Page 27 of Summer Breakdown (Training Seasons #2)

Jasmine had thought having Ezra as a badminton teammate would be useful.

Alas, her throat burns like she’s been running from a bear attack, and Ezra is on the floor.

Big, useless man. Lani is not going easy on them.

She wheels with ease every time Ezra gets the shuttlecock back over the net.

Marcel is quick with it too, running behind her to flick back any she might miss.

The only way she’s still on the court and not lying on the bench feeling sad Frankie isn’t here is because Ezra is in a chatty mood.

Mali said he wasn’t a big talker, but he’s coming for Lani’s crown.

Jasmine has figured out Ezra will tell her stuff if she tells him stuff too.

He’s such a teenage girl. So far, she’s told him that she hates Mike and that she thinks he should split Cam and Andrew up.

Ezra laughs when she suggests it, then wipes his forehead with his top. He’s stupidly ripped under his shirt, but she expected as much. “Man, Mal said something ridiculous the other day,” he says.

“About?” Jasmine asks, panting. She might die. Lani wheels on the other side with glee. Lani would miss her if she died; she’s sure of it.

“Like a PR relationship,” he says, as he gets ready to serve.

“I’m not into it seriously, but if I knew they were getting something out of it, I guess I could entertain the idea.

” He hits it, and Marcel is quick to hit it back.

They get a solid rally of eight in before Lani hits them with a trick shot.

“Fuck,” Ezra says, as he dives for it. He’s too slow, and his knees squeak as he slides against the ground.

“Swear jar!” Lani shouts, with a spin.

Ezra sighs, lying on the ground. Jasmine thinks maybe he’s doing it for show, because Lani laughs every time.

“Do you think it would get you thinking about someone else enough to actually date someone else?” Jasmine asks. Jasmine can’t remember if Ezra ever specifically told her he was in love with Cam, or if it’s just obvious.

Ezra jumps up. “It’s been years, and I’ve never gotten over her. She’s the love of my life. I don’t know how to be with anyone else. I’ve never even been with her.”

“Do you want to get over her?”

His serve again. “Nah,” he replies, as he hits the shuttlecock. He’s given up his pretence of not taking this seriously. He might owe Lani a trip to the aquarium. “But I am lonely. I can wait, but maybe dating while I wait wouldn’t be awful.”

Jasmine hits a nice backhand, and Lani shouts that she did well. Jasmine smiles, wiping her forehead before she asks Ezra, “What if Cam doesn’t end up with you?” It feels wrong coming out of her throat.

Ezra smiles, looking at the ground as he lines up for Marcel’s serve. “It’s going to be me.”

Jasmine smiles. Yeah, it’s going to end with Ezra and Cam.

Jasmine’s not lonely anymore, but she craves a different kind of relationship. Ezra is her friend. She can tell him about that, right? He needn’t know she wants it to be Frankie.

“Do you like Frank?” he asks, and Jasmine fumbles the overhead and trips to the ground. Ezra doesn’t help her up because he’s rude and she laughed at him when he fell five minutes ago. Jasmine holds her hand up for a pause, and the kids go and get water.

Ezra sits near her as she replies, “Yeah, sure.”

“No, I mean do you like her? ”

Jasmine looks at him and then checks the kids. Marcel is checking his phone, and Lani is wiping her face. “Are you asking me if I fancy your sister?”

Ezra shrugs. “Yeah, but more mature than that.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m thirty-three.”

Jasmine rolls her eyes. “Why were you asking?”

“Because I think you do.”

Jasmine narrows her eyes at him, but she’s mainly watching the kids. “And?”

“She’s never had a girlfriend before. A serious one. She dated a bit during college.”

“Okay.”

“Frank doesn’t do life-changing things, but I think she might want to do a life-changing thing,” Ezra says. He stands back up, and Jasmine watches Lani wheel back onto the court. He holds his hand out this time, and she takes it. “I dunno, man. She’s being coy.”

Jasmine spins the shuttlecock in her hand. “Ezra, I need you to start making some sense.”

“She met a woman at the bar,” he says, and Jasmine’s heart drops.

There’s no way she’ll win this point. Frankie’s moved on.

There wasn’t even anything to move on from, but she’s done it, all while Jasmine has been thinking about her as she falls asleep.

“And she hasn’t stopped talking about her since. ”

“Oh.” Somehow, the one-word answer sounds as bitter as it tastes.

“Jas,” he says, and she clenches her jaw. “She talks about you all the time. At dinner. At training. Anytime she’s awake, she is putting you into a conversation somehow.”

Oh.

“She does?”

