The Cheat Sheet

“Ah—you caught us! Lots of illustrated boobs drawn on that board. You don’t want to see it.”

She pauses, a fading smile hovering on her lips, and her eyes look up to meet mine. “For real—what’s going on? Why can’t I see it?” She doesn’t believe my boob explanation. I guess we should take that as a compliment?

My eyes catch over Bree’s shoulder as Price puts himself out of her line of sight and begins miming the action of getting his phone out and taking a picture of the whiteboard. This little show is directed at Derek, who is standing somewhere behind me.

Bree sees me watching Price and whips her head around to catch him. He freezes—hands extended looking like he’s holding an imaginary camera. He then transforms that into a forearm stretch. “So tight after our workout today.”

Her eyes narrow. “That’s it. Let me see the other side of the board.”

“No.” I root myself in front of her.

“Why not? Is it something about me?” She tries to race around me, but I catch her abdomen with my forearm and twist her up to me until her back is pressed against my chest like we’re doing some sort of salsa dance. She’s scrappy though. Making her whole body go limp, she wiggles out of my arms like a fish. Faster than our top running back, Bree sprints past Price and darts into the living room. There’s one small corner wall that holds the refrigerator separating the two rooms, and if she goes around it, she’ll loop back around to the kitchen on the other side.

“She’s going around the right side!”

Lawrence heads to the right, I head to the left. We both meet around the other side of the dividing wall, staring curiously at each other when we don’t find Bree. A sudden flash of movement catches our eye as Bree jumps up from behind the couch and rushes behind my back, zipping her body around an oblivious Price and into the kitchen.

I make it around the corner just in time to see her face the whiteboard. Derek steps away from it. I’m out of breath and my palms are flooded with perspiration. This is it. Bree is staring wide-eyed at the damning evidence, and I want to jump out the window. How am I going to explain this? All this planning. All these years of patiently waiting, and THIS is how Bree finds out I have feelings for her.

“Bree…I can explain.”

She laughs one loud, incredulous laugh, pointing a lazy finger at the board then letting her eyes pop up to meet mine. “Boobs.”

My mouth opens, but I don’t say anything, because suddenly I’m worried my brain just made that up. “What?”

Her eyebrows rise, and she looks both horrified and amused. “There really are boobs drawn all over this board. Just so many…boobs.”

I swallow and discreetly look at Derek. He’s giving me a thumbs-up from behind Bree’s back. I’m a little frightened at how quickly he drew those.

I let out a heavy breath and shake my head, a relieved smile curving my lips. “Yep. Well, I tried to tell you.”

She’s laughing now. “Why are there boobs on here? Are you guys just a bunch of little boys?”

Derek offers himself up as sacrifice. “It was me. I was trying to describe to the guys—”

Bree cuts him off while throwing her hand in the air. “NOPE. LA-LA-LA! Don’t want to hear whatever is about to come out of your mouth.” She walks away looking like she wants to pluck her eyeballs out and heads toward me, pointing back at the board. “Erase it, Derek! That’s gross.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She stops in front of me and pushes her finger directly into my chest. “Something fishy is going on here, and I’m going to figure it out. But first…I need to use your washer because the one in my building smells like mustard again.” Disturbing that this is not the first or the second time it has smelled like that.

An hour later, the guys are gone and I’m moving Bree’s laundry from the washer to the dryer because she laid down on my couch and accidentally fell asleep. I won’t wake her up. Instead, I’ll carry her into the room she aggressively reminds me is only the guest room, and she’ll stay the night. The guest room no one uses besides her. The room she’d be pissed to find an actual guest in because all the stuff she’s left here over the years has really added up and formed a real bedroom.

Just before I go to bed, I get a text from Derek. It’s the picture of the whiteboard from before he erased it.

Derek: This is going to work.

I hope he’s right…

The stadium is roaring.

It’s game day and we’re all suited up, shoulder to shoulder in the tunnel, gathered just out of sight, waiting for the go-ahead to take the field. This is a high-stakes game—every playoff game is—so the fans are extra rowdy. There’s a heavy mixture of chanting and booing.

Jamal is buzzing beside me. He loves this. There’s an energy meter above his head, and with every decibel increase from the crowd, it ticks up higher. Mine lowers. I have to tune it all out.

He accidentally nudges my arm while circling his shoulders, trying to get himself hyped up, and for some reason, that makes me irrationally annoyed. The rest of the team is behind us and bouncing on their toes, clenching and relaxing their fists, stretching their necks side to side. We’re a bunch of bulls waiting to storm the arena.

Fog starts filling the air, and we’ll be told to take the field any second now. I try to get my head clear, focus on this game alone and not worry about what it means for us. But it’s hard not to feel the pressure. I always feel it lately, and it’s swirling around me in this moment. No matter how hard I try, I can’t push it away.