Page 129 of Off the Mark
“Knock, knock.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Do I really have to—”
“Are we playing or what, Maddox?”
She traced her tongue across the front of her teeth and sized me up. “Who’s there?”
“A broken pencil.”
“A broken pencil who?”
I shrugged. “Never mind, it's pointless.”
Her lips twitched, but she stayed strong. “There’s been a lot of trash talk going around for someone who hasn't been able to get me to breakonce.”
I rolled onto my elbow, gazing down at my old friend, my formerly-fake girlfriend, and my very real wife. I traced a finger through her hair, along the shell of her ear, stroking. “You’re saying I haven't done anything on this honeymoon to make you smile?”
“I can’t recall,” she said airily, teasing me on purpose now.
I replaced my finger with my lips. “I knew my wife was a bad girl. I didn't know she was such a little liar.” Then I darted my tongue out to soothe the bite mark I’d left on the side of her throat, evidence of the passionate sex we'd had in the hotel shower this morning. She shivered and I grinned against her hair. “Are you reconsidering your position?”
She smacked her lips together into a firm line. Narrowed her eyes.
“What did the ocean say to the beach?”
“Hmmm, what?”
I winked. “Nothing, it just waved.”
Her expression was playful, lips quivering. “I could go all night, O’Callaghan.”
I clutched her waist and kissed her high on her neck, right below her ear—a ticklish spot that had her laughing not a second later. “Gotcha.”
“Oh my god, youcheated.”She pushed to sit up, blowing the hair off her face with a toothy smile. “Let the record show.”
“No one’s keeping score,” I teased.
“There’s no way two people as naturally competitive as we are aren’t keeping score,” she pointed out. “And I know that because since we first started this game at Jolene’s, I’ve won ninety-five percent of the time.”
My head fell back on a laugh. It felt nicer than I could say, lazily basking in the sunshine with the view of the Grand Canyon stretched out in front of us. We'd arrived for our honeymoon five days earlier—blissed out from our block party wedding—and had been engaged in some combination of hot sex and long hikes ever since.
We’d had 10th Street transformed for the reception, hiring a live band and dancing until midnight. All the neighbors were there, plus everyone from the rec center and most of Archer’s Angels, Charlie's racing team.
Dempsey had driven Malcolm and Penny in from Syracuse. Her dad tried, and failed, not to bawl his eyes out when he first saw Charlie in her wedding dress. Though, to be fair, there hadn’t been a dry eye during our ceremony, myself included.
Dean and Tabitha had both given speeches, of course. And Alice had been tickled pink to remind all of us—mostly me—how I’d sworn up and down that I’d never fall in love, when I knew Charlie was my soul mate all along.
After Charlie joined her new team, her career had never been better—she was winning nonstop while also being home more. It was a tricky balance, combining her travel with my work schedule, but we made it happen in all the ways we knew how. We were lucky—between her upbringing and my baseball career, we were experts at accepting that the long drives and random hotel rooms were all part of the gig.
The easy days we got through together. The challenging days we got through together too.
But for those six months when she was home in South Philly, in the row home we had made our own, she was teaching dirt bike lessons to kids and loving it.
I was loving it too, as much as I was loving the joyful chaos of leading the rec center. After saving Dean and Eddie’s jobs, and the food program, we’d been steadily and thoughtfully expanding. Reaching more people than ever, mostly with the help of the Wilkinsons.
Taking every chance we had to make our city better.
Best of all, after months of hard work, Charlie's dad had avoided eviction and kept his house. He even came down to help her teach the kids twice a month. And after, she always brought him around for family dinner at Alice’s house, where my grandmother treated him like a guest of honor.
