33. Stool Samples Are Actually Really Important
By the timeBrant leaves for practice, my bladder is so full it’s crowding out everything else inside me. He”s been so great. He”s been beyond great. But damn it, I just want to go to the bathroom in peace. And if I want to sit on the toilet and relax for a minute after I”m done peeing, I want to do it without him knocking on the door to make sure I”m okay. So as soon as he”s gone, I”m on my crutches and hustling to the bathroom. It”s amazing how fast I am on these things. Especially since I barely left the couch last night. But when a girl has to go, she has to go.
And go.
But finally I make it back to the couch for another exciting day of, oh let me check my schedule, couching. It”s not like I”m one of those people who has to constantly move, but this is ridiculous. And we didn”t even win the competition thanks to Brant making me quit. I could have finished, and maybe we would have still gotten first place. Bridges could definitely use the money.
Thinking of Bridges makes me think of Chloe again. It”s been a couple of days since I heard from her, and that”s probably fine. She”s a teenage girl, and I”m someone she barely knows really. But I”m still worried. Maybe it”s because of my mom, but I don”t trust parents who abandon their children. Her parents say they want her to be home with them, but they”ve already kicked her out once. People don”t change. Not like that. Even though she”s probably in school, I text her again. And then I text Michael to see if he”s heard anything. When neither of them answers me right away, I text Em.
Me: I”m so bored. Call me?
I wait for the three little dots to appear, but after a couple of minutes, I give up and lie back on the couch. With nothing else to think about, my mind winds back to yesterday. To his mouth on me. No one had ever done that. Tyler certainly made his feelings clear about it, but then he still expected me to give him a blow job anytime he wanted one. I wanted so badly to do that for Brant last night. But just resting and feeling his body against mine did feel pretty good. I hope it did for him too.
My ringing phone interrupts my thoughts. ”You know some of us work Monday mornings,” Em starts before I even have a chance to say hi.
She looks cute today with her red hair pulled back. She”s wearing kitty earrings, and her makeup is perfect. Like always. I wish I knew how she did it. Or how she found the time to even try on a workday. ”Sorry to interrupt your busy morning of examining stool samples, but I wanted to talk.”
”Stool samples are actually really important, you know. We find lots of worms and other infections that way.”
”Mm-hmm. Sounds like a pretty?—”
”Don”t say it.” She rolls her eyes. ”You”re better than the same old shitty job joke that literally everyone makes. But speaking of jobs, shouldn”t you be doing yours instead of interrupting my extremely valuable and highly appreciated work?”
Em works for her dad”s veterinary practice. She thought once she had her degree, she could split the patients with him. But he still has her doing the same things she did before she graduated. She knows they”re important, but it”s not why she spent all those years in school.
”Um, yeah. I kinda have a work-adjacent injury.”
She looks up from whatever she was doing and squints at her phone. ”Are you okay? What kind of injury? How bad? How did it happen?” She spits out the questions faster than a rapper from 2003.
”Remember the Charity Bee thing I told you about?”
”The one where you wouldn”t shut up about being Brant”s partner?”
”I wasn”t like that.”
”Your pupils literally turned into tiny hearts when you talked about him. And you said you two would win, no problem.”
”I didn”t say that either.”
I watch as Em swipes through her phone. ”Your text says ”We”re going to be the best team ever. There”s no way anyone can beat us.” That sounds kinda like you”re saying you would win.”
”Look, I”m not going to worry about details or things I may or may not have said.”
”The text goes on: ”And once we win, Brant is going to realize how gorgeous I am and finally fuck my big old smart brain from my very pretty head.””
I put my free hand on my hip, which would be a lot more effective if I weren”t sitting on the couch. And if she could actually see it. But it”s the thought that counts. ”It does not say that!”
”Fine. Maybe I made up the last part. So what happened? Burns from being too close to the hot net blocker person?”
I angle the phone away so she doesn”t see me blush. We got a lot closer than she”s imagining. ”He”s called a goalie, and no. That is not what happened. I might have a wee bit of a twisted ankle. That”s basically what the PA at the urgent care said.”
”You”re an accent away from being a British grandmother who calls the bombing of London ”just a little rumble here and there.” You went to an urgent care, and you”re missing work today. That”s not a wee bit of anything. Also, why are you holding the phone like that?”
