Chapter Thirty-Seven
Nola
It was time to be honest with myself.
I was falling for Brittney Lee.
I was way past the point of no return before we’d confided a sliver of our feelings on the couch. I was glad she didn’t ask why I was still up, because the truth was more embarrassing than coming up with a lie: I’d waited up for her to come home.
I wanted to make sure she got home safe. I also wanted to see if she was brave enough to bring someone home. I needed to shake the desire to watch her when she wasn’t looking.
I told myself I let my eyes linger on her body because I knew it would rile her up.
That I’d slightly memorized the muscle definition from her traps to her triceps because it annoyed her.
That I hadn’t developed an emotional reaction every time I smelled bright citrus in the doorway of our townhouse or wafting from her room.
And I sure as shit did not know what to do about that.
I thought I could pretend that the panic racing throughout my body yesterday was a fluke.
For every decibel Brittney’s voice had lowered, my fight or flight kicked into overdrive.
But I didn’t want my baby sister to panic, and, given how collected my roommate was acting, I figured it was for the same purpose.
Over the past two months, I had seen Brittney display a myriad of emotions.
It was one of the things I admired most about her.
She didn’t try to shrink herself because other people were watching, or try to come off more palatable.
She was big when her emotions couldn’t be bottled up, sexy when she was playful, and serious when she had a basketball in her hands.
Olive’s spring break visit had shifted something between us.
She saw the overbearing and caring big sister role I played, and I finally saw the individual pieces of my roommate that made up the whole picture.
I watched Brittney flip between a cool adult who was desperate for a teenager’s approval, to an annoying sister who could flip Olive’s mood like a light switch.
Maybe I’d given her too much shit for being a stereotypical middle child.
Brittney knew when to be a friend, and when to be an authoritative figure, all without stepping on my toes or alluding to our very gray relationship.
And then I’d thought a walnut was going to take her out.
She didn’t need to ask me to watch over her, but it felt pretty reasonable to sit on her bedroom floor half the night watching the rise and fall of her chest.
I also didn’t want to think about how her lips were on my cup, or the way I’d watched her chest bob as she guzzled down my water, her lips on the exact spot mine had been earlier. I wanted to lick off the errant drop that was running down her chin.
I wanted to chalk up my caring for Brittney as a concerned roommate and teammate.
But then I woke up to the smell of breakfast and the echoes of my sister, in her own way, confiding in her about her love life.
Something I was too chickenshit to do, given I hadn’t had an emotional connection in three years.
Listening to Brittney balance that scale of casual and serious with Olive cracked my chest wide open and made my insides twist with panic. This dynamic wasn’t two reluctant roommates who were rivals all of six months ago, now forced to be the best of friends. At least, not on my part.
I was free falling out of a plane with no parachute.
Not only did I want to see her everyday, I wanted to play with her, too. At least, I hoped our off-court chemistry would translate properly on it. Our futures did depend on it, after all.
I heard Olive ask if we’d kissed.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs and pleaded with my eyes for Brittney to not answer the question, but given her smirk and the way her eyes were narrowed, she would indeed do the opposite.
“Actually, we have.” Brittney answered before shoveling grits into her mouth.
“I knew it!” Olive squealed, “Nola totally has—”
“It was four years ago actually.” I rushed to say before Olive could blow up my spot.
“Oh.” That shut her up. “What happened?”
“I—” I started but didn’t know how to finish.
“I wasn’t honest with myself yet.” Brittney admitted, her eyes flicking to mine. “Nola and I were cool, friends I’d say, and I had definitely wanted to kiss her, too. I just wasn’t ready to be real with myself.” She cleared her throat and ate more grits.
“Wow, that’s kind of like some fated lovers shit,” Olive’s gaze ping-ponged between us.
“Language,” I managed from my mouth that was suddenly too dry. I cleared my throat. “I didn’t know you, uh, felt that way, Bee.”
She shrugged, the tops of her shoulders skimming her curly bob.
“Enough of this backstory— eat breakfast!” Brittney sang
Even though my body moved, my sister’s words still rang in my ear.
Fated lovers.
Bee and I didn’t have time to unpack Olive’s investigation into our relationship, because after breakfast I was sticking to the itinerary I created. Olive and I visited art museums and gardens throughout Miami, something we both enjoyed.
Since I was a kid, I loved reading the curator’s thoughts and the artist’s biography. I loved trying to see what other people saw before analyzing what I saw for myself. What brush strokes popped out to me, or what colors moved me emotionally.
Olive and I sat at the museum cafe before we headed back home to change for dinner. I watched her swirl her frozen yogurt, mindlessly.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I braced for impact. Olive and I both internalized a lot, but she was better at voicing where she was at mentally better than me, and I was the adult.
“I feel an impending sense of doom.”
“About the move?”
She nodded. “Everything is changing. I believe that everything happens for a reason, I just hate that it comes at the expense of us. You had to move to another team, this was supposed to be the last year with my friends. It’s just fucking annoying.”
I bit my tongue to stop myself from reminding her of her language. I could take a break from being responsible while Olive confided in me.
“It’s fucking annoying for sure,” I started, “but as much as I hated the idea of this change happening, it has yet to backfire on me. I bet it’ll be the same for you.”
“Yeah, because you’re in love with Bee.”
I nearly choked on my iced latte. “Who said I’m in love?”
“Your dumb, lovey dovey eyes, Nolly. Bee walks in the room, and you can’t stop staring at her. Even when we walk into a room, you look for her.”
My denial was on the tip of my tongue, the same script I’d been trying to use on myself. But this time, the words tasted like ash before I could even get them out. Why keep denying something I wanted to release so badly?
“You’re right.” I conceded, throwing Olive off and making her jaw drop. “I think I’m down bad, Olly.”
“Okay, so do something about it!”
“I cannot date my teammate, Olly.”
“Why not? Explain it to me like I’m five.”
I relented, because for some reason confiding in my thirteen-year-old sister was the only option I had at the moment.
“Well one, it’s only been two months.”
“Love doesn’t have a timer.”
“Two, our jobs are kind of more important than our love lives. Our coach, the media, our mom—everyone’s waiting to see how we play together. There’s a lot of riding on us being on the same team, and it’s the second year since we’ve been reinstated. So that adds more pressure.”
“So do a good job,” Olive replied like it was the easiest thing ever.
“Well, yes, that’s the plan.”
“But also why does everyone have to know?”
“Come again?”
“What if you guys just dated in secret for a while? People think it anyway.” My sister pulled out her phone.
“Who’s saying what?” I demanded, panic creeping into my chest.
My sister showed me a post in a league forum. But, instead of usual talk of who was taking the championship this year, there was a carousel of screenshots from Bee’s Instagram. All stories she posted, all including little slivers of me within them.
And for once, my stomach didn’t drop at the notion that people were perceiving me in a way I hadn’t meticulously designed.
Comments ranged from speculation asking if we were living together, if this was something for content, to asking if we were dating, for real or for clout.
It was clear I did a bad job at hiding my smile, because my sister snatched the phone from me with a scoff.
“Oh my God, Nolly, you do have it bad. If this was anyone else you’d be asking Daya to start posting from her burner account.”
I rubbed a hand down my face, not doing anything to wipe off the smile I couldn’t keep contained. “She’s coming to dinner tonight.”
“Perfect! You can confess your deep love and my brilliant planning then.”
“Olive, a word from the wise. You absolutely should not propose a secret relationship in the same breath you confess your deep feelings. That’s like the first way to never be spoken to again.”
“Huh, noted.”