Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Laney
Bike Ride or Boy Ride?
“You can just stay here while I run up and change. Shouldn’t be a minute.” I say to Miguel fifteen minutes later when we’re outside my apartment. A reusable grocery tote full of the meals he prepared for me sits on the floor behind my seat.
“I’ll allow it.” Miguel says.
“You’ll allow it.” I repeat as I cock my head at him.
“Yes.”
“You make it seem like you’re the boss of me.” I cross my arms and if I was standing a hip would be jutting out as I adjust my stance to express the full attitude adjustment he needs.
“I’m not the boss of you, but I am in charge.”
My body freezes as flashes of last night explode in my mind. How do people do this? How do they fuck each other’s brains out and then go back to just talking and functioning properly the next morning?
To hopefully stir his nerves a bit because he’s being sassy, I make a show of getting out of the front seat and opening the back door of the cab with more force than necessary. He can’t just throw sex in my face like that.
Well, maybe he can.
Since I want the bedroom fun times to continue, and for him to absolutely be in charge there, I concede. “Fine.”
I catch his smile as he shakes his head. A little giggle escapes me as I jog up the stairs to the apartment.
Dee is looking out the window when I open the door.
“He didn’t kiss you goodbye.” She sounds ready to throw deviled eggs at his car.
“Good morning to you too.” I walk past her to the kitchen and unload the mason jars.
“Why didn’t he kiss you goodbye?” She turns to me and crosses her arms. “Is this just sex? I really don’t want it to be just sex.
I think you’re both really good for each other and I might be getting my period soon because I’m all emotional about it but,” she pauses to take a breath. “Laney, he could be the one.”
“Have you been listening to the Period in Three Days playlist?”
“Maybe.”
“We know we shouldn’t do that to ourselves without an alpha bro podcast queued up to counteract the mushy love feelings of those songs.”
“Yeah I wasn’t thinking.”
“Should I put on whatever sports talk show is being broadcast on TV right now?”
“Yes.” She pouts and slumps down on the couch. “But, why didn’t he kiss you goodbye.”
“Because it isn’t goodbye. We’re going on a ride.” I find some inside baseball thing and turn up the volume. Nothing like ads for erectile dysfunction, hair loss, and bros talking about ball rotation and swing speed to get you out of a PMS funk.
In my room I quickly change into a bike kit, I toss Miguel’s clothing onto my laundry pile. Then I stop to reconsider.
Does he want those back now?
They’re dirty.
He probably has a particular way he likes doing his laundry.
But it’s rude to just hand him dirty clothing.
I’ll wash them tomorrow with the rest of my stuff and then give them back.
Decision made I head back out and find Dee glaring at the television.
“Did they discuss salaries?” I hazard a guess.
“How is it possible the minimum salary for a player in the league is nearly a million dollars?!” She tosses her hands out to the side. “Minimum wage is like fifteen dollars.”
“If you’re not in a tips based position.”
“Shit you’re right.”
“It’s America’s Pastime.” I shrug. If I had earned $15/hr for the hours I have spent lamenting the disparity of money across the sports world I’d be sitting on well more than a million dollars.
“Well that’s just not true. America’s pastime is obviously staring at our pocket computers and believing everything a few corporations feed us. And then assuming the rest of the world has the same content on their pocket computer and hating people who don’t think the same way you do.”
“Yeah, I’d say your period is due any minute.”
“That was grim. I’ll give you that.” She shoves a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
“But it wasn’t wrong.” I assure her. “Listen, I’d love to get into it but I told Miguel I’d be back in a minute and it has been like ten.”
She laughs. “Have a good ride.”
“Thanks. Girl date tonight after deliveries?”
“For sure.”
I crush her in a quick hug and head down.
“That was like eight minutes.” Miguel says as I climb into the front of his truck.
I shrug. “Dee needed a talking with.”
“What about?” He asks as he drives off from the curb.
“Baseball salaries.”
Miguel tries his best to study me but he has to keep his eyes on the road. I’m just going to let that one hang there.
