Chapter 7
BURTON
I’m two years away from thirty and still have some time before all the aches and pains I’ve heard about from people set in. But between my rec box lacrosse games and working at the restaurant, I’m feeling the aches a lot more than I did before.
It’s been three days since Finny, Stack, and I won the intermission game, and I think I pulled a muscle in my back from it. Throwing a lacrosse ball is one thing, but a generic brand ping-pong ball that weighs next to nothing is much harder to throw.
Field lacrosse practices will start in a few days, and I’m sure the exhaustion and aches will only increase, which means I need to work harder to prepare for it.
I can’t imagine doing anything else as a career, at least not yet. There was a guy who just came back to play professional football as a quarterback at forty-four. I should be able to make it at least seven plus more years.
Despite my family not supporting me playing a sport at this age, I have to do it, or else I’ll always wonder what if?
I walk outside to go for a run, knowing it’ll be the best way to get moving for the day. I always take the longer workdays at the restaurant better if I’ve done my training, which seems counterintuitive. It’s just how my body works, I guess.
I think about the hockey game the other night, and how fun it was, even if I wasn’t happy to leave work.
We won the game, and I recouped some of my lost tips.
And yet, my mind keeps going back to the interaction with Laney.
It was so easy to talk to her, although I probably should’ve censored my answer about us playing the Rattlers.
A sound alerts me, and I glance up to see someone running toward me on the road. As she gets closer, I see it’s Laney. It’s been a few days since the hockey game, and while I’ve seen her twice from across the street, I wonder if she’s avoiding me.
Looking back, my interview had been a little over the top. Extreme.
Then again, we’ve seen each other twice. Why would she even care?
I lift a hand and wave as I bend over to stretch. Might as well save my joints and muscles with a little warm-up before I risk an injury.
See? Even thinking that makes me feel old.
Laney waves and picks up the pace, sprinting past me and down to the stop sign at the end of the block. She’s pretty quick.
She slows down and turns, walking back with her hands on her hips as she tries to breathe in and out.
“What are you doing?” I ask, wondering if she’ll even be able to hear me.
She turns to me with a confused expression and then lifts a hand to pull out one of her earbuds. “Sorry, did you say something?”
“What kind of workout are you doing?” I ask.
“Just some sprints,” she says before taking a deep breath. The road is empty, with a few cars parked along the curb at varying intervals.
“Do you do this often?” I ask, walking alongside her. As far as I know, she’s not an athlete in any sport. I’ve been wrong before. Maybe she’s a runner, though?
She shrugs. “Sometimes I don’t want to work out at all. Telling myself I can hate life for ten minutes to get something in is the best way to motivate me.”
I stare at her for a few moments before realizing that I’ve got my head tilted to the side and I’m trying to understand her.
“Wait, you tell yourself that you’re going to hate running and you still do it?” I’ve never heard of that logic, but it’s got me curious.
She shrugs. “Getting a workout in is the goal. On days motivation is lacking, I say I can get mad as I sprint, which is short, or cry while I run a few miles.”
I blink and say, “So you only do sprints?”
Laney laughs. “No. Believe it or not, there are days I don’t mind working out. Sometimes I run and smile the whole time. Others, I’m dragging myself out of bed. What do you do when you don’t want to work out?”
“I do it anyway. Most of the guys in my sport are young and fast. So I try to do anything that’ll help me keep up with them.” I hadn’t put that into words before, but I realize how true it is.
She gives me a small smile and says, “You don’t think you’re young?”
I blow out a breath. “Think of Jackson. The kid is twenty-one. It’s like I watch him play, and I remember being able to move that easily. But with experience come injuries sometimes. I tore my ACL my second year of pro lacrosse, and now I’m always conscious of it.”
“But the experience got you to this point, right? The working through the setbacks and enjoying the high moments that much more.”
“Yeah, I guess I haven’t thought of it that way. How many of these sprints do you do?” I ask, doing walking butt-kickers as I keep up with her.
“Depends on how much I really don’t want to do it. Sometimes I’ll do six or eight. They’re about a hundred yards from stop sign to stop sign.”
“I’ve lived here for almost two years, and I didn’t know that,” I say, shaking my head.
She gives a soft laugh and says, “You probably don’t have trouble with motivation like I do.”
It’s my turn to laugh. “Well, you don’t know the struggle it was getting out of the house this morning.”
“I thought your season doesn’t start for a couple of weeks.”
I’m surprised she remembers that much. “Well, the outdoor lacrosse team, yes. I also play box lacrosse in the winter.”
“You play lacrosse in a box? Or is that your armor?” she asks me with a small grin.
“Sometimes it feels like that,” I say, doing some walking high knees as we continue down the road. “It’s indoor lacrosse. The field is a lot smaller than an outdoor field, and there are a few different rules.”
She nods, and I notice that even though there’s a lull in the conversation, she doesn’t move to put her earbud back in. We’re almost at the other stop sign.
“Which sprint number is this one?” I ask.
“This will be number four.” She reaches the line and pivots, taking quick strides at first before lengthening out and going full tilt.
I start a light jog, needing to get some warmth coursing through my muscles before I do something like that. The advantage of playing box lacrosse is that it keeps me in shape during the Utah winters and cold spring days.
I jog until I catch up with her on the walk back again.
“You run like you’ve done this before. Did you run track or cross-country?”
She gives me a surprised expression. “I did both. They were the easiest to work with in between farm chores. My grandparents couldn’t really take me all over the world for tournaments and games.”
