“You need a masky thing-a-ma-bob. I have a fever. And I keep touching you. And breathing near you. Dr. Amy!” he hollers.
“Ren.” She laughs. “Right here, buddy. What’s up?”
“This here Francesca is…” He frowns. “Ah, I can’t think of the word right now. But it means her medicine makes her body very friendly towards the germs. She needs something so she’s safe from my plague.”
Amy grins at me, then directs herself to Ren. “While that’s very considerate of you, I’m confident your fever isn’t due to anything plague related. When I was assessing you, I noticed signs of a sinus infection. Remember, I told you I was going to give you some antibiotics?”
He stares at her. “I do not remember that.”
She pats his good arm. “That’s because you got your head knocked nicely. You told me you’d had a cold recently, and I told you it seems like you developed a secondary bacterial infection in your sinus cavity from it. That’s why you’re fevered.”
He squints at her one-eyed. “Can you maybe condense that to smaller words? I’m not following.”
“What I mean to say is,” she says gently, “that you aren’t contagious. You won’t get Frankie sick.”
“Oh, good.” Ren sighs and lets his eyes fall shut. “So, she can keep holding my hand, then, and I won’t give her the plague.”
“I should go anyway,” I tell him. “Time for you to sleep, Zenzero.” Slowly, I start to pull my hand away, but Ren clamps down on it, and his eyes pop open.
“That’s it. That’s what I wanted to ask you.” He tries to sit up and falls back, grimacing. “Forgot about that,” he groans.
“Easy. You know I’m always around. We can talk tomorrow.”
“No.” He stares at me seriously. “I need to know this. What does zenzero mean?”
A hot blush floods my cheeks. I clear my throat self-consciously. Amy’s loitering near the door on her phone, and she’s entirely within earshot. The last thing I need is her giving me shit for this. “Well, it’s silly,” I say, lowering my voice. “It’s just Italian nonsense.”
“Nonsense.” He frowns. “You call me nonsense?”
“Dammit, Bergman. No,” I whisper. “It means ginger, okay? Because you’re…” I wave my hand in the general vicinity of his face. “You’re a ginger. It’s cute.”
Ren’s smile is so bright, its voltage could power a city block. He cranes his head toward Amy. “Hear that, Dr. Amy? She thinks I’m cute.”
But before I can say a word in my defense, he shuts his eyes on a soft sigh, drifting off, his hand locked tight around mine.
Frankie
Playlist: “Undertow,” Lisa Hannigan
If Ren remembered our little narcotic-induced heart-to-heart, he didn’t let on. Over breakfast at the hotel the next morning, he flashed me his standard, friendly smile, and then he treated me like he always does. Like a woman he works with. Not like a woman he called Francesca, whose hand he insisted on holding until he fell into a restless sleep.
Which I’m fine with. Honestly, it’s easier that he doesn’t remember. If he had remembered it, I could just picture his acute embarrassment, that furious blush, the remorse that would paint his apology, even though I found what he did amusing and oddly endearing.
Back on the plane home after losing game two, unfortunately—but unsurprisingly, since we played without Ren—I stick my nose in work and avoid talking to anyone. If I don’t glue my eyes on my phone or laptop, they keep stupidly wandering across the plane to where Ren sits, leafing through a small paperback that I’m ninety-nine percent sure is Shakespeare, the dork.
Dammit. This is why lines can’t be blurred, boundaries can’t be crossed. Just a few nonstandard encounters with him and now every time I’m near Ren, weird sensations simmer beneath the surface of my skin. When I saw him yesterday at the game in his charcoal-gray suit and noticed it turned his eyes the color of rain-slicked slate—when I watched him talk with his teammates, giving them his entire focus and that wide-mouthed laugh—my stomach knotted furiously.
Just after I got seated on the plane, my breath caught when he strolled past me and left in his wake that familiar clean, spicy scent. It made my mouth water. It wasn’t the first time it happened, but previously, I chalked it up to it being an astonishingly nice scent. The guy has good taste in cologne. So what?
So what? So, this time, as I breathed him in, my body ached so fiercely in neglected places, I nearly slapped myself. And then I buckled down on work.
The flight hasn’t been the smoothest, and it’s hard to concentrate on work. Twice, when I glance up, I could swear Ren’s eyes had just gone back to his book. And now, he busts me watching him. That pale, catlike gaze slides up from the page it’s been tracking and locks with mine. My breath catches in my throat.
I blink away.
What is this?
Heartburn. That’s it. I had that spicy tuna roll for dinner before we left. I rub my chest, trying to coax away this hot, tight, burning something. Ugh. No more tuna roll.
Dipping my head back to my computer, even after I’m forced to pack up for descent, I don’t look up until our wheels touch down with bone-rattling bumpiness. Until I’m safe once again, grounded to earth and reality.
Player. Employee. And “never the twain shall meet.”
Yeah. Ren’s not the only literature dork around here.
I might not hardcore jam on Shakespeare like Søren, but I like my books. They’re one of the most vital tools in my arsenal for navigating human behavior, to explore my feelings about the parts of life that most confuse me. Books help me feel a bit more connected to a world that often is hard to make sense of. Books are patient with me. They don’t laugh at me instead of with me. They don’t ask why I’m “always” frowning, or why I can’t sit still. Books welcome me—weirdness and all—and take me exactly as I am.
After our rough landing, we deplane and head onto the bus back to Toyota Sports Center, our practice facility. Seated alone, I power on my phone, only to see Annie’s text:
Worst timing ever, but I’m at the hospital. Can’t tell if it’s preterm labor or a false alarm. I’d tell Tim to leave me here and come get you, but I think he’d divorce me for it. I’m SO sorry. Can you call me when you land? I feel awful. I know you don’t like Ubering this late at night.
Shit. I’m worried about Annie. And I’m worried about getting home. Because Annie’s right. I find late-night rides alone in a taxi driven by a strange dude nerve-wracking.
Maybe it’s the New Yorker in me, but I’m cautious about what situations I place myself in. I have pride, yes, and I don’t like to be babied, but I am also a practical woman. I can acknowledge that my ability to defend myself is objectively less than a woman whose hands and feet move much more readily.
My car was acting weird before we left for St. Paul and had to go to the shop again, so Annie and Tim offered to pick me up when I got back. My other friend Lorena doesn’t have a car, so I can’t ask her to come instead. Which means, now that Annie’s unable to get me, I’m screwed.