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“Positive. Have fun. ”
They disappeared before I realized it, and Abe took my hand and led me out of the apartment and over to the street. “Let’s find you a taxi. ”
“What if I don’t want to go home?”
He looked at me so quickly I could’ve sworn he’d misinterpreted that. His eyes darkened. “What?”
“Um. . . ” My voice came out as a stammer. “I just meant I’m having fun. I want to keep having fun. ”
His mouth cracked in a grin, and he shook his head. “You should have fun with a bottle of water. I hope you don’t need to work tomorrow. ”
I bobbed my head in fervent agreement. “Me too. ” I consulted my brain, and found out that I didn’t. However—”Wait! It’s a Saturday tomorrow! Today. Do you? You have to do meetings and stuff. Why are you here?”
He tucked a loose curl behind my ear. “Because I didn’t want you to fall off a roof. ”
I frowned and tried to step back, but misjudged the curb and stumbled. He caught my waist with both hands and mine automatically went to his biceps for balance. I stared at him, breathing hard. Could I do this, as a friend? Nope. Line. There was a line, and it was in the air between us, and there was no air between my fingers and his skin. I reluctantly removed my hands and locked them behind my back, trying to remember what we’d been talking about. It was on the tip of my tongue. My mental tongue. Was there a word for that? A part of the brain just out of reach from the rest, locked away by a fog of intoxication—Wow. I should write that down. “Abe. I am a poet. ”
“No, just drunk. ”
I tried to explain the eloquence of my turn of phrase. “No, these words—they’re doing things that my words never do. They’re dancing—Look, a taxi!”
He shook his head. “It’s going downtown. You need to catch one in the opposite direction. ”
The car couldn’t just make a U-turn? “That’s stupid. ”
He walked me across the street and hailed a cab.
The cab driver was chattering loudly into a hands-free headset, but he paused as Abe placed me in one side of the cab and walked around to the other.
“Abe, I’m fine. You don’t have to come with me. You live in Tribeca, right? That’s the opposite direction. ”
He shrugged that off and got into the car with me. For a minute, I watched the lights of the city flashing by. My head was still spinning, but slower now.
“You know what I was thinking, before you got here?”
“Before I got here?” I parroted, confused. “But I got here first. ”
“No, I mean—before you got to New York. ”
“Oh. What?”
“That I was restless. ”
I turned to look fully at him. “How so?”
He wouldn’t look at me. “Just. . . Restless. ”
I tilted my head, inviting him to tell me more.
“Like I’ve been waiting for something but I don’t know what. ”
I smiled at him brilliantly. “That’s how I felt, too. Like my life was on hold. Like I was waiting for someone to press start. ” I shrugged, content now that it had started. “Of course, it turned out I was the one who needed to push start. ”
“Because you got the job. ”
I smiled. “So maybe it was Tanya who pressed start. ”
He lifted his hand and brushed a corkscrew behind my ear. I shivered at the touch, my entire body going on alert. His gaze softened and dropped down to my lips. He leaned forward ever so slightly, but close enough that his breath whispered across my skin.
The cab driver grunted something indistinguishable.
I gasped and pulled back. Abe kept staring at me even as he handed money over to the cabbie. Somehow we’d reached my apartment and I hadn’t even noticed.
I infused my voice with all the brightness of the sun at high noon. “Anyway! Great to see you. I’m sure I’ll see you Sunday or something. ” I bolted out the door.
“Tamar—”
His low voice stopped me sure as any irons. I turned back, trying to keep hold of the brightness. “Hmm?”
He hesitated. Words hovered between us, but I never got to find out what they were. “I’ll see you Sunday, then. ”
Chapter Nine
In the morning, I headed over the Leopards Stadium to cover their game.
I was excruciatingly aware of the likelihood that I’d end up talking to Abe today. And I shouldn’t have cared.
But I did.
So I dressed in my nicest, darkest jeans, and threw on a striped shirt that made me feel vaguely European—an accomplishment, given that I’d never actually been to Europe.
Last time I’d come to the Stadium, I’d trailed in Tanya’s wake. Now I slipped in through the media entrance with the attitude of an imposter, afraid I’d be carded despite the bright, laminated press pass that dangled in plain sight around my neck.
Tanya had told me I was welcome to meet her up in the press box or check out the sidelines. By welcome, Jin had interpreted on Friday, Tanya meant I was still more of a pain than an asset, and she didn’t particularly care where I ended up. Tanya herself wasn’t a huge fan of sideline reporting, which I wasn’t sure I agreed with. True, nothing the athletes or officials said could be quoted, just paraphrased, per NFL guidelines. And fine, coaches never gave real info when asked at halftime how they were going to play the rest of the game, just that they’d have a strong offense. And defense. And, sure, doctors never gave the up-to-the-minute reports you wanted on injuries.
But I still thought it was worthwhile—the immediacy, the personalities, the lack of glass cutting out the game.
The sidelines were packed—players had to arrive two hours before the game, and even at fifty-three, they seemed vastly outnumbered by the officials, coordinators and staff. A whole crew of people existed only to regulate the players’ uniforms. One poor sap spent the entire day solely in charge of the first football of the game—the kicker’s ball.
Sometimes I thought that was why I loved football so much. The crazy political machinations. It was like I lived in Medici, Italy, except with less poison.
I searched for Abe through the streams of players and officials, but he was nowhere to be seen. He could already be back in the locker room, which was for the best. I didn’t need to see him. I shouldn’t see him. I was supposed to be working.
As kick-off neared, all the players and coaches cleared from the field. I found the guys near a cluster of newscasters—famous anchors like Aurelius Stevenson and Eddie Bruges. The women nearby wore white suits and bright smiles. “They’re all so beautiful. ”
“They’re TV. They’re paid to be beautiful. ” Carlos nodded discreetly as we walked past the row. “Former cheerleader for the Bears, former Miss Vermont, former model. ”
“Hardly seems fair. ” At slightly below-average height and with utterly girl-next-door features, I definitely didn’t qualify for their beauty standards. But I’d probably come into this job with a hell of a better sports reporting background than they had.
Well, being bitter never helped anyone.
The Leopards played the Chiefs today. The game opened strong, but it was clearly destined to be a low-scoring one; no one seemed to keep the ball very long. By the fourth quarter, it was 11-7 and the crowd was restless.