Chapter 21 #2
Jazmyn Payne: Today is your first official day at practice as a full-blown active roster team member. I’m so happy for you! Kill it today! You got this!
I made sure my phone was on silent, and I dropped it in my workbag. Closing my eyes, I took a second to clear my mind.
I don’t know what I’m going to do about him, but right now my mind needs to be on work. I will—
The sharp rap at my window scared me.
“Ah!” I let out a short shriek seeing Alexa’s face was damn near mashed against the glass.
“Oh my God!” I complained as I opened the car door with my stuff in my hands. “Why would you do that?”
“I wanted to make sure you weren’t dead!” She put her hands on her hips. “Your eyes were closed. Your head was back. It looked like something was going on!”
“I was thinking!” Laughing, I hit the button to lock my car. “Why was your face against the window like that?”
“I was trying to see if you were breathing!”
Snickering, I shook my head as we headed into the school. “Alexa!”
“You’re always here early. I’m usually the one walking in with the bell. So, when I looked over and saw your body in the car—”
“Not my body!” I interrupted, reacting to her dramatics.
The workday was busy, so I didn’t even have a chance to overthink everything I was feeling. But as soon as I drove off the school grounds, I did just that. And my aunt’s question rolled around in my head.
What if he’s in love with me, too?
The thought twisted my gut.
I tried to distract myself with work. So, when Nina called around six o’clock that evening, I welcomed an entertaining distraction. I’d barely said hello when she interrupted me.
“Jazz!” Nina exclaimed.
My eyes widened. “What’s wrong?”
“What have you been doing?”
I walked from the kitchen to the living room with my water bottle. “After I got home, I started grading these assignments, and you know what? I’m one assignment away from just not assigning homework anymore, and school just started.”
She laughed. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Having the entire summer off helps.”
“I bet! But listen … did you see what I texted you earlier in the group chat? Because you didn’t say anything, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“You mean when you and Liyah were practicing your standup routine while my personal life was in shambles?”
“First of all,” Nina started, amused, “this level of dramatic response is hilarious. I’d expect that from Aaliyah, not you. Second, why is your personal life in shambles?”
I paced from one side of the room to the other. “So, you know how I was saying I liked Lamar? Yeah, well, turns out I … more than like him.” I took a deep breath. “I think I fell in love with him.”
Nina was quiet for a moment, and then she cleared her throat. “Jazz, I’m going to hold your hand when I say this … no shit.”
My mouth dropped. “Nina!”
“I’m sorry, but Jazz … it’s as clear as day! But I’ll give you a pass because we’ve all been in denial before. I get it.”
“I don’t think I was in denial. I honestly didn’t realize it until last night.”
“What happened last night?”
I gave her a quick recap of how the day had played out.
“Oh yeah,” Nina intoned. “No wonder you’re in love.”
“Nina!”
“I’m serious.” She paused. “Have you told him how you feel?”
I shook my head. “No! Of course not.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“I don’t to ruin anything. I don’t…”
I don’t want to tell him and lose him, I continued silently.
“You don’t what?” she probed gently. When I didn’t answer, she asked, “Do you want to be with him?”
“I…” I stopped the yes from rolling off my tongue, and my answer faltered.
After a few seconds of my stunned silence, Nina continued. “Okay, so real talk … you need to decide what you want first. If you want to be with him, tell him how you feel. If you don’t want to be with him, don’t tell him. Keep it how it is. But you figure out what you want first.”
I chewed my bottom lip.
I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be with him. I was scared to admit it aloud because if I admitted it, it became real.
And if it was real, I’d have to deal with it.
“But listen,” Nina demanded, reclaiming my attention, “the main reason I called you is to see if you saw the link I sent.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. When you asked me if I saw it, I thought you were talking about the jokes from this morning.”
“Those were hilarious, but no. This is something else.”
Sitting on the couch, I put the call on speakerphone and then went to the group chat. I saw a link and opened it in my web browser.
