Page 7 of Playing it Safe

Right now, Wendy is delicately trying to tell me that everyone else has a small army of people to help decoupage their yearbooks. Delphine just has … me.

Wendy taps her pencil on the table. “We already did your teammates for Valentine's Day. The USA gals and the Uprising. That was so nice, how they all came to the Circle for cookies.”

I smile. “That was nice of them.” Wendy smiles at me expectantly. I know what she’s getting at, but she doesn’t quite get it. While it’s true I don’t have a biological family beyond Deen, I am not lonely. I have my teammates, and they fill all the roles that family would, from nagging about my love life to teasing about my wardrobe.

But they don’t do those things for Deen. She doesn’t have aunts or other siblings. Although… I guess I’m “dating” Cameron Miller now. Do I really want to involve my sister in this scheme?

"There might be someone,” I confess to Wendy, wondering if I’m a terrible sister. “It’s very new and early, and I’m not sure it’s time to bring Deen into it. You know?”

Wendy smiles. "Okay. You don't have to tell me anything else. I just like to know who the important people are."

I linger a few more minutes, mindful of my groceries in the car. But it’s a chilly day, and Deen tells me about a book she’s reading. It’s a romance novel with a shirtless man on the cover, which she holds up for my inspection. “He’s dreamy,” she says.

I laugh. “Very swoony. Since when do you read historicals?”

Delphine has always loved romance novels in particular. Our mother did, too, but only the westerns. I never got into them, and given the state of my love life, I think the books would just depress me if I tried reading them.

Deen flutters her eyelashes. “Chloe Petals was at work last week. She lives here, you know.” I glance at the back cover, where, sure enough, the author bio mentions the Steel City and its rich tapestry of love stories.

Eventually, I tell Deen I need my rest so I can stay strong for hockey, and she flings her arms around me in a hug. "Come back soon," she says into my shoulder.

"I will," I tell her.

"Promise?"

"Cross my heart."

She releases me and heads to her room. I check my phone as I walk to the car. I’m up to 50 messages.

I scroll past forty-seven of them from my teammates, two from the team coordinator, and stop at one from an unknown number. When I click the message, I’m greeted by a photo of a very hairy leg flanked by a scowling orange cat. The message reads

I’m ready to wax if you need an out

I laugh out loud and add Mayhem to my contacts. I send a laughing reaction and drive the short journey to my nearby townhouse. I unload the dish soap and yogurt, start a load of laundry, and open a can of tuna that I swallow in a few bites.

I have cardio early in the morning followed by film and meetings. Endless meetings. I should focus on sleep, but I can’t stop thinking about how light and easy everything felt while I was shopping with Cameron.

I pop a handful of almonds into my mouth, determined to go to bed like a responsible professional athlete. But first, I stop in the bathroom and snap a pic of my shampoo bottle.

I send it to my fake boyfriend, along with a message:

Back at ya, washing my hair. Gonna take hours.

Chapter 5

Cameron

My teammates have pivoted from hassling me about dating to relentlessly begging me to share details of my “relationship” with Briar. Or BB? Shit, we need to discuss what to call each other.

I continue to ignore the guys in the weight room. I have to pay a bit of attention to Howie at the other end of the battle ropes, but he’s giving me space as we both exhaust ourselves.

I slam the ropes down in waves of repetitive violence, and it clears the noise in my skull. For each of these 45-second sprints, I don’t have to think about my brother’s voicemail about his breakup or my mother’s tone when she mentioned that Dad had a rough week. The instant our trainer calls time, my brain flashes to my youngest brother’s trade school tuition.

Somewhere in the last few years, the wire transfers and the phone calls stopped being things I did and turned into things I am. I don't remember agreeing to that. I don't remember being asked.

Howie chugs water at the other end of the ropes, eyeing me as I think through the timeline for making sure Ian can finish his HVAC certification. I pick the ropes back up before I spend too much time thinking about the personal consequences of bailing Ian out again.

I blast out another interval with Howie, then DeJuan instructs us to move over to slam balls. This part of my job is pretty satisfying. Throwing these weighted balls into the floor as hard as I can feels cathartic.