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My words were muffled against him. “I give us ten seconds to live. ” I lifted my eyes the smallest bit so that I could glare at him.
But then I caught sight of something behind him.
The land sprawled out beneath us, rolling hills and snaking lakes. I caught my breath. The trees were green gilded with white, the water lightly frosted with sheets of ice. Snow blanketed the landscape, matched by the white clouds that drifted through the bright blue sky above us. I was drifting through a snow globe.
I started laughing. I’d done it. I was here. I was as proud of myself as though I’d sprouted wings or engineered the balloon myself. I’d made it. I was in the air. Below me, the patchwork world spread out in greens and whites. I hugged Abe tightly, and then pulled away and leaned toward the basket’s ledge.
It wasn’t anything silly, like that my fear of heights had magically been cured. No, my feet still tingled like crazy, the sparks wrapping all up my calves. But I wasn’t ignoring them. I wasn’t trying to smother them. I was reveling. “I did it!”
“Hey there. ” Humor laced his voice, and warmth enveloped me as his arms went around my shoulders. “Careful. ”
I twisted around to see him. “Abe! I’m flying. We’re flying. ” Wonder filled my voice, my entire being. “This is amazing!”
“It’s—”
But I didn’t wait for him to finish that sentence. Instead, I turned and curled my hands in his lapels and pulled him forward, kissing him for all my worth.
For half a heartbeat, Abe was surprised, but then he curved one hand behind my back and bent me slightly, deepening the kiss until we weren’t just breathless from height and air. Not only my feet tingled, but my whole body, and now it felt good and right. I pulled back slightly and rubbed his cold red nose with mine. “Abraham. I love you. ”
“And I love you. ”
I beamed at him. He was right. Everything else was little and small here amongst the clouds and wind, where the only thing that mattered was him and me, me and him, and how much we loved each other.
Chapter Twenty-Six
But after New Year’s, we had to return home and face reality.
If I’d thought America’s collective consciousness would have forgotten us over the holidays, I’d been mistaken. If anything, the interest had festered as people talked it over with family members, spreading the story like a disease across the country as travelers gossiped and moved and spawned new stories of how awful I was.
Worst, football fever had hit its high point. The playoffs had arrived; the AFC Wildcard Round would be held this Saturday. The Leopards would be playing against the Patriots in the Divisional Round in a week. Not Abe, of course, since he was done for the season. But it would definitely keep him in the spotlight.
And if the Leopards made it to the Super Bowl in the first week of February, he and my story were unlikely to leave that hot glow of attention anytime in the coming months.
More networks had picked up my story, and enough people were asking questions that in the second week of January, as the world iced over and snow filled the city, the commissioner of the National Football League called a press conference.
* * *
That night, snow fell. The lack of wind meant it drifted down peacefully, large, cartwheelings shards of ice that blanketed the world. Everything seemed whitened—the sky, the ground, the air. A pervasive silence filled the city, calming to my ears. It was the sound of peace.
It reigned everywhere except inside me.
I expected to be locked out of the press conference, but to my surprise Tanya said no one was being blocked. Interest of transparency and all that, I supposed.
Nervous energy flowed through me as we stepped into the hall. I’d downed two coffees, which had been a bad idea, and now I was so wired that my mind wouldn’t stop spinning. I kept my body perfectly controlled, though, scared that if I relaxed even the slightest bit I’d be unable to restrain myself.
I wished Abe could be next to me, but he couldn’t, of course. He’d be up on stage, given that he was one of the key players in the whole thing, and currently one of the most visible Leopards. Instead, I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the guys, and their support did wonders to calm my breathing.
The lights flickered. A level voice came on through the loudspeakers: “The conference will be starting in two minutes. ”
The journalists’ burble of conversation continued straight up until the two-minute mark, and then vanished in a splash of silence.
Gregory Philip strode out on stage, followed by Coach Paglio and the Leopards’ general manager.
And Abraham.
That cut straight through me. I’d known he wouldn’t be able to make any public stand with me, but it hurt to see him visibly on Philip’s side. I was sure he’d been pressured, though, that he’d been forced to preserve his career, but it still hurt.
While I saw him right away, he didn’t find me until a murmur circulated the room, and the people closest to me stepped away as everyone else pushed closer for a better look. Abe had only to follow the direction of the stir, and then his gaze connected with mine.
Philip stepped up to the microphone.
His speech was short and sweet. It lay out in no uncertain terms that the Leopards and Loft Athletics would be going forward with their training facility, and that there was no truth to any of the statements put forward in the article by one Tamar Rosenfeld. They were, of course, conducting an interior investigation into all athletic gear, but so far nothing negative had been found.
“And I believe that is all we have to say. ” Gregory Philip stepped back, smiling that smooth and oily smile of his.
Behind him, Abraham raised his head, solemn and unmoving. “That is not all. ”
Every player—like every team, every season—has a narrative. Abe’s centered on his amiability. Everyone liked Abe. Easygoing Ave. Good-natured Abe. Never one to get riled up or crash a car or flip a reporter off. Never all over the whole kill-your-enemies-before-they-take-your-women pregame diatribe. He was levelheaded. Well-adjusted. Likeable.
That made people underestimate him.
The attention of the room shifted, fluttering like a startled bird and resettling on Abraham. It was impossible to gainsay, even though the commissioner clearly wanted to. The lights could have plunged us into darkness and chaotic noise could have drowned out his words, but the press still would have followed Abe to find out what his uncensored words were.
I would have followed Abe anywhere, anyways, and I could only hope now that he would not do the same for me.
He stepped closer to the microphone. There was no doubt in his posture, no uncertainty in what he was about to say, and no possibility that the truth of his words would be doubted by those who heard them. His rich and steady voice rolled through the room. “I stand by Tamar Rosenfeld. ”
Shock rippled through the room like an earthquake’s aftershocks—an unexpected, off-balancing rumble. Philip turned and stared at Abe. I could see it in the owner’s face. He expected Abe to bend. To stop. Because he was easygoing Abe. Good-natured Abe. He didn’t rock the boat.
Except they had gotten it all wrong, just like I had. Abe was no reed, no obstacle that could be pushed aside or avoided. He was the river itself, flexible, moveable, and ultimately able to carve paths through stone.
“What’s that?” Gregory Philip said.