Chapter 4 #2
“Jonesy thinks it’ll be a pretty tough game.
They played most of their starters in the preseason, and he said their new offensive coordinator had things looking tight.
” Talking about football was comfortable, a lot more comfortable than talking about his home decor.
It was one thing I knew we both had in common.
In fact, it was the only thing I knew we had in common.
“Jonesy knows a lot about football, doesn’t he?”
“He does. He watches a lot of game tape. Like before every game, he watches a ton of tape, and he always sees things that the coaches don’t. I think it’s because he’s playing. You should talk to him sometime. Bet he could give you some insight on whoever you’re matched up against.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. There was this guy, defender for the Roswell Marauders, who stuffed my routes every damn time we played them,” I started.
“And you play them twice a year, right?”
I nodded. “Right. We play them twice a year. Anyway, they have this defender who always managed to stuff my route when we were paired against each other. So, of course, their coach always has him against me. Swear that guy has tackled me more than anyone else in the league. If he weren’t married, I might start to think he had a crush on me.
” Rowan snorted again, and I felt a strange sense of accomplishment well in my gut.
I liked knowing that I’d been the one to make him laugh.
I wondered if I could do it again. No, not what I was supposed to be thinking about right now.
“But Jonesy, he noticed that the guy had a tell before he tackled. He dropped his shoulder a certain way. I’d never noticed it, then when he pointed it out, I saw it right before he knocked me on my ass the first time.
Second time, he came for me, and I managed to spin away from him because I was anticipating it, you know? He hasn’t gotten me down since.”
It was one of my proudest moments in the league.
Rowan hummed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Another silence fell over us. I pulled out my phone to check to see if I had any messages from maintenance.
Maybe they decided that having a resident locked out was more of an emergency than they originally thought.
Or maybe Aunt Ethel had texted and said that her game got canceled and she was going to come home. Unfortunately, I had no messages.
Should I suggest that we watch TV? SEN probably had some commentary going about the games for the weekend: ours and all the other ones across the league.
I must have been desperate. I usually hated watching SEN.
They always got into my head, pointing out things our team did wrong or acting like we didn’t have a chance no matter who our opponent was.
It sucked, but this silence sucked more.
Rowan broke the silence. He asked me a few more questions about the team, about the dynamics in the locker room. We fell into a comfortable conversation, and before long, he was telling me stories about his time with the Foxes.
We kept talking until a loud rumbling noise derailed a story he was telling about his best friend-slash-agent, Troy, his older sister, Raina, and a failed double date.
His wide eyes searched the condo for the source of the noise before landing on me.
The moment they did, I felt my cheeks burn hot. “Was that you?”
I had to resemble a tomato with how hot my cheeks felt. “I may have forgotten to eat lunch today,” I admitted. He raised an eyebrow. “And breakfast.”
His eyes grew impossibly wider. He looked comically shocked as he whipped his cell phone out of his pocket. “It’s six at night, Milo! You haven’t eaten anything today?”
“I forgot. In my defense, I have been locked out of my apartment since… four? Four-thirty? I don’t know. A long time. When was I supposed to eat dinner?”
“But you weren’t locked out from the time you woke up until then,” he pointed out as he slapped his palms down on his meaty thighs. I had to force my eyes back up to his face, because I did not need to be looking at my teammate’s meaty thighs. I shouldn’t even be thinking about them.
It was just because he was big. That was all.
He stood up and once again, offered a large hand down to me. “C’mon. I’m making us something to eat.”
Less than thirty minutes later, Rowan passed a plate of chicken, rice, and steamed broccoli over the counter.
I’d spent the better part of the last half hour watching him maneuver around the kitchen with a skill I had never possessed.
I’d offered to help, but he claimed that he preferred to work alone in the kitchen.
Not me. I loved when other people worked in the kitchen with me, mostly because cooking could be really boring sometimes.
It required so much attention. It was why I preferred baking.
Once you mixed things, you could forget them until the timer went off.
That wasn’t how Rowan cooked though. He’d had multiple pans going at once. He chopped and mixed and moved around like he was performing some kind of complicated dance. And now, there was a plate of food that smelled great and I just knew would be on the team dietician’s approved list.
“This looks great,” I told him as I waited for him to take a seat on one of the stools next to me.
“It’s not much,” he answered with a shrug. “Thought about making pasta but wasn’t sure what kind of diet the team doc had you on.”
“I love pasta,” I told him as I cut into the chicken.
It was juicy, and when I cut into it, it smelled even better.
My mouth was watering as I speared the chicken with my fork and bit into it.
Flavor exploded on my tongue. “Holy fuck,” I groaned.
“You’ve got to teach me how to make this.
It’s so much better than any chicken thing I’ve ever made. ”
Rowan ducked his head and looked down at his plate.
I thought I saw a faint hint of color in his cheeks.
“Like I said, it’s a simple dish.” If this was his simple dish, I could just imagine what he’d come up with if he actually tried.
“I make this at least once a week. Meal prep it sometimes, on weeks where I don’t think I’ll have a lot of time to cook. ”
That was pretty impressive. I’d tried meal prepping once, but it hadn’t worked out well for me. Instead, I paid someone to send me over meals that I could microwave. Most of the time, I forgot to eat them. Sometimes, I forgot them in the microwave.
I tried the rice and broccoli. They were just as good as the chicken, and that was saying something.
I normally didn’t like broccoli that much, but I could eat this every day.
It was seasoned really well. He’d even managed to do something to make the rice not taste bland.
He was like some kind of magician in the kitchen.
I could not keep up conversation as I shoveled food into my mouth.
I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until my stomach growled, and even then, I hadn’t noticed the full depth of the hunger until I took the first bite.
When we’d cleared our plates, I took his from him before he could stop me.
“Do you use your dishwasher or are you a hand wash person?” I asked as I rounded the counter.
“You don’t have to do that,” he called out. I heard his heavy footsteps on the linoleum behind me.
“You cooked. Aunt Edith and Aunt Annabelle had a rule growing up. The one who cooks doesn’t clean.”
“Well, in my house growing up, the guest didn’t do housework,” he scolded.
He reached over my shoulders and plucked the plates from my hands.
I was suddenly very aware of how close he was standing.
I could feel the heat of his body against my back.
“And to answer your question,” he said as he stepped around me and put the plates in the sink, “I load the dishwasher every night before bed.”
There was a coffee cup, a bowl, and the dishes he’d used to make dinner already in there. He rinsed the plate and shooed me out of the small kitchen.
We settled back on the couch. Maintenance called twenty minutes later to unlock my door.
Notes
I thought about writing the Nashville game, but after that loss? No thank you. Better to forget about it. Especially since I lost fifty bucks off my boyfriend during it. Don’t date someone who hates your team.