Maryland Monarchs Has a “Hollywood” Breakout Star.
The title alone pulled my lips into a smile.
I read the article, and it highlighted Lamar’s agility, physicality, and ability to get to the ball.
It mentioned that he’d been on the practice squad until his standout performance earned him a starting position on the active roster.
It closed by saying that if Sunday were to be believed, Lamar “Hollywood” Anderson would be a star right now but a legend in the making.
“Aww, this article is great,” I said. “I’m glad he’s getting praised for how well he played. If he hasn’t seen it, I should—”
“No, not the article! That’s what Aaliyah sent when we were realizing you were dating a celebrity. Look at what I sent!”
I looked back at the group chat and saw the link from Nina. I clicked on it, and my eyes bulged. “What is this?”
I couldn’t process what I was looking at. I could see it, but it didn’t make any sense.
The social media post was captioned, Everyone is talking about Hollywood on the field, but I’m talking about Hollywood off the field!
The man isn’t active on social media, but he’s clearly active in these streets.
Out and about, potentially boo’ed up? Who is the Maryland Monarchs’ new superstar that they call Hollywood Anderson?
What do you think? Sound off in the comments.
The photo attached was the group picture of me, Lamar, Nina, Russ, Aaliyah, and Ahmad. A second photo had cropped all of us out and just focused on Lamar. The post had two hundred thousand likes and thousands of comments.
I stared at the image. “This is the picture from—”
“Aaliyah’s party,” Nina interjected. “That’s the picture that—”
“Mecca took,” I finished her sentence. “Why would she post this?”
“I don’t know. I’m still waiting for Aaliyah to call me back and tell me if she cussed her cousin out yet.”
I clicked on the profile picture, and my brows furrowed. “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait … who is Lemon Drop?”
“She’s a content creator who focuses on good-looking men in sports,” she patiently explained.
“But Mecca took this picture. How would a content creator who apparently lives in Atlanta have this picture? We don’t even have a copy of this picture!”
“Exactly. But here’s the thing, the picture is apparently everywhere. It’s been shared around. A lot.”
I was legitimately shocked. “What?”
“I don’t know the full extent of it, but one of the models I work with saw it on his friend’s social media page. It became a whole thing. I’ll tell you about that later. But I just wanted you to be aware.” She paused. “And prepared.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “Prepared?” I murmured.
“I know you’re not big on having lots of attention,” Nina stated carefully. “And the internet is the internet.”
I looked at the number of followers Lemon Drop had. “There are millions of people who follow that Lemon Drop page.”
“Yeah.” She was quiet for a moment. “Are you okay?”
“I’m more confused than anything … about everything.”
“Figure out what you want, and then talk to him about it,” Nina advised. “If you want to be friends, tell him that. If you want to be more, tell him that. But you need to say something.”
“I will. I’m just…”
“Scared,” she guessed. “But, Jazz, real talk … whether you’re calling each other friend or not, you’re into him and he’s into you. And now that he’s the internet’s flavor of the week, there will be people wanting to know if he’s available. So you decide if he is or if he isn’t.”
“I wish,” I scoffed. Her confidence and decisiveness were admirable, but those things didn’t apply to my situation. “I don’t think I’m the deciding factor. His career is.”
I could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “You’d be surprised…”
My feelings for Lamar were real, and I didn’t need to be real with just him about that—I needed to be real with myself. The more I fought it, the more it fought me.
I’ll talk to him on Friday.
Wednesdays and Thursdays were Lamar’s longest practice days.
Fridays were shorter days, and he usually got home at a more reasonable time.
I knew I needed to have a real conversation with him, and I didn’t want it to be after a long day.
So, Friday morning, I sent him a text asking him to call me when he finished practice.
And then I proceeded to go over my plan in my head so I would be prepared.
Nerves started getting the best of me as the day went on.
