Page 23 of Delay of Game (Norwalk Breakers #4)

TWENTY-THREE

GRACIE

ROB

Want to come over and throw bowls with me?

The first communication since he’d repaired the drywall in the pantry. I held my phone in one hand, a paintbrush in my other. Despite a long day at school, I worked up the energy to finish painting the kitchen. And in my inexpert opinion, it looked pretty good.

Now, with the final coat drying and at least a half hour of clean up in front of me, I still wanted to respond yes.

Are we throwing pottery or “throwing pottery?”

I typed and erased the question half a dozen times before finally sending it off, cheeks burning at even bringing up the last time we were in the pottery studio. I calmed my breath and straightened my shoulders when my phone pinged with a reply.

ROB:

On the wheel. I need to replenish my stash.

Give me thirty minutes.

My shoulders ached as I pushed myself up to standing and collected my paint-splattered supplies. Moving aside my breakfast dishes, I rinsed them off and covered the paint, wrapping the rest of the tray in a plastic bag.

I stopped by the bathroom, scrubbing the muted white paint from my face and arms. There was no saving my clothes, but in an hour, I’d be covered in clay rather than paint, so there was no reason to change. Rob had seen me wearing worse. Wearing less.

I grabbed my keys and my purse and drove to Rob’s. The lights outside the house were lit, waiting for my arrival. I looped around the cul-de-sac and wedged in between an old Ford beater that Rob kept around for hardware store runs and Gloria’s fancy SUV.

Light poured out of the studio. Rob sat at a wheel by the window, shoulders hunched as he wrestled a mound of clay.

He furrowed his brow in concentration as his elbow dug into his side.

He leaned forward, pulling up the clay and mashing it down again.

Clay coated his fingers, and his face looked dreamy as he repeated the steps.

A small trickle of doubt fluttered at the back of my mind.

That even if Rob felt the same way I felt about him, maybe he wouldn’t admit it.

And whatever tenuous connection kept us together would fall apart when I sold the house or as the football season progressed.

But despite those fears, tonight he called me.

He asked me over. And I had nothing but time.

I shut off the car, turning off my headlights and grabbing his attention. He slowed the wheel to a stop as I slipped out of the car and through the open door of the studio.

“Hey.” I hung up my purse and grabbed an apron. I put it right back up again when I spotted a smear of paint on my shirt. I was officially past the point of salvaging my clothes.

“Hey.” Rob greeted me, his eyes flitting back to the pile of clay balls on the worktable. “I wedged that clay. Grab what you need.”

“That’s very generous of you,” I said, helping myself to three balls and setting them at the wheel opposite him. “What are you working on?”

“Mugs. You broke a lot of mugs,” he said unapologetically, straightforward enough to make me blush.

“I’d offer to replace them, but I still haven’t figured out how to pull straight up. I’m on more of a bowl journey right now.” I filled a basin with water and collected a few tools before sitting down at my wheel across from Rob.

His eyes stayed on me as I slammed a ball of clay onto the wheel and a ran a wet finger along the edge to glue it to the bat.

“You need some mug pointers?” he asked.

A vision of a very Ghost -like moment where I could channel my inner Demi Moore ran through my mind before I shook it away. “Sure, give me a pointer.”

“Put your nose directly over the middle of the clay.”

I raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged.

“I don’t know why it works, but it does.”

I nodded and started the wheel while he restarted his.

For a while, we sat in near silence, fixated on our respective projects.

Rob’s tip was solid. Putting my nose directly over the center of the clay weirdly helped me pull the walls straight up rather than bowed out to the sides, but my finger caught on the side, collapsing my cylinder.

In the time it took me to destroy one almost-mug, Rob made three in quick succession.

I stopped my wheel to watch his mechanical execution of the task.

He’d throw down the clay, pulling it up and pushing it back down three times before forming a well in the center and raising the walls.

Then, he smoothed the sides and cut out the base.

Finally, he slipped a wire along the bat and pulled his freshly created mug onto a waiting tray with the half dozen other identical, handleless mugs.

“That’s amazing,” I breathed. “I haven’t even worked up the nerve to pull something wet off the bat. I just let it dry on there and take it off later.”

“It’s not that hard,” Rob said off-handedly, smacking another ball of clay down. My eyes drew away from his hands this time and to his face. He clenched his jaw, and his shoulders stayed bunched around his ears. Not the natural, easy posture I had grown used to in the studio.

“Are you doing okay? How was practice?” I asked. He stiffened at the mention of practice. “Not great?”

“I’m not sure I want to talk about it.”

“That’s not a ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’” I pointed out. “I was wondering why you invited me over.”

“I didn’t invite you over to bitch about work,” he said.

“You didn’t?” I teased.

His cylinder collapsed and he scooped the clay up, throwing it across the room into the reclaim pile.

“Come on. Bitch about work to me. I want to know what problems millionaire football players have. Is it a lack of coffee in the break room? That’s our current big controversy at the school.”

My needling teased a smile out of him. He glanced up from his failed mug at me, a smirk on his lips. “They don’t even give you coffee?”

