Page 16 of Pick Six

“She seems over him.”

“Not into you?” He stretches his calves as he talks.

“I never know with her. She looks at me like she wants me one second and is disgusted the next.”

“I mean you do have that effect. Kind of your brand, isn’t it?”

“Look who’s fucking talking.”

“I own up to it.”

“So do I. Just with her…”

“Yeah. She seems much more straight and narrow than you. I’ve always wondered what the appeal was.”

I shrug. I didn’t know how to explain it. It’s just a thing I feel around her. Like I’ve known her forever. Like we just fall in together without trying. At least when I can get past her walls. But the appeal? I have trouble finding something I don’t like.

“She’s…perfect.”

“Perfect?” Tobias looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “I’ve had a lot of really fucking amazing women. I wouldn’t describe any of them as perfect.”

“Not literally. But fuck… whenever I talk to her. When we’re in the same room. It’s like all the other shit fades away.”

“Like your reason and better judgment when you slammed your fist into your teammate’s face?”

“It was ill-advised. I know. But fuck if I’d let anyone touch or hurt her if I could stop it.”

“I gotta say it’s weird as fuck to see this side of you.”

“Don’t worry. It’s gonna be short-lived. She has a whole list of reasons she wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole. Us being shoved together like this is just going to make all of that surface faster than it would have otherwise, and she’s going to tell me exactly where I can fuck off to.”

“Or she’s gonna decide you’re a perfect rebound.”

I grunt a response. Some of her might be better than none of her, but it’s bound to leave my ego bruised if that’s all she wants out of me. Not that I was going to get that deep into my feelings on the subject.

“You think you’ll ever find a woman that makes you want something more?” I look over at him while I stretch my ankle. It still locks sometimes over an old injury if I don’t keep it loose.

“Doubt it. I’m not against it or anything. I just… What I’d consider perfect is a long and very specific list.”

“Do I want to ask?”

“Probably not. But let’s just say so far, I can find women who fit the intellectual side, and I can find women who fit the sex side, and there is a fucking gulf in the middle that neither can seem to cross.”

“Have you—”

“I’ve tried. Trust me. There were even one or two who made me think I could live without it because they were that fucking good, but in the end…” He shrugs. “I’d rather be alone than unhappy. You know?”

“That much I get.”

“You thinking you’d settle down?”

“With the right person. I’m getting too fucking old for all this, I think. It’s fun in the moment but the next morning when I wake up to that empty fucking ass condo? That’s getting old.”

“Don’t fucking talk about being old. We’re the same fucking age and I’m not getting old.”

“If that’s what you wanna believe.”

“Yeah? Gonna be like that? Let’s see who fucking beats who on this trail.” Tobias takes off.