Daylight, page 5
“You, sunshine,” I answer, not thinking of any implications my words may carry until they’ve already left my mouth. “You’re just one, big damn ray of sunshine,” I smile, reaching out to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. She blushes and throws back what’s left in her glass. “Throwin’ it back that fast, huh?” I laugh.
She offers up a smile, pouring more into her glass and topping mine off. I stand up, moving toward the couch. She, unfortunately, sits on the loveseat perpendicular to me.
She coaxes me into putting on a new movie she’d been wanting to watch. It’s hard to say no to her, so I agree even though movies are not typically my idea of a good time. “It’s so good, I promise,” she assures me, bringing her belongings from the love seat to the couch next to me for a better view of the TV.
I try, but can’t get into the movie. Instead, I watch her watching the movie. The way she becomes engrossed with the story, intently watching. Cheering the characters on, tearing up when they fail. She leads with her heart like no one else I know.
When the main character’s grandma dies, she quietly sniffles next to me. Slightly taking advantage of the situation, maybe, I scoot closer to her and wrap an arm around her shoulder. She rests her head on my shoulder and whispers, “Alex, it’s just so sad.”
“Oh, Elle,” I laugh softly, pulling her in closer. I rub small circles on her arm with my finger, my attention falling to the movie now. We spend the remaining time of the movie like that, cuddled up together. I actually found myself paying attention sporadically, but it’s always so hard for me to fully pay attention to movies. It’s a lot of time for my brain to sit idle.
As the movie finishes, Elle has a full debrief for me during the end credits. She had a lot to say, a lot of opinions— most of them good.
“Did you like it? Be honest,” she huffs, turning her head so she’s looking up at me. I crack a smile.
“I did, yeah,” I nod. “It was a bit slow going at first, but by the end, I was hooked.”
Except, there was nothing slow going about it. Maybe I didn’t pay attention to the beginning of the movie, but I was paying attention to her.
“That’s what I like to hear,” she smiles, nuzzling her head into my embrace.
It makes my heart sting, knowing that what we have may never be more than what it is now. I wouldn’t trade my position right now, sitting here with her stuck under my arm, both of us settled with a comfortable silence. I just wish we could give a relationship a fighting chance without hindering our professional lives. After what happened yesterday, I know we’d never stand a chance against the vultures.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about? I can practically hear the gears in your head grinding,” she cracks a small laugh.
“Ah, nothing,” I shake my head.
“Are you getting nervous about the game?”
“Nah, we can take ‘em,” I say cockily, puffing out my chest.
“God, Alex. You’re so vain,” she laughs, swatting away from my chest. I laugh it off with her.
I pretend that her absence doesn’t impact me, but it does. I want more. I know I can’t have more, but the ache in my heart says otherwise. I can’t help but wonder if acting on impulses in the moment would be the worst way to go about things right now. Who’s stopping me from acting in the moment, finally making a move after years of yearning? What would-
“Alright, I’m gonna head to bed,” she yawns sleepily. She pulls herself off of the couch, slowly stretching as she stands up. She slaps a hand on my shoulder before heading back to the guest room she’s been staying in.
And… just like that. My window is gone. Not that I would’ve acted on it, but it doesn’t leave me from wondering.
I pick up the living room, putting our glasses and the bottle of scotch back into the kitchen. After making sure everything is in its proper home, all the doors are locked, the TV is shut off, and I set the security system for the night.
I punch in the code, essentially locking us in. The bedrooms are on the other side of the apartment, so I make my way down through the common areas and down the halls to the bedrooms. I go by Elle’s, but stop when I pass her door. I hear a sniffle followed by quiet cries, and before I can stop myself, I knock softly before opening the door.
“Hey, are you okay?” I ask, alarmed.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” she says. The brittle sound of her voice and sniffles that follow tell me she’s very not fine. I move toward the bed and sit next to her.
“Elle,” I say softly but sternly, trying to get through to her. Sometimes she gets like this, though I’ve only seen it once or twice. She bottles everything up, keeping it all to herself until it just explodes and she shuts down. “Elle, talk to me.”
Saying that usually gets her to open up to me, but this time it has the opposite effect. Instead of talking, she plants her face into the pillow in front of her and starts to sob. I place a hand on her head, running my fingers through her hair, trying to do whatever I can to calm her down.
I’ve never been good around people expressing emotions. I grew up with two emotionally absent parents. My first real experience with people being sad and upset was when I met Elle and her friend Quinn in college. I still get weird around strong emotions, but I like to think I’ve grown from the person I was when I was eleven and belittled for crying.
My dad had it drilled in me that boys didn’t cry. I wasn’t allowed to show any strong displays of emotion, for fear of people perceiving me in a wrong way. As an adult, I realize how colossally fucked up it was. It seems like every day I find a new reason to resent my dad, something new to add to the list.
Elle and Quinn were the first people in my life who showed me that crying was normal and that it was a healthy way to express emotions. I think back to one particular night toward the end of our sophomore year.
My dad had just done his annual visit to prove he was the father of the year, despite what I actually thought. If he visited outside of football season, he must actually care, right?
