My legs keep moving ahead at a steady pace, but my pulse lurches forward.
The redheaded friend throws an arm around her shoulders. “This is my friend Rylee. She’s a junior, but this is her first year at Valley.”
Rylee.
Slowly the gears turn and one by one the memories I’ve stored away flash through my brain.
For a solid year, I looked around every corner on campus for her. Her hair was blonde then and she wore these adorable cat-eye glasses, but it’s her. My Rylee.
Technically she was only mine for one night, but it was the craziest night of my life. Spring of my freshman year. The team had just won the national college basketball tournament; everywhere I went people knew who I was and wanted to shake my hand, life was good.
Then I met her. Rylee was shy and a little sassy. Adorable and sweet, unassuming. She had no clue who I was. It was nice to escape, to have someone tell me what they thought without any preconceived notions. Being a basketball player is such a small part of who I am. I’m not going to be a professional ball player and I don’t have any desire to be one of those guys trying to capture the glory years like I’ll never achieve anything greater.
I’m all for living in the moment, but there’s a difference in relishing it and being stuck in place.
Rylee. I must say her name out loud this time because everyone turns to look at me. I feel their eyes on me, but I don’t take mine off her.
Her back straightens and she meets my stare with a penetrating gaze that tells me she recognizes me too. “Hi John.”
Well this night just took a turn for the better.
Chapter Three
Rylee
“It’s really you?” His face lights up with clear recognition.
“You remember me?”
“Rylee. Yes, of course.” He envelopes me in his big arms. A friendly hug, one with no animosity or hostility of the past. And why would there be? He has no idea what I’ve been through these past two years.
“I can’t believe it’s you.” He pulls back and then squeezes me again. His body is warm, and he smells like soap. Something clean and masculine. “Where have you been? How have you been?”
“Good.” I settle for answering only the second question for now. I’m all too conscious that we have an audience. It’s nothing like the first time we hung out. That had been just the two of us off in a corner of the Sig Nu basement. Here, he’s a king, and everyone’s hanging on his every word. “How have you been?”
A deep, light chuckle escapes his lips, and he keeps staring at me as if he expects me to disappear before his very eyes. “Good, yeah. Were you at the game tonight?”
“I was. Yeah, congratulations. You were amazing. I hear the team’s done really well.” My face warms and I want to sink into the patio pavers. I hear the team’s done really well? All the things I planned and dreamed of saying to him if I ever saw him again, and here we are making small talk about basketball.
His face scrunches up in confusion. “That wasn’t the first time you’ve seen us play, was it?”
I nod. “It was. First college basketball game period.”
“I remember you said you weren’t much of a sports fan.”
“Did I say that?”
“Ahhh…” He trails off and glances up, as if he’s trying to remember it exactly. “Pretty much. You basically gave me a dissertation on the unfair balance of athletic versus academic scholarships at Valley.”
“Guess that explains why you didn’t tell me that you were one.” I wave in front of him. All six feet, five inches of him.
Lindsey coughs next to me. She’s biting back a smile. “I’m sorry. My throat’s a little dry. Datson, do you have any water inside?”
“Uhh… yeah.” He glances between us. “Of course. Follow me.”
John takes off inside, and I hang back, holding Lindsey’s arm to give us a little privacy. “What are you doing?”
“You need to talk to him, and it was clear you weren’t going to do that with a crowd around.” She marches inside with a smile that is entirely too pleased with herself.
Fewer people are inside and it’s only me, Lindsey, and John in the kitchen. He grabs a bottle of water and hands it to Lindsey, then holds another one up to me.
“No, thanks.”
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” Lindsey announces.
John doesn’t pick up, or chooses to ignore, how weird my best friend is acting. “The one upstairs is probably less crowded. First door on the left.”
He leans against the counter, smiling at me and still looking me over that same way I did him the entire basketball game.
“Your hair is different. It took me a minute to piece it together. What’s it been? Three years?”
“Little less than that.” I go to push my glasses up on my face before I remember I’m not wearing them. A nervous habit that really doesn’t work so well with contacts.
“This is so crazy. Why haven’t I seen you around before now?”
“I…” I play out a thousand different ways I could answer him. I could play it vague or straight up lie. But the truth is, I’m tired of carrying the weight alone. “I lied to you that night. I wasn’t a Valley student. I was visiting for incoming freshmen orientation. My friend Lindsey and me.” I nod in the direction Lindsey went. “Sorry.”
Even years later my face heats with embarrassment.
“I guess that makes us even for me withholding the whole awesome jock thing.”
A smile tugs at my lips and I laugh off some of the nerves I’m holding. “I’m sorry for that too. I was bitter about not receiving a full-ride scholarship.”
“I looked for a while, asked around, typed in Rylee to the student directory more times than I’m willing to admit.”
“You did?” My pulse quickens at that tiny bit of acknowledgment that our time together meant something to him, too.
“Hell, yeah. That night was awesome.”
“It really was.”
He shakes his head slowly. “I’m bummed that you’ve been here for the past two years and I didn’t bump into you again until tonight. I ask this at the risk of sounding like an arrogant prick, but you never saw me around and thought of saying hey?”
My palms start to sweat, and my throat goes dry. “I didn’t end up coming to Valley until this year, and until tonight, I assumed that you’d already graduated. Like you, I looked around. There are a lot of Johns at this school.”
He steps forward and extends his hand. “John Datson. D-a-t-s-o-n. Easy to find now that you know my full-name name and where I live.”
I slip my hand into his. Warm, calloused fingers squeeze mine and heat travels up my arm. “You live here?”
“Yeah.”
Dread tosses icy water over my head as I try to picture what his life looks like day-to-day and how I’m about to upend it. Or, I guess maybe not, but I’m really hoping he’s not that kind of guy.
“Where’d you go instead, or did you just hold off and do something cool like travel Europe for writing inspiration?”