Page 102 of Falling Offsides

“Wait,” he muses with a chuckle. “You are seeing each other, right? This isn’t some unrequited crush shit…right?”

“No…fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know about any of this shit. How it works… how…fuck!” I push to my feet, placing Samson back on the couch.

“Okay, Deirdre, calm down. Answer me. Have you taken her on a date? Like bought her dinner?”

“I bought her dinner.”

“Was it a date, stupid?”

“No.”

“Fuck, okay… Have you held hands?”

“No.”

“Fuck me, this isn’t looking good.”

“We kissed,” I say desperately clinging on to any ray of hope I can.

“Oh, okay. Better. What kind of kiss was it?”

I shrug at the question. “A kiss. A fucking incredible kiss…” That I can still taste. That still gets me hard knowing what came after. HowCourtneycame after. All over my hand.

Etty chuckles. “You are totally in love with this chick. Have you done more than kiss?”

“Ummm… sort of?”

“Spare me the details. What base are we talking about?”

“We sort of went from first to third. Skipped second?—”

“Wait, you went straight south? The fuck? Seriously? Do you watch porn? Like, dude, you can’t skip second base. It’s an important part of foreplay, dummy.”

Why did I do this to myself? Why did I call this dickhead?Cocky fucking shit.

“It’s complicated. Court was upset and I didn’t want to take advantage of her.”

“Oh. That’s sweet?—”

“Shut up. I know you’re laughing at me, but I… I… I let her take what she needed because I didn’t want to be an asshole, to fuck things up with her. But I did anyway.”

“First of all, you laughed at me when I told you I was going to marry Marley after our first date. So karma… but anyway, I still don’t see how you fucked up.”

“I didn’t tell her I live next door so now she thinks I’m a liar.”

“An omission is a lie, so she would be right.” There’s a pause before he asks, “I thought Hillier lived next door to you.”

“He moved and the franchise bought the apartment from him and then moved Courtney in. I just felt so bad after I hit her with the puck. I didn’t think it was going to be like this. I was meant to drive her home as an apology so Coach wouldn’t kill me and then I just couldn’t… I couldn’t tell her so I pretended to show up every morning to take her to work and?—”

“Are you suicidal?” Étty cuts me off, his voice strained as he keeps it down for Elliot.

“No. Of course not.”

“Why the fuck are you hitting third base with Bobby Nilsson’s daughter? He’s your fucking coach. That man has your whole damn career in his hands.”

The amount of times I’ve asked myself this question and only come up with one answer… “Because Courtney’s incredible. She’s spunky and funny when I least expect it. She’s not afraid to push back and I’m addicted to the way she smiles at me. To the way she makes me feel like there’s a world outside of my world.”

“Auguste, she’s your coach’s daughter.”