The night he left, I had never felt such an overwhelming, all consuming anxiety like I had in that moment. I’d always been an anxious kid, that came with the territory, but something about that particular visit left me reeling.
I stayed the night with Elle, the silence of my dorm deafening. When I told her what it was like, the pressure of growing up with him as my father, I slowly felt myself begin to unravel. Within the four tiny walls of her bedroom, I sobbed and sobbed for hours, letting years of repressed emotions out. And she just let me.
I’m not sure how long we sit there, me rubbing circles on her back and running fingers through her hair. Eventually, the sobs turn into hiccups, and the hiccups into deep breaths. She lifts her head, her face stained with tears, red, and blotchy. “Sorry about that. I just got overwhelmed,” she says, her voice scratchy.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, shifting my body so I’m laying level with her, our faces lined up with each other.
“I just started thinking about everything. My job. My future. My-” She’s cut off by more of her own tears, and I pull her into my arms for the second time tonight.
“Elle, it’s okay to have a bad day. It’s okay to have a bad week. You don’t always have to be a ray of sunshine, Elle. It’s okay. We both happen to know a thing or two about that. This mistake isn’t going to define your career or your future. You’ll bounce back,” I say to her as her cries come to a slow again.
“Alex, what if I never cover a football game again?” She gasps.
“Then they never deserved you in the first place,” I say matter-of-factly, though I hope I’m wrong. The reason we even remained as close as we have is because we see each other so frequently. I’d like to believe we would still be close had she been covering college football, or even basketball, but I worry that is not the case.
She sighs, clutching onto me harder. “Thanks, Alex,” she says, her voice finally starting to even out.
“I got you, Elle,” I nod, resting my chin on her head, breathing in the sweet smell of her hair. I close my eyes, wishing that the moments like this were the ones that would last forever. “Always.”
Chapter Seven
Elle’s Point of View
His lips trail up and down my neck, leaving soft kisses behind my ear. His hands roam across my body, greedily grasping at my shirt. My body arches into him, wanting more.
“Alex,” I gasp as his hand slides underneath my shirt. Suddenly I can’t stand the material of it anymore and help him tear it off of me.
He brushes my hair out of my face, looking me up and down as he hovers above me. “God, Elle. Look at you.” His words send sparks to all of the right places.
His mouth trails from my mouth, down my chest, and to my thighs, leaving soft, tender kisses along the way.
“Elle.”
“Elle, wake up,” Alex’s voice turns my blood from burning hot to ice cold.
My eyes shoot open in horror.
Oh my god.
“I have to go,” I say, shooting up in bed. I can’t look him in the eye. In fact, looking anywhere but the general vicinity of where Alex stands is about all I can manage right now.
“Yeah, I know,” he laughs. “Your flight is in three hours. We’ve gotta get you to the airport.”
I bypass him completely and go straight into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I’m not exactly sure on the protocol for what to do after having a sex dream about your friend is, but I know I cannot be following it.
Looking in the mirror, I splash some cold water onto my face, trying to alleviate the burning that won’t seem to disappear from underneath my skin. I’ve never had any romantic feelings toward Alex, but there are a thousand thoughts spiraling through my head, and not a single one of them makes sense.
Even when we first met, we were always just friends. Nothing more. None of my friends knew what it was like, being so heavily involved with sports and the journalism department, and they didn’t really care. Alex not only understood that foreign world— he was an integral part of it. Our friendship formed because of a class, but we remained friends because of our ability to understand each other in ways our other friends didn’t know how to grasp.
Throughout college, it quickly became evident that our friendship had a lot more to offer than just the other’s perspective on the sports industry. Alex was a great confidant, a great friend, and to this day, none of his qualities have changed.
To me, he’s still the same guy I met in a sports marketing lecture five and a half years ago. His affability has never faltered, even when my insecure ex-boyfriends gave him every reason to.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror, wondering how I’ll get myself out of this mess. Despite everything telling me to become one with the bathroom floor, I open up the door and return to the guest bedroom I stayed the night in.
Memories from last night come pouring back to me, I guess I woke up preoccupied… The meltdown, the incessant crying, and then Alex rushing in to cradle me to sleep.
“Elle, it’s okay to have a bad day. It’s okay to have a bad week. You don’t always have to be a ray of sunshine, Elle,”
“I got you. Always,”
Followed by a dream that left me needing to take a cold shower.
Pushing all of that to the back of my mind, I try to suppress rather than support the thoughts. I gather my things from the bedroom, shoving them into my tote bag that is at risk of overflowing. Unsure if I’m ready to face Alex, I inhale, closing my eyes before exiting the room. Unlucky for me, I don’t have a choice in whether or not I see him. Not to mention, he doesn’t deserve the cold shoulder from me because I dreamed about him in such an inappropriate manner.
He’s got my bags sitting on the couch, packed up and ready. All I have to do is change my clothes. “I let you sleep as long as you could, I figured you needed it,” he says. “We need to leave here in the next fifteen minutes.”
“You’re driving me?” I ask, grabbing the fresh pair of clothes from my backpack that sits on the couch. Still avoiding eye contact with him, I look to his feet.
