Him (Him #1)(7)

But not this time.

“May I help you?” The sales girl is dressed in colonial garb, complete with the bosom-squishing flouncy dress.

“Sure you can, doll.” I lean against the counter in the cockiest way possible, and her eyes open a little wider. “You got anything with kittens on it?”

“Kittens?” Cassel chokes back a laugh. “What the hell for?”

“His team is the tigers.” Duh.

“Sure!” Miss Betsy Ross perks up at the request, probably because this job is boring as f*ck. “One sec.”

“What’s the deal?” Cassel tosses the condoms down onto a table. “You never buy me prezzies.”

“Canning and I were summer camp friends. Tight, but we only saw each other for six weeks a year.” A very intense six weeks. “You have friends like that?”

Cassel shakes his head.

“Me neither. Not before, and not since. But we didn’t speak during the year. We texted, and we sent the box.”

“The box?”

“Yeah…” I scratch my chin. “I think it started on his birthday. He must have been turning…fourteen?” Christ. Were we ever that young? “I sent him this obnoxious purple jock strap. I put it in one of my dad’s Cuban cigar boxes.”

I could still remember wrapping the box in brown paper and taping it all to hell so that it would get there in one piece. I’d hoped he’d open it in front of his friends and get embarrassed.

“Here we go!” Betsy Ross returns to spread several things on the counter in front of me. She’s found a Hello Kitty pencil box, a big plush cat wearing a Bruins T-shirt, and white boxers covered with kittens.

“These.” I push the boxers to her. Underwear hadn’t been my goal, but the kittens are even the right shade of orange. “Now, for bonus points, I need a box. Cigar-shaped, if possible.”

She hesitates. “Gift boxes cost extra.”

“I’m good for it.” I wink at her and she blushes a little. She’s checking out my tats where they peek from the V-neck of my T-shirt. Can’t blame her. Most women do. Better yet, men like ’em, too.

“Let me see what I can find.” She scurries off.

I turn to Cassel, who’s chewing his gum, watching me like I’m not making sense. “I still don’t get it.”

Right. “So, a couple of months later I get the box in the mail. No note. It’s just the box I sent him but it’s filled to the top with purple Skittles.”

“Gross.”

“No, man. I f*cking love purple Skittles. Took me a month to eat them, though. That’s a lot of Skittles. And eventually I sent the box back.”

“With what?”

“No idea. Don’t remember.”

“What?” yelps Cassel. “I thought this story had a punchline.”

“Not so much.” Huh. I didn’t realize until right this second the gift inside wasn’t that important. It was the act of sending it. I’d been just like every teenage kid going through the grind of school and practice and homework, communicating only by email and text and grunts. When that box showed up unannounced it was like Christmas, but better. My friend had thought about me and gone to the trouble.

As we got older, the jokes got even more ridiculous. Fake poop. Whoopie cushions. A sign that prohibited farting. Stress balls shaped like boobs. The gift wasn’t nearly as important as the fact that something was given.

Now Betsy Ross is back with a gift box that’s roughly the right size, even if it doesn’t flip open at the top like our box used to. “That will do,” I say, even though I’m disappointed.

“So…” Cassel looks around the store, bored now. “You’re sending him this one?”

“Yeah. Our old one is probably at my house somewhere.” If I weren’t an *, I’d know where. “I broke the chain a few years ago. So this’ll have to do.”

“I’m gonna text the manager and see if he’s got hotel keys for us yet,” Cassel says.

“You do that.” I’m watching Betsy Ross wrap the kitty boxers in some tissue paper, then tuck them in the box.

“Need a card?” she asks, flashing me a smile and a better view of her cleavage.

Those don’t work on me, sweetheart. “Please.”

She passes me a sturdy square of cardstock and a pen. I write exactly one word on it and drop it into the box. There. I’ll send this gift to Jamie’s room in the hotel as soon as we get back.

Then, when I can pull him aside somewhere quiet, I’ll apologize. There’s no way to undo the wreckage I’d wrought four years ago. I can’t take back that ridiculous bet I’d forced on him or the very awkward result. If I could go back in time and restrain my stupid eighteen-year-old self from pulling that bullshit, I would do it in a heartbeat.

But I can’t. I can only man up and shake his hand and tell him it’s good to see him. I can look into those brown eyes that always killed me and apologize for being such a dick. And then I can buy him a drink and try to go back to sports and smack-talk. Safe topics.

The fact that he’d been the first guy I ever loved and the one who made me face some terrifying things about myself…well, all that will go unsaid.

And then my team will kill his in the final. But that’s just the way it is.