Harper

Before going to bed last night, I’d called Tommy to let him know what had happened.

He offered to meet us at my apartment, but I told him that Jamil wanted to go to bed, leaving out that he hadn’t spoken a word from the moment we left his house to the second I helped him into the guest room bed.

Tommy told me that he’d call their manager to fill him in and I woke up to a text this morning indicating that Jamil was to stay home from the game today.

He’d already reached out to Derek to see if he was available to help keep Jamil company while I was away at work.

This was what having people that truly cared about you was like.

It was already nine in the morning and the guest bedroom remained dark.

I sipped on my morning coffee while I stared at the blank document in front of me.

There was still not a single word that I’d written on Jamil’s story, but I was up against a clock that was quickly running out of time.

The dry-erase board had been wiped clean and discarded back to its box to avoid Jamil seeing his name in black ink on my wall.

I listed out what I did know—his stats for the season so far, his charitable contributions, the care he put into his friendships, and then I hesitated when it came to writing down his family troubles.

Terry Wilson would be happy to receive a story detailing everything going on with Jamil’s brother like some gossip column with no morals.

If I delivered a piece like that, I knew that Terry would personally hand me the promotion I’d been working so hard for.

But that wasn’t the kind of story I wanted to put out into the world.

Not only would I be betraying Jamil’s trust, but I would also be doing him a disservice.

The world chalked Jamil Edman up to his accolades and statistics, but they had no idea the kind of person he truly was.

They didn’t see the selflessness he had when it came to his family or how he would do anything for his friends to celebrate and uplift them the same way the world continued to do to him.

I knew that Jamil hated the attention he got, and he wished the public would look elsewhere—at his teammates, at other players, at anybody but him.

My fingers began to fly across my keyboard. Jamil may hate the focus that was put on him because of how charming he was and how successful he was, but everything was surface level. So why not give them what they wanted?

“Hey,” a voice croaked, startling me out of my writing stupor.

Jamil stood in the doorway of the guest room, still in the rumpled clothes from yesterday. Dark circles were forming under his eyes despite the heavy sleep he’d fallen into the second I’d pushed him back onto the guest bed last night.

“Good morning.” The tension in the room was palpable.

“Where’s your shower?” he asked me, still trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

“The door just to your right. There are towels in the closet and I put everything I grabbed from your shower last night in there already.”

He turned to walk into the bathroom before pausing. “Thank you for doing all of that yesterday.”

There was so much still unspoken, between our conversation in the car on the way back to his house and the break-in.

“Of course,” I told him, because I meant it. No matter what it was that Jamil was upset about yesterday, the least I could do was be there for him through this.

When I heard the shower turn on in the bathroom, I glanced back at my Word document, now one page long. Jamil tried so hard to keep as much as he could from the public, but what if he didn’t? What if he told them exactly what it was like to be him?

Steam billowed out of the bathroom as the door opened. Followed by Jamil with a towel slung low on his hips. It took everything in me not to stare at the hard planes of his body, especially amid everything that had happened.

“Tommy messaged me this morning. Your coaches want you to stay home today.” Jamil walked back out of the guest room, pulling a t-shirt down over his head. His abs flexed before disappearing underneath the fabric.

“They texted me this morning.” His voice was hoarse, like he’d spent all day yelling, despite the fact that he’d barely spoken a single word last night.

“Your mother also flew back to Florida last night,” I added, not sure if he had caught my conversation in the car with his mother. I watched him cautiously as he slid onto one of the open barstools next to me.

“She texted me, too.”

There was no sign of the chipper version of him that I was used to. Instead of being painted in multicolor, he was one shade of grey—all the life sucked out from him.

“Do you want breakfast?” I asked, trying anything to catch a glimpse of his smile.

“Have you had anything?”

“My coffee.”

Jamil rolled his eyes, the barest smirk playing on his lips. My heart fluttered at the sight, relieving some of my worry. “Coffee isn’t a meal, Harper. I’ll cook us something.”

I stared at his back as he investigated my fridge, trying to figure out what he could use for a meal. I couldn’t remember the last time I got groceries with all the traveling, so I was sure the options were limited.

“Maybe we should order something to be delivered?” he suggested, the same cheeky smirk still on his face.

“Good idea,” I agreed, before falling silent again. There was so much I wanted to ask him, but I’d only risk sending him back into his own head just as he was starting to reemerge.

“What are you working on?” he asked as he ordered breakfast for us.

“A feature story,” I started before hesitating to tell him that he was the subject of it. Even if I thought I had a good reason for it. “About you.”

Jamil blew out a long breath, like he was releasing all the air in his body. That barest hint of a smile was no longer there.

