This Is Falling(46)

“Baseball shirt,” I say, quickly stuffing my face with another bite. I can tell by the way my mother’s eyebrow is cocked that she’s suspicious, and she waits until my dad’s back is turned to drill me a little more.

“It looks like a boy’s baseball shirt,” she whispers. I smile and shrug and keep eating, doing my best not to look her straight in the eyes. That’s how she gets me, the eye contact. I think it’s one of those skills from being a professor.

“Hmmmmm, we’ll talk about this more later,” she says, and I hope like hell we won’t.

My dad already has my laundry in the works, and my mom has settled into the large recliner chair in the living room with a stack of papers on her lap for grading. Normally, this is where I sift through the channels until there’s a movie or a game I want to watch on the screen, but nothing is capturing my attention today. I did bring home some reading, so I open my philosophy book to the chapter on logic and reasoning.

I’m able to concentrate for about thirty minutes, but my mind keeps drifting to my phone, waiting for it to be afternoon Oklahoma time. How quickly my life has centered around Oklahoma time. My mom is completely engrossed in her grading, so when the hour comes I can text Nate in private, I grab my book and head back to my bedroom.

Coming up with the right words seems impossible. All I thought about over the last forty-eight hours was our kiss—and how very much I wanted that to happen again. I can’t write that, though. I mean, I guess I could. But being forward like that doesn’t feel like me.





How’s the tournament?





That’s what I settle on. The lamest three words possible—I may as well be a sports reporter. I checked the schedule while I waited at the airport, and I knew there was a break between games. McConnell plays tonight, so I was hoping I could catch Nate during a lunch break.

After five minutes of waiting, I start to get antsy, so I pull out my purse and sift through some old receipts and scraps that I can clean out and throw away. When I stumble on his mom’s business card, I decide to check out her website. The first thing that flashes on my laptop screen when I type it in is a series of photos—intricate metalwork in brilliant colors, the pieces all twisted together to form bodies, some human, some animal. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

She has three galleries, one in New Orleans and two in California, and the more I click into her pages, the more impressed I am. I could never do anything like this, not with these hands. I’m too nervous, and I question too much. Every single piece she showcases has a story. There aren’t any words written with the photos, but I can tell—I can read the story in every nuance and bend of the metal.





33! Miss me already?





Nate’s message brings my attention back to the here and now, and the playful tone of his words has an instant smile on my face.





Not yet. Check with me later, maybe I’ll miss you then.





I start to rethink my message after I send it. After Nate told me he’d wait for me, I’m not sure he’ll appreciate my joke. I’m about to say that I’m kidding when he writes back.





Yeah, I don’t miss you either. I do kind of miss my shirt, though. That was a bonehead move—I should have given you one of Ty’s.





I’m so relieved he’s joking with me. I also can’t help but look down at the letters across my chest and run my hands over the fabric that was on his body before it was on mine. It still smells like him, whatever his cologne is, and I want to drown in its scent.





That would have been better. Maybe his shirts don’t smell so bad.





I pull the collar up and breathe in deeply while I wait for his response, unable to keep my lips from smiling.





Well, I did roll around in crap before I gave it to you. That could be what you smell.





He’s so damn fast with his response that I laugh out loud when I read it, quickly covering my mouth. I don’t want anyone interrupting me, and I would be content to lie here for the rest of the weekend and text back and forth with Nate.





I’m kidding. I don’t really roll in crap.





I laugh again. I miss him. I miss him a lot, and it feels good inside my chest to feel this way about someone. I wish I had a picture of him, so while I think of what to write back, I Google him on my laptop just to see what comes up. It’s mostly baseball pictures, and he’s usually wearing his mask, but I can still tell it’s him, and my head gets a little fuzzy looking at him.





Me: I just Googled you.

Nate: That’s creepy. I might have to report you.

Me: Just want to make sure you don’t show up in the tabloids with some bimbo while I’m gone.

Nate: Just Paige. I helped move some of her things.

Me: That was nice of you. No staring at her boobs.

Nate: Well, I am a bit of a boob man.

Me: Uh, yeah. I know.

Nate: You have nice boobs.

Me: Oh my god!

Nate: Sorry.

Nate: Not sorry :-)