Page 62 of Knights Like These
Ollie processes this, nodding slowly. “Okay. That’s—okay. That’s fair. That’s reasonable.” He picks up his trail mix again. “How long has it been since you kissed anyone?”
“What?”
“How long? Since Bree? Since anyone?”
I do the math. The last time Bree and I kissed with any intention was probably two and a half years ago, maybe longer. Before the separate bedrooms. Before the slow decayof a marriage that was already dying by the time either of us admitted it.
“A while,” I say.
“Define a while.”
“I’m not defining a while, Ollie.”
“More than a year?”
“Yes.”
“More than two?”
I don’t answer, which is an answer.
He whistles low through his teeth. “And the first person you kiss after two-plus years of nothing is the woman you’ve been in love with since high school. That’s, uh—that’s a lot, Arch.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you sure this isn’t—” He hesitates, which isn’t like Ollie. “You’re sure this is real? Not just, uh—not just because she’s there and she’s warm and you’ve been alone for a long time?”
I look at him. He’s being careful, which means he’s being serious, and Ollie being serious is rare enough that I owe him an honest answer.
“She’s not a rebound,” I say. “If anything, Bree was—” I stop. That’s not fair to Bree, and I’m not going to say it. “Sydney isn’t a rebound. This has been building for fifteen years. I just finally stopped being too scared to see it.”
“And you told her that?”
“Some of it. Not all of it. She asked for time.”
“Smart woman.”
“She is.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“There’s no plan. I play three games, I fly home, and I figure it out.”
“Figure what out exactly?”
“How to do this without screwing it up. She’s—Ollie, she’s not someone I can mess up with and try again. If I do this wrong, Ilose her. Not just the relationship. The whole thing. Fifteen years of friendship, the person who moved across the country to help me raise my kids—all of it. Gone.”
Ollie chews his trail mix and thinks about this for a while. The plane levels out, and the captain turns off the seatbelt sign.
“Can I tell you what I think?” he says.
“Can I stop you?” I lift one eyebrow.
“No.” He shifts in his seat to face me. “I think you spent your whole life playing it safe with the people who matter most to you. You played it safe with Bree, and your marriage fell apart. You played it safe with Sydney for fifteen years, and you almost lost her anyway. At some point, man, the safe play is the risky one. You know what I mean? Not doing anything is what got you here.”
I don’t say anything. The clouds are thick outside the window, and somewhere below us is a whole country of people living their lives without this particular problem.
“Just don’t overthink it,” Ollie says. “You’re a goalie. You read the play and you react. Stop trying to see five moves ahead and just be in the moment with her.”
