40. Noah
CHAPTER FORTY
NOAH
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘TIPTOEING’ BY HOPE TALA
“Sorry, sorry, I was supposed to be here already. Sorry.” She hugs Jace first and then Simon and finally beams a distracted smile at me.
“Here, let me take that.” I take the basket from her and almost swear. The thing is heavy. “What do you have in here? Rocks?” I grumble.
Queenie laughs. “Thank you so much, you two. I owe you pies and fries for this.” She takes my arm and waves the two of them.
The young twerps nod at me, man-to-man, and walk away. They are strange but good kids.
Then my attention is occupied by the woman next to me. “What are you wearing?” I eye her outfit.
She’s in white pants; her white tee shirt stretches enticingly over her tits. I can see the faint outline of her red bra under it. I wonder how long it will take for me to take it off her. Five seconds? Ten?
“I’m wearing cricket whites,” Queenie says proudly.
“Huh? What?” I’m confused. “Why?”
“You’ll see. Come on.” She urges me up the stairs and into the darkened shopfront.
“We have to sneak in because the owners are out for the weekend and no one’s supposed to be here at night without permission,” she whispers as she leads me through the workshop floor.
I hold the basket and my kit bag, almost collapsing from the fatigue.
“I’m tired beyond words, Queenie. All I want is another hot shower and some hot grub and then you. So can we just…?”
She squeezes my hand. “Just give me five minutes? If you don’t like it, we can go back home.”
“Home. I like the sound of that,” I muse out loud. And it’s true. The cottage feels like home now because of the meals we all have together. Because of nights spent playing video games with Queenie and then wrestling her in bed. Because of mornings watching her sleep peacefully before I slip out for my morning workout.
I lug all the shit up two winding flights of stairs, until I’ve worked up a sweat. Finally, Queenie opens a door, and we’re on a closed rooftop.
She flips on a switch and the place is lit up.
“I thought you said we’re not supposed to be here.”
She points at the black glass enclosing us in our own private bubble, twenty feet up. “This is sunproof glass. Light doesn’t come through here, but we can see out without anyone noticing us.”
She motions me to keep the stuff on the stone floor and walk over to the edge with her.
I put my arms around her waist, so I’m clasping the railing, my chin on top of her head.
I check out the whole of the town, Main Street and all the others. The distant drama of the cliffs, the expensive houses and the ocean are all visible from here. As we watch, the sun dips down over the cliffs and slips into the Bay. And as the sky darkens, the lights on the street come on, one by one.
It’s stunning.
“Isn’t it just so pretty?” Queenie looks up at me. Her eyes are beaming a sultry, sunshine brown.
I kiss the top of her head. “The prettiest.” But my view is better.
“We can enjoy the view for another two minutes. Then it’s time for the next surprise.”
I smile into her hair. “Trust you to time our romantic date.”
“This is not a date,” she protests indignantly.
“Then what is it?” I clutch her closer and rub against her back. Suggestively.
Queenie melts into me and makes an incoherent sound. And then shakes her head and bumps my chest with her head. “This is a training session.”
“It’s a what?” I’m properly bewildered now.
She slides out from under my arm and walks to the other side of the massive rooftop. Pulls off the canvas off the contraption kept there. It’s a ball-dispensing machine.
“What the fuck is this?” I demand.
“So, I’ve been thinking about your inability to get the cover drive right,” she says smugly as she fiddles with it. “And, of course, it means my Virat is superior to you because he’s a master of the shot.” She shoots me a smug smile over her shoulder.
“Your Virat can kiss my—” I begin, annoyed.
Queenie laughs her full-throated laugh. “I can just imagine him doing that. It’s hot! My two favorite players going at it.”
My annoyance dissipates a little. A warm glow strikes my heart because I’m one of her favorite players. I stride toward her. “Desi girl, what’s going on? And start talking fast because your five minutes are up.”
“I’m getting to it. If you’ll just give me a –” She grunts and pulls a final lever. “Second.”
“Behold the Cover Drive Maker.” Queenie stands arms akimbo. “I made Fox and Ares calibrate the machine to the exact height the ball needs to be, for you to make your shot between the covers.”
“There aren’t any covers here.” I look around. The place is empty of fielders covering me.
“Use your imagination, Dumaine. Come on.”
“Alright. Alright. What do you need me to do?” I am too tired to argue with her.