“My mother was right,” Jamil replied as he set his phone down. “You’re writing something on me?”

I wanted to shut down or disappear under the weight of his gaze.

Maybe it was because of my relationship with my mother, but I avoided conflict at all costs.

When there was no way of avoiding it, my body went into fight or flight and I never knew which one I’d end up choosing.

Right now, everything in me screamed to diffuse, deflect, do anything to bring a smile back to Jamil’s face.

I’d never experienced true disappointment before I saw Jamil’s aversion for this conversation. Even the disappointment I felt for the lack of movement in my career paled in comparison to the sinking feeling in my stomach right now.

“Jamil, listen—”

Jamil turned to look at me and I was stunned into silence at the anger I saw there.

In the few months I’d known him, I’d never seen him angry.

Not when the fans demanded too much and not even when it came to his brother.

“I thought we had an agreement. I thought you understood why we had an agreement.”

“It’s for my promotion!” I jumped to interrupt him before he shredded my heart any further. I needed him to know that I wasn’t doing this to hurt him. “My boss asked me to write a story on you after the first game I covered and has been leveraging it against me for the promotion.”

My stomach clenched as my brain screamed at me for how selfish I was for not pushing back against Terry. Even after getting to know Jamil further and realizing I had grown feelings for him.

What did that say about me?

Jamil stared at me for a few seconds before he spoke again. “Have you been collecting information behind my back? This entire time? I told you I wanted to date you and now I guess it makes sense why you never said anything back. To save whatever morals you have left?”

Each accusation felt like a dagger sinking into me, piercing my most vulnerable thoughts. “Jamil, that’s not what happened. That’s not what I was doing.”

“Are you going to write about this? About my brother?” Jamil continued.

“No!” I exclaimed. The cursor on my screen blinked at me, taunting me as it watched this moment crumble around me. “I wouldn’t do that to you, to Jordan, or your family. Please, just let me explain.”

“I’m not sure there is anything you can say that will make any of this better.”

Maybe he’s right. He deserves someone better.

“I get why you’re so against having more coverage than necessary in the media.

Journalism nowadays loves to have clickable titles that draw readers in despite the damage it does to the subject of the material.

But that’s not what I’m wanting to do.” Desperation crawled up my throat, raking it raw, as tears threatened to build in the corners of my eyes.

“I want to write a feature that showcases exactly what it’s like to be you this year—the good, the bad, the ugly.

I wasn’t going to write about Jordan. That’s not my story to tell.

I want people to realize everything you do for the community and what you have to endure to play a sport you love. ”

Jamil sighed and any hope I had at him seeing some reason in my explanation evaporated. “I don’t need them to have more pieces of me than they already have.”

The thought of Jamil walking out the door of my apartment flashed through my mind and the fear of only ever seeing him at games gripped my entire body. Was my job so important that I would risk losing one of the first real connections I’d had with anyone in my life?

“I can scrap the story. I’ll figure out something else to do to get the promotion. The interview with Adam and Nolan is set to come out in the next couple of days. Maybe that will be enough.”

The sound of a notification on his phone filled the silence between us.

I wanted to reach out to touch him, but I shoved my hands under my thighs instead. “I don’t want you to focus on this when you have everything with Jordan going on.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything left to worry about.” Jamil had yet to look at me since I first delved into my long-winded explanation for the feature story. His eyes remained firmly on his hands as he interlaced and unlaced his fingers.

“What do you mean?” I asked him. We were still waiting for an update from the cops on the investigation or even word from the facility that Jordan was supposed to be checked into.

“I’m not sure I have any care left in me when it comes to my brother.

I told myself I wouldn’t give up on him.

But this feels like the last straw. If I give him another chance without him proving to me that he deserves it, I’m just enabling him.

He thinks that there will always be a safety net for him on every fall he has. I can’t be that safety net anymore.”

My heart broke for the man sitting across from me. I saw a glimpse of the little boy that grew up following his older brother, wanting to do as he did and be what he was. Now he was coming to the stark realization that his hero was just a troubled man who was as lost in this world as he was.

“You’ve done everything you can for him. Now it’s his choice.” I laid my hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze. “Are we okay?”

Jamil took a moment to respond, and my breathing slowed with each second that passed. “Yeah, we’re fine.”

His response felt forced, tentative, with no real meaning behind it.

He was telling me what I wanted to hear.

The silence that followed his words wanted to swallow me whole.

We’d taken three steps forward only to take five back with this single conversation.

All the progress we’d made had crumbled to the ground.

Despite his reassurance, the feeling that nothing between us would ever be the same echoed in my mind.