“Yeah, bro. I liked you long before we had a proper convo, and it’s because Frank never shuts the fuck up about you,” Ezra says, like she didn’t think they were friends before Frankie would have been talking about her. Still, she lets him continue.

“During morning training, she’s asking what star sign you are,” he says, with a grunt as he tries to throttle the shuttlecock at her child.

(He does, but Lani hits it back.) “Like, how the fuck would we know? Most of the team hadn’t even met you yet.

Afternoon training, she’s talking about how you’re wearing your hair.

Did you see Jasmine had a braid in today?

Well, yeah, Frankie, I did, ’cause I got eyes.

I don’t even notice hair, but Frank mentioned it so often I ended up wondering myself like a creepy teenage girl.

Do you know what your big three are? Because I do.

Don’t even believe in astrology, but I know ’em. ”

Jasmine smiles, pulling her lip between her teeth. Frankie looked it up. On purpose. Without asking her. Frankie likes her.

The sweat drips into her eyes, and once again, she’s wondering what the use of lashes is. “What are they?”

“It’ll cost you,” he replies, and she laughs as she finally hits it quick enough that Lani doesn’t get it back.

“Yeah!” Ezra screams, like the Titans got to the championship already. Lani is a much better sport than them, shouting, “Good job, Mama!”

Jasmine smiles as she thinks about her. Frankie might be special. “I do like her.”

“I know,” Ezra replies, with a small smile. Jasmine wonders what to say next.

“I don’t know if I can ask her out.” Jasmine pulls her lip with her teeth. “Because if I lost her, I would lose all of you.” Jasmine needn’t tell him that Frankie coming into her life brought her everything she was missing. He must know that. She doesn’t talk about anyone else.

Marcel bends to help Lani with her chair. Jasmine keeps an eye on them, but usually she’s not needed. This is Lani’s time to be independent. She likes to do things alone. And with Marcel, because he doesn’t count .

“Lani is so obsessed with her,” Jasmine says. “And you, and I was never supposed to introduce anyone, but Frankie got past all my rules before she even spoke to me. It feels like figuring out if I want to try and date her isn’t an option. We’d be starting in a committed relationship.”

Ezra looks up at the ceiling, blinking sweat from his eyes. “Isn’t that what lesbians do?”

Jasmine laughs, but it’s still breathy, even as they stand still. “Shut up.”

“Man, I don’t have pearls of wisdom. I love Frank, and I want her to be happy. I want you to be happy too. No one would judge you for not going for it. If you only want to be her friend, she won’t hate you for it.”

Jasmine wonders if she’d hate herself.

“But,” Ezra says, stepping a little closer, “she’d love you better than anyone. You wouldn’t regret it.”

“I think about her all the time,” she whispers. “I don’t know how to not. I keep reading books on being bipolar to try—“

“Bro, what? You know?” Ezra asks, his eyes the widest she’s ever seen them. Frankie said he knew, and Jasmine would have assumed he did anyway. “She told you, or you figured it out?”

Jasmine frowns. “She told me.”

“When?”

“The night I met you.”

His eyes get wider, and it’s weird. Ezra’s eyebrows aren’t supposed to be that high. She’s not supposed to have seen so much of his eyelids.

“Holy shit.”

“What does that mean?”

He sighs, running his hand over his head. The door opens with a clang, and everyone turns to face whoever dared interrupt their session, but Jasmine smiles despite herself when Frankie walks in, in a tight vest and stupidly short shorts. She’s so unfair.

“Frankenstein!” Lani shouts, wheeling over.

“It means,” Ezra starts quietly, “if you want anything with her, you have to be explicitly clear, and she’ll still trip over herself trying to figure it out.”

Jasmine frowns. Why does she have to figure it out?

“It’s not fair,” Ezra carries on, “for it to land on you—especially not if Frank already hurt you—but she has never told anyone about her illness. I know, and Cam knows because we were there. Our parents don’t talk about it.

Frank only tells people she wants to keep.

If she thinks her life would end if they disappeared.

So, just for me—or for her, I guess—please, only be explicit if you’re sure. ”

Jasmine looks at her, at the way she’s running around wheeling Lani as they chase Marcel.

“I better be the woman from the fucking bar.”

Ezra hums, knocking into her. “Swear jar.”

Frankie managed to be forty minutes late to badminton, even though she was waiting on her sofa with gym gear on the moment she read Jasmine’s group text.

Then, of course, she talked herself out of it.

She was going to sit on her couch on a sunny day and sulk instead of getting up and going like she was invited too, because her brain is annoying, and her pills said they wanted a day off.