“So,” I start. “Another VO2 workout today?”
“Not quite as intense but yes, we’re going to work on some moderate to hard pacing and then hard pacing before doing five full out sprints followed by easy one minute recovery.”
“What’s the total distance?”
“I’m not sure, we’re going to clock this one by time.”
“But don’t I need to get myself up to the full race distance at pace?”
“No, you’ve done it before, what will help you most now is pushing your limits and learning what it feels like when there’s nothing left in the tank. You’re learning your metabolic limits. And how to avoid going over the line and crashing out.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Well, I’ve never done that before. I’ve just gone full out trying to hit each distance as fast as I can.”
“You crushed your first full TP distance.”
“When I finished in my socks?”
“Yeah, despite that obvious disadvantage you hit the top ten.”
“But top ten isn’t going to get me a pro card.”
“It might get you a sponsor though.” Miguel says with a hopeful shrug.
I temper my hope because I’m not as confident it’ll help me as he is. A sponsor before getting the pro card is almost unheard of. You have to be like an influencer with a bajillion followers to get their attention.
I tried, before my screen became a fractured glass piece of abstract art, but I could never remember to film myself working out and I also couldn’t understand why someone would listen to my opinion. I didn’t know what I was doing. I still don’t.
If I didn’t have Miguel guiding me I know I’d be struggling even more than I already am.
Quiet falls over us as we continue to drive south along the lake to our starting point by Grant Park. The sun reflects off the water with blinding rays but being along the shore, seeing the city grow larger in the windshield, catching Chicagoans as they enjoy the lakefront, has me thinking.
I might not have it figured out. I might not be where I need to be.
Maybe I need to tell myself I’m lucky to be exactly where I am.
To be running down my dad’s dream.
He believed in me.
Miguel seems to believe in me too.
I watch Miguel watch the traffic as he drives.
His hair is loose around his face and it swishes a little as he turns his head to check his blind spot.
His large hands grip the steering wheel of his truck with authority.
There’s a curve to his thumb from spending hours on his bike gripping his handle bars.
Heat flushes through my body at the memory of how we spent the night. I’ve never masterbated in front of someone before and I lost myself completely to the moment. It was erotic, and felt almost dangerous, but at the back of my mind I knew I was completely safe.
Then the way he gave me my third orgasm of the night with his mouth and fingers? Unbelievable.
And feeling his silky, thick cock on my tongue was enough to drive me to my fourth.
I haven’t dated much, having spent my twenties on emotionless hookups to help me feel anything besides the crushing mundaneness of my life.
I spent my days working an inside sales job for a logistics company and going out most nights because being at home meant I had time to think about how disappointing I was to my dad for not making the Olympic Team.
We come out of the S Curve on Lake Shore Drive and pass the hospital where Dad spent his final weeks.
When he was diagnosed, my nights and weekends at the bars were exchanged for being at his bedside or helping with housework so mom could get him to and from treatments.
Bills for his care and all the costs you don’t think about added up. Parking at the hospital every day, eating meals out, and lost wages from taking sick days to care for him put us behind so I started sending part of my salary to my parents.
Dee got me the delivery job to earn even more. And she became my emotional support animal, coming with me to the hospital, helping me get things done for my mom, just sitting with me and my dad when he was too weak to speak but I didn’t want him to be alone.
The memory of our last coherent conversation refuses to vacate my mind. My heart contracts remembering the pleading in his eyes. The tears that clouded mine.
I push a shaky exhale through my lips.
“You okay?” Miguel asks.
“Yeah, just took a trip down memory lane.” I say as I will the memories to return to the dark back closet I’ve locked them in. The task becomes easier as the city blocks where my pain is cemented into the ground slide away behind us.
“Care to share with the class?”
“Not really.”
“Fair enough.” He lets the quiet fall around us again and I mentally refocus on my training and I remind myself why I am doing this in the first place.
I made a promise.
To my dad.
And I’m making it happen.