1. Arnaz
ARNAZ
PRESENT DAY
“Do your worst”
Sometimes the arrowhead is a mercy.
T he sun retches up a tormenting darkness that sits in the middle of my chest. I mistook it for the beginning of the end once.
I grew impatient waiting, so I went in search of it.
Turns out chasing death upsets some people.
So now I take tiny lime-green-and-white pills, and one of the side effects is endurance.
Handy, since last season, the league transferred me to the sunniest city of ’em all, Los Angeles, when I only want to live an East Coast October forever.
If it weren’t for my big homies, benzodiazepines and SSRIs, I’d never leave the house.
They even managed to subdue the man who chased death to feel alive.
I’m no longer impetuous, but I did a thing.
I grew tired of hiding the fact that I love men, so I stopped hiding. And now everywhere I go, idiots ask me what it’s like to fuck guys and play basketball. And I’m supposed to pretend it’s not the most asinine question on the planet.
So many goddamn questions. Never mind the answers—they’ll write whatever the hell they want. Apparently, I’m dating my best friend. Well, if that were true, it would make this shit awkward.
“Tyler, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Metal coats my tongue as I drag the beer from my lips. The cold press of the bottle burns my palm despite the rush of heat spreading up my neck.
How am I cold and hot at the same time?
Pushing back my chair, I inch closer to the bourbon less than ten…
nine…
eight feet away...
“I will strive every day to ensure that our family knows true joy, protection, and peace.”
I study the object of everyone’s attention—Sid King, my best friend—down on bended knee, proposing.
“Ours is an everlasting love forged through life’s fires. Whatever storms may come to pass, we’ll bear them together and come out stronger.”
I search Ty’s face for a sign that this isn’t what he wants. He looks shocked. At least, I think that’s shock. Hell, I could never crack him.
Draining the beer, I reach for the bourbon, and before the last of the pour can meet the bottom of the cup, it’s falling down my throat.
“I am already yours, but would you do me the honor of marrying me?”
Pour, gulp, burn…again…again…
“No, no, no.”
I search the faces of the other guests.
Oh no. He said no? That was a no, right?
My breath echoes in the air as Nicholas covers his mouth, and his eyes sink like that time in practice when I gut-checked him for elbowing me in the ribs.
I scan one downcast face after another—until it meets one beaming with pride—Ms. King, Sid’s mother.
I trace her gaze back to Ty, who’s lowering to his knees.
“No, because it’s I who would be honored if you’d marry me.”
Sid grins.
Holy fuck!
I blow out a breath and then add to the air of woots and whistles before tucking my head and weaving through the crowd.
I’ll down the bottle if you push it back up , I warn my stomach as my back hits the bathroom door.
Snatching off my shades, the room spins slightly as the celebration gets louder.
Last game…twenty-eight points, eleven rebounds, ten assists…
I move toward the toilet.
…or was it ten rebounds and eleven assists?
Dragging in a resistant breath, I unzip my pants and then piss, ignoring the knock on the door.
There was the lob I threw to Nick, who posted up for a fadeaway, and the one to Zeke for the dunk.
The doorknob rattles.
At least seven for Sid, who probably had as many for me.
I zip up and flush.
That’s nine assists right there.
Turning on the hot water, I push the soap dispenser three times until my palm is full.
Twenty seconds or… I roll out my neck, ignoring the warning as I rub the soap between my palms and fingers and then rinse. I start to reach for a towel when my hands freeze midair.
Twenty seconds, or Ana?s won’t survive surgery.
Grinding my teeth, I stab the soap dispenser again until my palms are full.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi…
I begin to rinse .
…three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi, eight Mississippi, nine Mississippi...
The knock, louder this time, rattles the door.
“Get lost.” There are like a hundred bathrooms here. Told Sid he should give out maps of their estate.
Where was I?Eight Mississippi or nine?
For fuck’s sake.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi, eight Mississippi, nine Mississippi, ten Mississippi, eleven Mississippi, twelve Mississippi, thirteen Mississippi, fourteen Mississippi, fifteen Mississippi ? —
I grunt and focus as the voices get louder outside the door.
…sixteen Mississippi, seventeen Mississippi, eighteen Mississippi, nineteen Mississippi, twenty Mississippi.
My lungs expand as I yank the towel free and dry my hands. Ripping open the door, I shrink back from the sun and throw on my shades.
“You didn’t hear me knocking?” Nick asks.
“So?” I shrug as he slides by.
“Waddup?” Malik, Ty’s teammate on the Knights, says as I reach for the bourbon.
Nodding, I tilt the mouth of the bottle toward his cup.
“Whoa, easy.” He grins. “I tend to strip when I’m drunk.”
Eyeing his cup, I shift the bottle to refill my own, stopping when I think the amount is even with his.
“That was epic,” he says, facing the crowd. “Ty’s my boy, but goddamn, right?”
The scent of grilled beef has my brain snitching to my stomach that it wants me to finish the plate I started.
Following Malik’s gaze to Sid, who’s chatting with our teammates, I quirk my eyebrow.
