their hair. More than a few of the guys on the Riders have hair long enough to stick out the back of their helmet, a style dubbed ‘lettuce’. Colt has always had tousled dirty blond hair approaching brunette. It’s always been overgrown, and it has always been infuriatingly effortless. Now, it makes a frustratingly perfect swoop and sticks out well past his clean-shaven jawline. ‘You don’t go out often?’

‘Making the time’s tough.’ To the bartender, ‘I’ll do a rum and Coke, please.’

‘But you made it.’ He smirks his smug smirk, jesting, daring me to give in. God, he’s always made it so easy. He leans in and meets my eyes as if he wasn’t talking to a substantial group of people just moments before. ‘You made the time.’

‘Maybe.’ I lean in, returning his gesture, and glare right back up at him. I pretend I can’t smell every note of his cologne from this close. ‘I made the time ’cause I felt bad when I watched you bin shots any pro should’ve been able to make blindfolded.’