“Glove up and take guard? Over there?” She suggests.
I do as she says, just to shut her up.
“Better wear your helmet too.” She smiles secretively.
“The ball’s supposed to be waist-height for me to hit the cover drive, Queenie. You know this already.”
But I wear the helmet, nonetheless.
Strangely, she wears pads that she removes from the wicker basket and a helmet too. Then she stands in front of me, between bat and pad.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re going to teach me how to play the shot. That’s how you’re going to perfect it.” Queenie winks at me over her shoulder. “I suck at hand-eye coordination, so this is going to be fun.”
“Fuck—” I protest.
Before I can say another word, a ball blitzes at us. At breakneck speed. It’s blue in color.
Queenie screams and I grip the bat and her and bend her forward. “Put your left foot forward,” I tell her grimly.
She is a second too late.
The paintball splashes against her pad and my precious bat.
She winces. “It hurts. No one ever told me paintball hurts.”
“That’s your plan? To use paintball? Bend.” I snarl at her as the next ball comes at us.
This time, I force her into position. My left foot forward, my back foot takes all the pressure. I flick my wrist a little because I can see the red ball coming so clearly at me.
And Queenie.
I chuck the ball away a little better. Imagining the players standing to cover us. Waiting to take a catch or simply dive and stop the ball.
Thwack, the thing goes off on my bat. Right in the middle.
But the direction of the ball is timed right, between the covers.
“Just, do what I tell you to,” I instruct her. Then I just move her foot and hands where I need them to be before the next ball comes at us.
This one is purple and probably doing two hundred kilometers an hour.
“How fast is this thing set at?”
“Fox said, the faster it is the better it is for you.” Queenie’s voice is gratifyingly small. “So, about one fifty miles an hour.”
“I’m going to kill—” THWACK between the covers. “That fucker.”
“That’s the center! It middled to cover drive!” Queenie yells happily.
“How many rotations on one cycle?” I bark, getting ready for the next ball. Not thinking, just doing.
I don’t like the idea of Queenie getting hurt. It happens in the next ball. I’m a fraction too slow and the purple smatters all over the front of our shirts.
“EEECK!” Queenie screams.
“You should move,” I tell her grimly.
“Not until you nail this shot,” she says equally grimly.
I go ten, twelve more times. Before my arms do the thinking for me. My legs become accustomed to the exact direction of the shot. I’m even able to move my head in the proper angle, even with Queenie tucked under my chin.
Her waist gets the brunt of a yellow ball. My thigh gets the worst of a black one.
But, somehow, at the end of twenty, extremely fraught, yell-y minutes, I’m getting the hang of the cover shot.
“You got this?” Queenie asks.
“Yes! I did. Now can we?—”
The next ball to come at me is the shiny red season ball. It’s instinct and instinct alone which saves the ball from hitting Queenie in her crotch and unwomaning her.
I take up guard, go on the front foot, forcing her to follow me. She bends when I bend, and we take the shot together.
The ball thwacks right between the imaginary covers to roll gracefully and fast at the very end of the rooftop. Where it rests. Ever so gently.
I give her a look of surprised delight. “I made it,” I whisper urgently. “I made that shot.”
Queenie shrugs. “You have to make it like thirty more times. Then you’ll really have learned it.”
“You’re going to stand in front of me the whole time?”
“You always say I distract you at odd times and you need to get out of your head.” She shrugs again. “I just combined those two facts into this little experiment. Back foot,” she barks.
The ball comes at me again and this time, she swings the bat with me. Our bodies, our breaths in sync.
“You used neuroscience on me?” I pant slightly after the next ball rolls to a stop next to the previous one.
“Yes. I used neuroscience to rewire the pathways of your brain so it can associate the cover shot with this training session than…” We move together in preparation for the next shot.
“Whatever you did before,” she finishes breathlessly.
Thwack! The ball goes off the middle of my bat and runs to join its other two brothers in the same spot.
My heart thuds. In gratitude. In fascination. In blessed relief. In something huge and unnamable because this woman took the time to understand my problem and solve it for me. In the most creative of ways.
“God!” I shout in her ear. “I’m crazy about you.”
I smack the next ball as hard as it can go, right between the covers so it almost flies to the edge of the rooftop. The fifth ball to do so.
Her shy, delighted smile is my own personal miracle.