“Fo-cus,” she whispers.
I laugh and tap her nose. When I look up, August is peering over the time-out huddle observing us. He smiles, and of course, Sarai chooses that moment to scream “Gus” again. She blows him a kiss, and he flashes a quick grin at her, pressing his palm to his lips to blow a kiss back. His eyes, though, fix on me, and contentment, pleasure, and the closest thing to joy I can imagine all flow through me like the Mississippi, wide and powerful. My eyes water and my nose burns. The emotion grows so dense between us, even separated by half an arena.
“I love you,” he mouths, the look in his eyes warm and so certain.
I nod, press a hand to my lips, and discreetly return his blown kiss. He crooks a smile and returns his attention to the huddle.
I experience a sharp sensation, like a needle pricking my flesh. When I glance over at the Stingers’ bench, I meet Caleb’s barbed stare. Malevolence festers in his eyes, and his hands tighten into fists at his side. Menace surrounds him, as much a constant companion as Ramone had ever been.
It’s a dark déjà vu of the last time we found ourselves in this place, but the tables have been turned. There’s always been an inescapable awareness between August and me. Caleb saw it then, and he sees it now. The day I met August, I stepped into a force field, setting something into motion that was in some ways my fault, and in other ways, out of my control. That defiance rises up in me, and I don’t care if Caleb sees it. He can’t do anything to me now without taking himself down, too. In a mockery of the special moment I just shared with August, he blows me a kiss.
“Is he going to be a problem, Iris?” Mrs. Foster asks from beside me.
Startled, I give her my full attention. She’s still looking in Caleb’s direction but waits for my response.
“No. I …” I’ve only ever talked openly with Lo about the details of what happened to me, but I wish I could share everything with August’s mother and her kind eyes. “He was a problem, but it’s been handled.”
“August loves you very much,” she says, looking at me and smiling at Sarai. “And your daughter, too. He talks about you both all the time now.”
“He does?”
“I’m sure you know you’re the most important thing in his life.”
I’d play you at the five.
I don’t answer, but wait for her to go on, because I know there is more.
“That man broke my son’s leg over you,” she says, holding up her hand when I start to apologize. “It’s not your fault. It’s only his fault, but even knowing how complicated your situation was, August still wanted you. He’d hate me butting in, but he is my important thing, and I want to know your intentions.”
“My intentions?” A laugh, rich and full, escapes my lips. “You want to know my intentions toward August?”
She yields a small smile and caresses Sarai’s hair.
“I have no illusions about my son. I know he’s been a bit of a player, on court and off.” She waggles her eyebrows suggestively. “But I know he’s deeply in love with you and has been for some time.” Our humor fades, but the kindness in her eyes remains. “So yes, I’m asking you, not if you love him, because it’s obvious you do. I’m wondering if you’ll be able to marry him when he asks you.”
Marry.
For most girls, it means June weddings and flowers—hopes and dreams fulfilled.
It doesn’t mean that to me anymore. It means a trap. It means a man has access to my life, to my daughter, that he could, at his discretion, abuse.
“I haven’t asked August about it,” she says softly. “And I know he is probably just so glad to finally have you that he isn’t pressing it, but I have to wonder—a man cruel enough to break someone’s leg over the woman he wants, well … he could be that cruel to the woman he wants, too. Am I right?”
Irrationally, I glance up at the jumbotron. I’ve been taken by surprise more than once, finding myself, unsuspecting, onscreen. If my face were onscreen now, I fear everyone would know what had happened with Caleb and me—a vignette playing out in vivid black-and-blue-bruised technicolor for everyone to see. They’d know what I’d survived. And as much as I know it wasn’t my fault, shame spreads, leaving no part of me clean. I’m sullied by Caleb’s touch, my heart and soul covered in invisible smudges.
“Legally, I can’t talk about most of the things I experienced with Sarai’s father,” I tell her, my voice hushed and conscious of any perked-up ears around me. “But I’ll say that getting away from him is the best thing that could have happened for us.”
“And August knows this?”
“August knows that I love him and only him.” This should be awkward, but after so many things I haven’t been able to say, to tell anyone anything feels good.
“Can I tell you something?”
When I nod, she goes on with a smile.
“My son is the most competitive person I’ve ever met, second only to his father. He doesn’t know how to give up. Eventually, the Waves, if he stays with them, will win a championship because August will have to. He doesn’t know how to settle, and he won’t settle with you.”
Her words should make my heart float, but instead it sinks like a stone because as much as I love August, and God, I do, I don’t know what I’ll say if he ever asks me to marry him. Sharing my life, my money, my home, and my security with any man scares me to death. I’ve seen a man whom I thought loved me and would never do anything to hurt me pull back the mask and show me his true nature after I was in his trap. I don’t know that I can risk that for me or Sarai ever again.