Troy

Troy spooned up next to Remy in her bed just as she asked. But he stayed on top of the blankets while she got comfortable underneath them. Conan was on the TV, and her head was cradled in the crook of his bicep and elbow. She fit perfectly. Something about this perfect moment made his heart feel like it was about to crack open.

“Hey,” she said, “Why don’t you get under here with me and get comfy?”

He smiled. “Because Elliot is right in the next room.”

She giggled. “You don’t think I can be quiet?”

He replied, “Oh, you won’t be able to be quiet once we start.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “Oh yeah, you think you’re that good, you’re just gonna make me scream your name all night long?’

Troy kissed her shoulder. “Yeah, probably.”

“Whatever!”

They gave each other kisses as they spooned for a few moments, and as much as Troy desperately wanted it to go further, to keep going until they were both satisfied, he also wanted to show her he was genuinely happy just to be around her. To show her they could do more than argue and fuck around.

“Why don’t you go ahead and go to sleep and let me spoon you.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Why?”

He grinned and teased her. “Because this is a first date. I don’t want you to get a bad reputation because of me.”

She stared up at him. “You’re a weird dude.”

He waited for her to snuggle down and get comfortable, helped her fluff her pillow, and turned off the TV.

“Hey, I need the TV on to get to sleep. The voices keep my thoughts from racing in a million different directions.”

“How about I just talk to you instead and you can fall asleep.”

“It’s rude to fall asleep while someone is talking to you…” She was nearly drifting off already.

“It’s not rude if that’s the plan. Just relax into it.”

“Hmmmmkay.” Her words were starting to blur together.

As she closed her eyes and relaxed into the moment, he stayed on top of the covers and held her in close. With her head on his bicep, he allowed that forearm to slip down lower and cup one of her breasts. She sighed. He wanted to absorb everything about this moment and burn it into his memories. He could not remember ever feeling this perfectly cozy and comfortable, ever.

“I just want you to know some things about me,” Troy started. And then, his whole weird story spilled out.

He told it all to her as he watched her sleep, feeling her even breathing press the blankets slightly into his ribs.

He told her how he had started out in a small town in Alabama, played baseball in high school and took his team to a state title. And about how he had gone on to play college ball and did well enough to get the attention of Major League recruiters, who assigned him to a Chicago Cubs farm team. He had never said any of these words out loud to anyone in Middleburg, and it was a release.

The memories came flooding back now that he was allowing himself to go there again. And then about two years ago, he’d gotten called up to the majors as a free agent. He played less than one season. One day, while stealing second, he stopped suddenly and his MCL tore. Troy had heard a loud pop, felt the flood of intense pain and went down immediately. It was an especially bad tear. The doctor said he would need surgery and physical therapy. His stats after that got him sent back down to the minors.

But the pain came and went, and doctors told Troy arthritis was going to be an off-and-on problem no matter what. So he reverted to his backup plan. His high school sweetheart, Ariel, was still in that small town in Alabama and encouraged him to take a teaching job at her school where she taught math. The two of them had tried another go at it, but it didn’t work out. She, along with everyone in town, had wanted to talk about nothing else besides his brief career in pro baseball.

Meanwhile, Troy had been learning to love his new job. The school was full of at-risk kids who were benefiting from his assigned journal writing. That was a pretty macho town and most kids had first seen this as sissy stuff. But they came around, and he had been developing quite a rapport with some of the kids.

But his girl, Ariel, had kept pushing him to try to go back into baseball. Perhaps she had envisioned herself as a baseball wife. But Troy had known his time was up as a player and told her so. Ariel told him he lacked ambition.

So Troy had broken it off with Ariel, and it got ugly. She then spread rumors about Troy and his underage female students. Troy guessed she couldn’t stand the fact that she had to still see him at work every day. Her plan worked in the end. Troy was not fired, but only because the board knew the rumors were untrue and the girl in question denied everything publicly. But even though Troy had been vindicated, it made his work environment unElliotable. So when some Iowa state board of education sent recruiters out to some seriously poor communities to recruit teachers, Troy had taken the first offer that came along and got the hell out of Dodge.

“So I want you to know,” he said, speaking softly into Remy’s warm hair at the back of her sleeping head, “that I love coaching. I love kids. But I’m a failed baseball player and only maybe a half-decent coach. You probably didn’t hear any of this, but it’s OK. It just feels good staying it aloud. Well…it does not actually feel good to relive it, but it feels good to have said it. If that makes sense.”

“And one other thing. I am falling for you, Remy Dawson. And I’m going to work my ass off to show you what that means.”