Page 96 of Out of Bounds
Indulgence
This isn’t a date but it’s as close as I’ll get with Annie and I’m high on it. That we’re hanging out like this, in whatever capacity we’re each showing up in.
Being in her company is easy, natural. I want to know everything she’s got to tell me. She knows and loves football, too, which means we can really talk about everything that’s going on with Lamar, even if we silently agree not to discuss Auston potentially replacing our current quarterback. I tell her my plan to put more time into helping Lamar find his voice with the guys.
“You can’t help yourself, can you?” she asks.
She leans her head, the afternoon sun catching one side of her face, lighting her up, making those irises dazzle like diamonds in a Tiffany & Co. window.
“You’re always trying to make everything better for everyone.”
The way she thinks so highly of me makes me nervous, uncommonly so.
“What can I say, I’m a people pleaser. I have daddy issues, remember.”
She scoffs. “Well, if daddy issues make Nelson turn out half as well as you, I won’t be sorry.”
Heat rises to my cheeks as soon as the words leave her mouth and I’m immensely grateful when two wait staff appear at the side of our table – one carrying four plates, the other carrying a gueridon and two more plates.
“This is disgusting,” she says after thanking the wait staff.
“Annie, very occasionally, I ask myself why for half a year I risk breaking my bones and getting chronic injuries to last me into old age.” I dig my fork into a chocolate pudding that oozes more molten chocolate in response. “The answer…” I wrap my mouth around the food, then slip the fork from my mouth and make a chef’s kiss sign. “… is moments of pure, unadulterated, hideous indulgence, like this.”
She follows my lead with the same chocolate pudding, her lips, tongue, teeth hilariously smothered with brown scrumptiousness as she says, “To your arthritic joints.”
Shaking my head, I smile. I love how much she entertains me, even taking the piss out of me. She’s confident, guard down, and it feels special, as if I get a glimpse into a side of her that’s hidden too often by troubles.
I’m somewhere between a sugar coma and heaven, the latter, I think, solely down to Annie.
“You were right,” she says, sucking chocolate from her finger in a way that has my undivided attention. “This was a good idea.”
“I’m full of them, I promise.” Even if watching her now, I’m having wildly inappropriate thoughts about that beautiful mouth being wrapped around more than her finger. “When I retire, I might write a book about how to put yourself into a food coma.”
“Could be a niche audience.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
“Well, you’re the brains, Annie Bannie, I’m the brawn in this relationship.”
She leans into her elbows on the tabletop, resting her chin on her hands. “You do that a lot.”
“What’s that?”
“Make out you’re dumb when you’re not.”
I mirror her pose. “Look who’s talking.”
“I don’t call myself stupid.”
“No, but you do underestimate yourself, put yourself down, take other people’s failings on your own shoulders.”
She sits back into her seat, the way her eyes fill telling me I’ve unintentionally hit a nerve but I can’t let this slide. I’ve made it my mission to make her appreciate how fucking incredible and worthy she is.
“You got a chance to interview me and the guys,” I tell her. “So let me ask you something. What are you good at? What do you love to do?”
She fidgets and clears her throat – I fix on her, not letting her worm out of this. “I’m a good mama,” she says, eventually.