“I’m not even bi, but if I knew he was, I’d have given Ty a run for his money, y’know?” he rattles on.
Sid hugs his mother.
“N-nah.” I clear my throat. “I don’t see him that way.”
He smirks.
Everyone believes headlines.
He starts to walk away, then pauses. “Yo, that Darius and Todd segment was bullshit. You belong here just like everyone else. Just ball and do you.”
I wave it off. I caught a snippet of the show this morning. Fuck ’em.
“How’s your pops? His Offensive Player of the Year speech had me dying. The funniest presenter all night.”
Carter Cade, retired NFL tight end, and everyone’s favorite dinner party icebreaker.
“A speech?”
He nods. “At the NFL Honors. He’s good?”
I grunt.
Ty places a tender kiss on a seated Sid. They’re so certain about each other. In the bleak span of mortality, what does forever even mean? Will it all have been worth it sixty years from now when one sleeps coldly in death?
Who will keep the other?
Ghosts do not warm.
“Because of you, I know that love is the greatest of mysteries…”
I crank up the music in my car until the bass is in the center of my brain.
“Whatever storms may come to pass, we’ll bear them together…”
Maxing out the volume on my speakers until my teeth vibrate, I reach into the glove compartment and snag the psilocybin. Unscrewing the capsules, I pour back the dust. Soon, the slithering unrest beneath my skin will retreat.
“I am already yours…”
I chase it with another dose.
The faint echo of a car horn cuts through the music.
Who could fault Los Angeles if she threw up her hands—or land—and evoked a 9.
5 earthquake that careened half of the population and their cars into the Pacific Ocean?
Cars digested to the depths, forming coral reefs.
Bloated corpses burped up to the surface. Decades of congestion cured.
Solved.
My head swims through the reverberating bass.
Why does the sun have to constantly burn through the flesh here? I yank down my sun visor.
Everything about California is dramatic. Even the goddamn traffic.
I switch lanes and take the next exit.
My ringtone blares through the speakers.
“You’re horrible at calling people back.”
“My bad.”
“How was it?” my sister, Ana?s, asks as I pull into a parking spot.
“Hold on.” I reach in the back for my hoodie and then throw it on, popping the hood. “You, whose beautiful soul is cast from love.”
“Wh-what? Is that one of your lyrics? It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a line from Sid’s proposal.”
“Wait, what? He proposed?”
“Yep. Ty had a ring too.”
“What do you mean he had a ring?”
“It turned into a surprise double proposal. There were tears, the snotty kind, and words like everlasting and union .”
“Oof. You okay?”
I roll down the windows. “Yeah, he’s my best friend. I’m happy for him.”
“Bullshit. We hate sharing our best friends.”
Yeah…She cried for a week after her best friend Isabelle got married.
“You still there?”
“Nah, I’m on my way home.”
Home. The first morning I woke up there and squinted at its gleaming fixtures and blank, paper-white walls, I dry heaved, threatening to paint the marble.
I canceled the unpackers and unboxed the essentials, which turned out to be less than a quarter of the boxes, and left the rest. Pulled up a hookup app and then got the fuck outta there.
When the guys came over for the first time, Sid took in the boxes and quirked an eyebrow. I arched one back. He said ,“It suits you,” and I grinned and said, “Fuck you,” because I knew he knew why it suited me.I don’t know where home is, but it sure as hell ain’t LA.
“I’ve been thinking…maybe single life isn’t best for yo?—”
“Ana?s.”
“Ever since your college coach, you’ve be?—”
“Stop.”
“I’m just saying, we love hard and we’re loyal hoes. How freaking lucky are the bastards who’ll love us back one day? They won’t ever let go.”
They won’t be the ones letting go. “Mostly ’cause we’re hoes.”
“I checked your DMs. I’ll never unsee that guy’s sculpted face and horse dick for as long as I live. The hell was he going on about in the video?”
I shrug. “Like I speak Dutch.” I track a group approaching less than twenty feet away and roll the tinted windows back up.
“I don’t know how you’re still single with dudes like that blowing up your DMs.”
One of the guys pauses to video my whip.
The sun is starting to bleed across the sky, over-the-top watermelon and gold.
“Staying single is easy.” I roll my window back down after they pass.
“You sure you good? Took your meds?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “You take your meds?”
“Yep…I hear waves.”
“At the beach.”
“But the sun?”
My lips quirk at the note of worry in her voice. “It’s almost down.”
“Good. It’s pouring here.”
I’d kill for a rainy New York day.
“You heard me?”
“What?”
“I said Mom and Carter asked about you at brunch.”
“Is it the third Sunday already?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay? Was he?—”
“Yep. I’m okay.”
“Hold on.” I check traffic. It’s still shit, but it’s starting to move. “Traffic is letting up.” I start the car back up.
“Aight, I’ll let you go. Call if you need me.”
“Always.”
I pull up to my house and stare at the arched glass entry framed with white bougainvillea.
“I am already yours, but would you do me the honor of marrying me?”
I shift into reverse and back out.