Lamar had struck a chord in me, and I couldn’t imagine not having him in my life.
And even though my loved ones didn’t think there was anything to worry about if I told him how I felt, they didn’t understand what Lamar meant to me.
They didn’t understand how losing him would affect me.
They didn’t understand how at times his voice, his touch, his conversation felt like the only thing tethering me to reality.
So it was a risk to tell him my truth. But seeing as how I’d almost told him when he was eating me, it was going to come out one way or another.
My best bet was to do it in a controlled environment.
I needed to do it in a way to salvage the friendship if he wasn’t interested in a relationship.
But how do I do that?
I’d been home for no more than fifteen minutes when my phone rang.
Sitting on the couch, I stared at his name flashing across the screen. Breathing in deeply, I rolled my shoulders back.
“Hey, Lamar,” I answered, my voice squeaking in the process.
“Hey, what’s up?” Lamar responded. “Everything okay?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, everything is fine. How are you?”
“Nah, Jazz. Talk to me. I can tell something is going on. And you said you wanted to talk.”
“Okay.” Letting out a nervous giggle, I stood up. “So, the weekend of Aaliyah’s party, something happened…”
“Are you talking about that picture?” he guessed.
“Uh … yeah,” I answered, allowing the subject to change.
I rationalized that since I wanted to talk to him about the photo anyway, it wasn’t a complete deviation from my plan.
“Nina texted me a link to this woman’s post on social media,” I continued. “After Nina told me it had gone viral, I looked, and … there it was. Aaliyah’s cousin must’ve posted it, and then it got shared. I hadn’t been online much because I’ve been writing, so I had no idea this was going on.”
“I’ve had some people text me about it. I was surprised, but it’s cool. It’s a good picture.”
“It is. So … you’re cool with it? I didn’t know if you felt like your privacy was violated.”
“I mean, yeah, it was, but it’s fine.” He paused. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Partially. I didn’t know if you saw it … or how you felt about it. I didn’t want you to feel like you couldn’t hang out with me and my friends because someone might take a picture and put you on the internet.”
“That’s what you were worried about?” He let out a relieved chuckle. “You had me worried. I thought … something was wrong.”
My stomach knotted. “What did you think?” I asked slowly.
“I don’t know, the last couple days…” He hesitated. “I thought maybe popping up on you didn’t work in my favor. I don’t typically show up somewhere uninvited. So I’m sorry if—”
“No, that’s not it at all.” I had cut him off quickly, shaking my head even though he couldn’t see me.
“First of all, you were invited. You were later than we originally planned, but you were invited. And second of all, I love that you showed up. I love…” My heart raced as the words got caught in my throat.
“I love being around you. I love spending time with you. I love our relationship.”
I can’t tell him over the phone.
I wanted to tell him.
I needed to tell him.
But I had to do it in person.
I needed to be able to look him in the eyes and see his reaction and response.
I needed to see if he was going to reciprocate or reject me.
I needed to read him. My aunt had said something at the beginning of the summer about looking someone in the eye to see the truth, and this was one of those moments.
“I love that you came over,” I continued. “I don’t want you to doubt that for a minute. Do you have plans tonight?”
“Nah, I’m just going to shower, eat, watch a movie, talk to you. What about you?”
“If I were to come talk to you in person, would that throw you off your pregame prep? I know this is your first official game as a first-string starter, so I don’t want to mess up what you have going on to get in the right mindset.”
“Yo.” He laughed. “It’s funny because I wanted to ask you to come up here, but I didn’t want to ask you to get on the road in that Friday traffic.
I swear I almost asked. We fly out around lunch tomorrow, so I have to be at the field in the morning.
But if you’re down, I want you here. I want you here. ”
Even with the knot in my belly, his words gave me butterflies. “Okay, I’m going to put a bag together. I’ll call you when I’m about to leave. I’m looking forward to seeing you.”
“Mm, you have no idea.”