“Yeah. Practice isn’t until noon today,” he says slowly, his tone laced with something I can’t pinpoint without seeing his expression. He must pick up on my skittishness, as he’s acting weird himself now. I feel bad that it’s freaking me out the way it is. I should be able to handle something as juvenile as a dream like that, but clearly, somewhere some wires got crossed and it’s causing a short fuse in my brain.
“Well, thank you,” I sigh, finally meeting his eyes to shoot him a look of gratuity.
I change quickly in the bathroom, changing out last night’s sweats for a new pair. Reluctantly, I leave the safety of the bathroom for the second time this morning and make the executive decision to let the dream go. I’ve had my time to dwell on it, and it’s accomplishing nothing productive. The only thing I can do now is hope that my weirdness hasn’t rubbed off on him too much.
I take a deep breath as I enter the foyer into the living room where he sits, intently watching the ESPN show of the hour. My eyes land on him before he notices me enter the room, and for a beat-
“Ready?” He asks, snapping me back into reality.
“Yeah,” I nod, shaking my head, trying to clear it from thoughts as if it’s an etch-a-sketch.
It didn’t work.
As we walk out, he locks up the apartment. One silent, awkward elevator ride later, we make it down to the parking garage where his car sits, and suddenly the confines of the vehicle seem suffocating. It’s kind of challenging to let go of that dream when it’s all I can seem to think about.
We both get in the car, the eerie silence from before following us in. Before he puts the car in reverse to back out of the parking spot, I put my hand on the gearshift. I need to say something, and none of the words coming to me seem sufficient for what needs to be said.
“Hey, sorry about last night. I had a little panic attack. Thank you for letting me get it all out, no judgment,” I start, letting the words roll off of my tongue without a second thought. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to, you know, get those things out until it’s too late. Prime example was last night.” I let out a nervous laugh, and his face softens. He extends a hand, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. The act, so intimate yet so innocent, means nothing coming from him. Whatever I’m feeling- or think that I’m feeling- is very one-sided.
That doesn’t stop me from blushing at the gesture, his touch bringing flashes of heat to the forefront of my mind.
“I know,” he says softly. “Elle, you can always talk to me about that shit. No matter what. I understand, and likely better than most when it comes to your job. I know better than anyone about the league and all the bullshit that comes with it. You know I’ve got your back, yeah?”
I got you, Elle. Always.
“Yeah, I do. Thanks, Al,” I pat his shoulder. “I’ve got yours, too. I’m not sure what your press contracts look like, but if you ever want to seek me out as an independent reporter for some bio write-up or something, I’ve got yours too.”
He laughs, shaking his head a bit. “We’ve got each other. How ‘bout that?”
Chapter Eight
Elle’s Point of View
Screaming at the TV has become my new professional pastime today. The first playoff game we watched this afternoon was officiated so awfully, I considered personally calling the control room and asking what the fuck was going on. I figured that’d be in bad taste, but I was one more missed flag away from grabbing the phone.
The real challenge of the day is watching Alex play 700 miles away while I should be on the sidelines 70 feet away.
This last week I’ve gone mildly crazy. Between desk duty, a certain dream, and a lot of personal contemplation, my brain is working overtime. So, losing my shit over a football game in front of Quinn and her girlfriend is the least surprising outcome today given the week I’ve had.
Chicago is losing 21 to 0 at halftime. I texted Alex just before the second half ended, but I never know if he’ll see my messages or not. Sometimes he goes on his phone at the half, sometimes he doesn’t. I just felt as though he needed my encouragement, whether or not he sees it is another story. The least I could do was put the good energy into the universe.
So, when there are roughly seven minutes of halftime left and I get an incoming phone call from him, I just about shit myself.
“Alex?” I answer, genuinely shocked he’s calling during a game. Discreetly sending a text and making a phone call are two very different things.
“Hey. I just…fuck. I just wanted to hear your voice. For the last six games, you’ve done our halftime report, we watch it in the locker room. Well, I do, anyway,” he says, his voice laced with despair. “Your absence is taking a toll.”
“Oh, Alex,” I say sadly, a frown taking over my face. I hear Quinn gasp somewhere to the left of me. “Well, I’m here on the phone with quarterback Alexander Bradford, not in Chicago, but from my quaint New York City apartment. It’s a brisk twelve degrees both here and in Chicago,” I say, hoping I reach him. When Alex falls victim to his head, he falls hard. “Like he’s done time and time again, he’s going to bring the team from their deficit, and into the lead. Right, Alex?” I ask softly.
“Elle, I fuckin’ adore you,” he sighs. “Thank you. You’re incredible. It’s like if I closed my eyes you were there. I’ve gotta go figure out how to come out of this deficit and win this fucking game.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” I say, my voice thick with emotion. “Go kick some ass. I’m proud of you either way. You’ve got this.”
“Ah, Elle. Thank you. I’ll talk to you in a bit,” he signs, hanging up the phone.
There’s a pounding in my chest and a lump in my throat. I feel like I’m stuck in another Alex-induced dream and there’s no way out.
“Okay, dude. What the fuck?” Quinn gasps. I let out a choked laugh, tears falling as I do.