”Like what?” I try to will the blood from my cheeks so I can hold the phone normally, but it doesn”t feel like it”s working.
”You know exactly—hold on, that”s not your house! Where are you?”
If I was making any progress with my cheeks, it is all gone now. ”So, don”t read too much into this, okay? But I”m at Brant”s house.” I turn the phone back to me just in time to see Em mouth Oh my god! ”But it”s just because I”m not supposed to put any weight on my foot until tomorrow. Brant overreacted and made me come here.”
”So you spent last night in the home of the player you have a secret crush on?”
I look around guiltily. ”I wouldn”t say I have a crush on him.”
Em shakes her head. ”Don”t make me pull up those texts. So?”
”So what?”
”There”s a reason you called me and are acting so guilty. Tell me. I feed on gossip.”
I set the phone down and bury my head in my hands, hoping that maybe my palms will make what I”m about to say so mumbled she won”t be able to make it out. ”Yesterday, we might have?—”
”Oh my god! You fucked Brant yesterday! Lily!” She screams so loud several dogs around her join in with their barks and howls, and why did I have to call her? ”You had sex with your dream man who, oh yeah, is also a world famous net goalie player.”
”Just goalie. And not supposedly. He is. And sorta. We were in the kitchen and he kinda?—”
”Oh my god! He went down on you in the kitchen!” The dogs had started to quiet down, but now even more of them are going. I think I even hear a couple of cats getting in on it.
”How do you do that?”
”Lilian Jade Richards! Don”t you worry about whether I”m psychic. Give me the details!”
”You know my name is not Lilian and that my middle name is not Jade.”
”No, but I”m not about to use your real middle name until you”re ready to reclaim it from that piece of shit and make it your own.”
Em has always urged me to pretend my mom doesn”t even exist, and I”ve really tried. But it”s hard to just forget your mom. And having her name as my middle name makes it almost impossible. At the time, I wanted it to be a peace offering to her, but she never even replied to my text when I told her about it.
”Now tell me how it was,” Em says. ”On a scale of one to ten with one being ”the best sex I”ve ever had in my whole entire life” and ten being ”this is how baby stars are made” how was it?”
I look out to the kitchen. I can”t see the counter from here, but that doesn”t stop my body from blazing as I think about it. ”An eleven?”
Em fakes falling off her chair, and I laugh. I miss being able to see her in person so much. Less than eleven months, I tell myself.
I spend the next fifteen minutes giving her all the details. Well, most of the details. About the kitchen and the cuddling on the couch and the way he wouldn”t let me out of his sight, which she says is ”romantic.” Then I tell her about spending the night in his bed and how his body is so warm it”s like sleeping next to a nuclear reactor. At that, she gives me those eyes that tell me it”s the sexiest thing about him. She”s always freezing. I do have to admit it felt good being so close to all that body heat last night. ”But he wouldn”t let me touch him!” I whine to her. ”Not even this morning when we woke up.”
”He probably doesn”t want you to think that he”s just taking advantage of you for sex. He”s not a Tyler.”
”That”s not fair.”
”You”re right,” she says. ”Tyler was using you for sex and for money that you didn”t even have. I wonder how his nutrition supplement business is doing without you buying everything for him.”
When Tyler and I met, he was one of the dietitians for the Denver Lightning. It was the first year of my internship with the baseball team, and I thought we hit it off right away. It took me almost three years and several thousand dollars of debt to find out that our relationship was completely one-sided. I still have credit card bills from him that I haven”t been able to pay off.
”So are you officially moving in with Mr. Dream Tongue? Or will this be one of those situations where you just don”t leave, and then two years from now, you realize you”ve been living together this whole time?”
”First, it”s Brant. Not that nickname I won”t even acknowledge by saying it aloud. And second, absolutely not. The PA said to be off my ankle for two days. So that means tomorrow I”m back to normal.”
”And you can handle normal after this?”
I give her a look that I hope makes her feel bad for her lack of faith. ”Of course I can. The season starts tomorrow, and after these two home games, we”re on the road for almost a week. So I”ll be in my rhythm and won”t even have time to think about any of this.”
”Really?” She sounds like she doesn”t believe me, but that”s fine. I”ll just have to show her how wrong she is.
”Really.”