I nod, surprised by her admission. “You lived with your grandparents?”
She blows out a few more breaths. “Yeah, my mom died when I was really young, and I never met my father.”
I can’t even imagine that.
“What about you?” she asks. “Did you have family close growing up?”
I give her a small smile and say, “Yeah, my parents are still together and live in Maryland.”
“You’re very lucky.”
I nod. “Sometimes I think so.” I don’t want to go all into the backstory there.
“So, is Burton a last name or a first name?” she asks, turning to give me a brief grin again.
Shaking my head, I say, “You’re still caught up on that, huh?”
“I’m a reporter. It’s in my nature to need the answers.”
I laugh and say, “Well, it’s a last name. But I’ve been called Burton since I was in peewee football.”
“You sound like you’re trying to be a famous singer, like Beyonce or Usher.”
“Too bad I have no sense of pitch.”
“That is a shame,” Laney says with a laugh.
“How are you settling into the new place?”
Laney’s smile grows wider. “I think the only thing I have to worry about here is Jessa mothering me too much.”
I laugh out loud, knowing that’s a real possibility.
“She’s good like that, but she means well.”
“I’m grateful to her. And being here.” Laney holds out her arms and gestures to the snowcapped mountains around us. It’s the beginning of May, but we had a late winter.
“Wait, did you already get everything from your old apartment?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet. The plan is to go there once I’m back from the road trip. I’ve got to get my car out of the parking lot as well.”
“Is something wrong with it?” I ask.
“Yeah. It has been since I made it back from Seattle. I think I finally have enough to fix it though. Then Jessa won’t have to be my personal taxi service.”
I smile at that. “It helps her feel useful. She’s saved our house frequently from various problems.”
We get back to the stop sign, and Laney takes off again. I do a quicker jog, knowing I still need some time for my muscles to activate.
We meet up again a few yards from the other stop sign, and I’m surprised how comfortable everything is between us.
Maybe it’s just that I haven’t talked to someone who isn’t looking for something from me that’s got me confused.
“I’ll come look at your car,” I say, slowing down to walk beside her.
She turns to look at me. “You don’t have to. I promise I’ve started saving up to get it fixed. It’s just a matter of getting it to the shop.”
I wave a hand in front of me. “It’s not a problem. I used to fix all the cars in our house. It was fun to see how they worked, and it was a rush every time they started.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d be grateful. Just give me some idea of what’s wrong and maybe I can YouTube the issue and fix it myself. It needs to last me at least a few more years.”
I know how that goes, since I’m driving around in a truck that’s at least twenty years old, but I say nothing. Anyhow, letting her try to fix it isn’t something I’m willing to do.
We walk in silence a bit more and then I say, “If you need help moving, I can do that too.”
Laney laughs and shakes her head. “Why so willing to help right now?”
I try to feign hurt and then say, “I have sisters. Three of them. I’d hope that people would help them if they were in a similar situation.”
She gives me a closed-lip smile and a nod. “I appreciate that. As an only child, life is different for me in that regard.”
We make it to the stop sign, and this time I take off when she does. I pull ahead at the beginning and then slow down a bit, allowing her to catch up. But then she moves her legs faster, edging ahead of me.
It’s only when I put all my effort into it that we’re neck and neck. The woman is faster than I thought.
We push down the quiet street, the only sound our footsteps along the pavement. As we near the stop sign, Laney falls behind again, slowing her pace just slightly, which puts me ahead. I turn to see if she’s hurt or if something made her slow down.
She looks fine.
We pass through the stop sign with me slightly out front.
My chest is heaving, and I don’t think I’ve done that outside of a game in years. It’s a lot easier for me to concentrate and focus when I’m trying to catch up to someone rather than running to a random point.
“You do that willingly?” I ask, pointing down the road to the stop sign.
Laney laughs and interlocks her hands behind her head, breathing in and out in short spurts.
“Not every day, that’s for sure.” She looks over at me, as if just now realizing that I’d come outside to work out too. “What were you planning on doing?”
My chest is still trying to pull in oxygen, and I say, “That was it.”
I do my best to keep a straight face before grinning.
“No judgment here if that’s how you work,” she says, holding up both hands.
“No. I was planning to go for a jog, and now I’m not sure I’m ready for it. I have a game tonight and don’t want to pull anything.”
She blinks a few times and says, “Is this for the cardboard box lacrosse?”
Shaking my head, I frown. “There’s no cardboard involved. It’s just box lacrosse.”
“Where do you play?” she asks with a laugh.
Is she teasing me?
“At a facility a few miles from here. You should come. You can see me dominate the field.”
She laughs way too loudly, and I’m instantly humbled.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh like that. It was just funny when you said it that way.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like you’re trying to act cool. You should’ve stopped at the ‘you should come’ part. Then it would’ve been believable.”
I blink a few times, trying to figure out what she means. I might flirt from time to time, but I’m usually not shot down so quickly.
Is that what I was trying to do? Flirt?
Maybe it’s the cold air getting to my brain.
“I’m going to do a few more sprints,” I say, pointing to the sign again.
She nods and waves. “Good luck. I need to get ready for a road trip.”
“So you wouldn’t have come to the game even with a sincere invitation?”
She stops and turns to me, walking closer. She’s a few inches from me, and I have to tilt my head down to look at her. “For your information,” she says in a soft voice, “I’m always game for something fun to do. But alas, work calls, and I must go. Maybe next time?”
I stand there, speechless.
I don’t know if spells are actually real, but it’s like she’s put me under hers.
“I’ll count on it.”