Your smile is so unique!
You have such a big smile!
That’s the best smile I’ve ever seen!
Of course, I learned early on that to the girls, that smile told them one thing and one thing only.
Put this guy in the friend zone.
But we’ll get to that.
“Ah, my beautiful Mah,” I said, pulling my mom into my arms and kissing her temple. “No more tears.”
“I just cannot believe you’ll be so far from home now.” She sniffed. “California, not bad. But this… this city… in the Midwest?” She shook her head, like the mere thought of it made her want to faint.
“Did you forget that you have a spare key and a card that you can book as many flights as you want to on?” I smiled. “Consider it a second home for all of us.”
“You say that now. But when I start showing up every other weekend, you are going to take my key away.”
“Never,” I said, giving her another kiss before I joined Oliana at the window.
“I’m moving here with you,” she said just above a whisper, her wide eyes sweeping over the lake, the pier, the skyrises in the distance. “I’m so tired of the island. The same food, the same people, the same ocean and mountains and trees. I mean, just look out there.” She shook her head. “It’s like a whole new world.”
“Good luck telling that to Mah, Tita,” I said, elbowing her ribs. I usually reserved the Pidgin nickname for when she was acting particularly sassy, but I knew more than anyone that she loved the nod of acknowledgement that she was a spitfire.
She smirked. “Yeah, I’d be getting lickens if I so much as muttered it.”
“Yes, you would,” Mah said from behind us, where she was surveying the rest of my new condo skeptically. If it wasn’t home, it wasn’t good enough in her eyes. “So do not even think about it.”
Oliana and I shared knowing looks and smiles, and then I followed Mah around the apartment, making a mental list of things I’d need while she made an actual list that included far more than mine. It didn’t bother me, though — that was just who my mom was. And being that I was her only son, and a not-so-discreet mama’s boy, it didn’t surprise me that she wanted to make sure I was taken care of before they got on the plane back to Hawai’i.
Remember how I mentioned that love was the other thing I’d always wanted? Well, I had my four sisters to thank for that — and maybe my mother and father, too.
The Kumaka family was a big ball of sleeve-worn emotions, and we always had been.
I grew up watching Disney movies and rom-coms and talking about my feelings far sooner than any other boy or man I’d ever met. I remembered my first crush, in the second grade, when most boys could only focus on video games. I, on the other hand, stayed up all night before Valentine’s Day making a homemade card for the blue-eyed girl in my class who always smelled like citrus and vanilla. I gave it to her along with a box of chocolates and a teddy bear that I used my hard-earned chore money to buy.
She’d called me sweet, thanked me, and told me I was one of her best friends.
Friend.
It was the first time that word scarred me, but it wouldn’t be the last.
Maybe it was because I had the best mother in the world, and a father who treated her like gold. Or maybe it was because I had four sisters — two younger than me, two older than me — and a fierce determination to protect and respect every single one of them. Maybe it was because I grew up hearing everything a girl wanted from a guy, and I thought I knew exactly what I was doing.
Turned out, I didn’t know anything.
I could blame it on my big, goofy smile. I could blame it on the fact that I made it a point to get to know a girl before I asked her on a date. I could blame it on the cheesy lines I’d learned from the movies, the ones that always made my sisters swoon but seemed to make girls in real life grimace uncomfortably. I could blame it on my incessant need to ask permission before I even attempted a kiss, but regardless, one thing remained true.
I was always the friend, never the boyfriend.
No, it seemed that title was reserved for the assholes who made all my girl “friends” cry and question their worth. The guys who didn’t text back quickly or call the day after a date, the ones who flirted with other girls right in front of the one they were dating, the ones who said they wanted something “casual” and made it seem like the girl was cool if she was down for just having sex without expecting anything more.
Somewhere along the way, I got my wires crossed on what girls were actually looking for.
Of course, when I signed with the NFL, my trouble with love shifted. I went from being perpetually friend-zoned, to never knowing if a girl I was on a date with wanted me or my money.
Luckily, it never did take long for the truth to come out. A gold digger showed her true colors early enough on that I never really risked being hurt. My first run in with this type of woman was with Kelly, a hot little volleyball player who I nearly did a backflip for when she agreed to go out with me. But she showed me her real intentions regarding our “relationship” at a dinner with a few of my teammates and their wives in San Francisco, when she commented about how big one of the wives’ wedding ring was and said to me, in front of everyone, mine better be bigger.
Zariyah was next, and she made it perfectly clear when she hinted that plastic surgery would be a lovely Valentine’s Day gift.
And my favorite, the beautiful, sweet, seductive Lucia, who truly had me fooled for about two months — until the first time we had sex, and she asked me so how does this whole sugar daddy thing work?
So no, as much as it hurt, it wasn’t hard to figure out if a girl only wanted me for the things the NFL had brought into my life — whether that be money, fame, or connections. And honestly? I was glad for it. Those women showed me everything I didn’t want. They taught me the hard lessons that put me on guard, that gave me pause and reserve with every woman I’d met since then. I was spared a lot of disastrous relationships by seeing those signs early on, and I was tougher for it.
Still, I longed for a true connection, one that was more than friendship and one not born out of a desire to use me for the dollar signs or possible fame attached to my name. I wasn’t well-known enough in the NFL to cause a scene yet, but I planned to be one day, and I wanted someone who would support that without exploiting it.
What I really wanted, more than anything, was a girl who didn’t know me at all, one who I could tell my own story to, one who loved me for me.
What a sap, right?
The main point here is that while football was second nature to me, love was a fleeting fantasy.
But being in a new city, with a new team? Everything felt possible.
Maybe my dream girl was hidden somewhere in the Windy City.
Maybe, with a little luck, I’d find her.
And maybe, with a lot of luck, she wouldn’t have any clue who I was.
“Where are you going to sleep tonight?” Oliana asked, scrunching her nose as she looked around at the empty space.
“I’ll get an air mattress.”
Mah’s eyes lit up with horror. “No, no, no! You cannot sleep on an air mattress, that is terrible for your back.”
“We used to sleep on air mattresses all the time when we had sleepovers!” I reminded her.