“We have a coffee fund, but some moochers aren’t contributing. It’s turning into a witch-hunt. But that’s boring. I want some football gossip.”

Rob’s eyes narrowed before flitting away. “The team’s falling apart, and I’m supposed to help boost morale.”

“Oh, no.” I bit back a laugh. “Sounds like your team is in real trouble. Why’d they tap you for the job, anyway? Please don’t tell me you’re the most optimistic person on the team. That’d be legitimately shocking.”

“I’m the captain.” He rubbed his forehead, leaving a thin smudge of clay behind.

“So, why’d you sign up to be the captain if you didn’t want to motivate people?”

“I get stars on my jersey and a captain patch.” He shrugged. “Until this season, I didn’t have to actually do anything other than stand with Diego during the coin toss.”

“You know, I run into that a lot with my work, too. They lure people in with stars and fun stickers and then hit them with responsibility.”

“Are you talking about kindergarteners?”

“Teachers, too. It’s sort of an all-ages motivator.”

“I’m not a very motivating person,” he admitted.

“I think you’re pretty motivating. You’re the only reason I’m working through the to-do list on the house.”

“I’m doing most of the work.”

“Exactly,” I winked. “Good leaders know to pull their fair share.”

“So, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Explain it all to me,” I told him, stopping the wheel and leaning onto my knees. “And we’ll see what we can come up with.”

Rob ran through the last weeks of practice: the new players, the weird vibes on the field, and the anger over the head coach’s new practice protocol.

“Wow,” I said, sitting back up, the pottery wheel well and truly abandoned.

“Yeah, fucking wow.”

“You really should have nominated a co-captain.” I picked up the remaining balls of clay and returned them to the table.

“Don’t I know it?” Rob hefted up the tray of mugs and set them on the shelf to dry. “But that doesn’t help me now. Unless you think I should appoint a new co-captain mid-season?”

I shook my head. “No. That’s probably not a good idea. Sounds like your head coach is riling up enough people. You shouldn’t add to the chaos.”

“Then what do I do?” He leaned heavily against the worktable, close enough so his arm brushed my shoulder.

I struggled to keep my focus on the conversation and not on the way his bare skin felt against mine.

“You focus on things that’ll bring everyone together. Fun things. Non-football things.”

“I don’t do non-football things.”

I laughed and spread my arms. “Seriously, Rob? You don’t do anything that isn’t football? You don’t own a pottery studio and a brewery?”

“Those are my personal hobbies.” He crossed his hands over his chest in a pout. A really adorable pout. The kind of pout that made me wish he hadn’t just thoroughly told me we couldn’t be together so I could slide in under his arm and rest my head on his shoulder, rub his tense shoulders and…

My cheeks burned as Rob licked his lips, eyes turning stormy. I shook off the idea. “You don’t have to invite them over to your house, but how about you do something as a team like that? Maybe axe throwing or darts?”

“Based on today’s practice, I’m not sure I’d trust us with sharp objects.”

“A painting class, then?”

He huffed.

“Dinner? Is that safe enough? Or too many knives?”

His mouth worked as he cleaned up his wheel and stalked across the room to the sink. “That’s not a bad idea. A neutral location, not a lot of time. Everyone needs to eat.”

“Maybe find a place that also does trivia? Everyone loves trivia.”

“I hate trivia.”

“Seriously?” I studied his face, but it remained impassive. “Well, most people like trivia. I, for one, love trivia. Lily and I go nearly every week. I love picking out goofy team names.”

“That’s literally my least favorite part.” He shook his head, annoyed in that way that gave me an overwhelming urge to annoy him more.

“Like the Sherlock Homies.”

“Please tell me that’s not your team name,” he groaned, even as his lips tipped up. “Because I’ll think less of you.”

“You will not. How about The Little Bitty Quizzy Committee?”

“No.” His smile moved from potential to undeniable. My body heated under its sheer luminosity, and I pushed off the worktable before I did something I’d regret.

“Risky Quizness?” I groped in the sink for a sponge, returning a safe distance from Rob as he wiped off the worktable.

“Are you even old enough to understand what movie that reference?”

“I am, thank you. I can probably come up with some football ones. How about Icing the Quizzer?”

He raised an eyebrow, wiping his hands off on his apron. “I’m honestly impressed you came up with a name that quickly. Even a truly terrible one.”

“It’s pretty good.”

His eyes wandered from my eyes down to my lips, and he straightened. “So, what’s your team name?”

“I Refuse to Say This Team Name.”

“Seriously?” He reached across the table and pulled the sponge out from under my hand.

“The place we go has some pretty risqué names and since we’re a bunch of teachers…”

“You picked something lame?” His lips tipped up as he cleaned the other half of the table.

“Something funny and sort of lame,” I conceded. “Well, trivia is the best, but if you’re that anti-trivia, dinner is a very practical and extremely lame team building activity. Or you could poll some other people for ideas.”

“I like your ideas, Astrid,” he said, handing back the sponge. “Thanks.”