Quinn

We spent hours on the lake. Eventually, the swans got too close, and since there were so many, I decided it was better to call it a day. It’s true that there is safety in numbers and they clearly beat us in that arena. Abby stared at them from the shore of the lake for several more minutes before coming inside.

The mid-afternoon sun made for a perfect, lazy day. Abby opts to take a shower while I whip up a snack for the two of us. I slide into clean boxers and go to the kitchen. My cooking isn’t great, but it’s decent enough. Abby doesn’t seem to have any trouble eating whatever is in front of her, so I know even something simple will bring that gorgeous smile to her face.

More importantly, my house is stocked with actual food. The utter lack of anything healthy in her place was a surprise. There’s something about her that makes you think she’s prim and proper. A stickler for doing things the right way.

And yet she has no food.

I shake my head, amused.

It has to be crazy to be this into someone. We went to high school together, sure, but that was a lifetime ago. It took a chance encounter for her to show up on my radar, and I can scarcely believe she wasn’t on it before. Abigail Swan has to be the epitome of everything I want in a partner. Quirky, down-to-earth, and is blindingly attractive even though she doesn’t know it.

I’ll make her believe she really is everything I tell her. No compliment is a fabrication. She’s genuine and warm. Such a departure from the last of my high school girlfriends, Sheila. The one who embittered me and made me avoid relationships like the plague.

“Something smells nice,” Abby says.

A sweet aroma emanates from her, and it’s all I can do to not leave the scrambled eggs in the pan to burn so that I can grab her and take her again. Right there on the kitchen counter, since there’s no time for us to relocate somewhere better.

“You have naughty in your eyes,” she says. “What are you making?”

“Nothing fancy,” I say, yawning. “We didn’t have a real breakfast this morning so I figured you could use the nourishment. You’ve been busy, after all.”

“That I have.” She sits down on one of the stools lined up along the breakfast counter. “You have a really nice place.”

“Right after I found out I wasn’t going to have a career, I managed to sign one last lucrative deal, endorsing this sports equipment that we use in our district for other high schools in the country. I had a high enough profile that the company’s advertising department decided I was a good fit for the demographic, even though I wasn’t going to go on and play college ball. That money bought this place.”

It’s not the first time the subject of my so-called retirement has come up with Abby. Eventually, she’ll want the full story. It’s the cornerstone to who I am today, so it’s a natural course of things for us to talk about it.

But I don’t feel ready right now. The pain of losing the promising career I had ahead of me weighs on me. When the hurt passes, it’ll give way to anger. The kind of rage that makes your reality splinter in front of you and rids you of your good cheers.

“Where did you go just now?” Abby asks.

“It’s just that bringing up those old memories has a way of gutting me. You would think I’d be immune to it by now. But I haven’t truly moved on.” Suddenly, the eggs in front of me are the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen. I can’t look away, and I certainly can’t meet Abby’s eyes.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I would prefer it if we don’t.” I use the silicone spatula Derek’s wife got me for Christmas to scrape the residue off the bottom of the pan. “Could you get the plates from those cabinets over there?”

“Sure,” Abby says. “One second.”

She reaches for the top shelf and her oversize shirt rides up, revealing the underside of her perfect, round ass. My cock twitches at the sight. I can’t get too carried away because she pivots on her heels and comes back a quick second later.

“Were you checking out my ass?” she asks glibly.

“Are there swans outside?”

“Yes?”

“There’s your answer,” I tell her. Equal amounts of buttery eggs scrambled to divine precision go in each of the plates. “Forks are in the first drawer to my left. Could you get them for us?”

She did and soon we sat down to enjoy the chow I threw together. Abby has to eat one forkful before exclaiming, “God, what is in this?”

“A whole lot of cheese. I’m a cheese snob.”

There’s no stopping her from putting it away almost immediately. She scrapes the bottom of the plate, saying, “You can’t imagine what the last full meal I had was. This makes me never want to leave your place ever again. I wish I knew how to cook.”

“It’s a thing you pick up when your diet is completely different than your asshole brothers’ eating regimen,” I tell her. “So, why don’t you tell me more about your writing? I’m curious.”

“What about it?”

“Legal thrillers?” I arch an eyebrow. “Not that I think there’s anything wrong with them. It just doesn’t seem like a genre you’re all that passionate about writing. Especially if you’ve been blocked for months.”

“It hasn’t been quite that long,” she says. “But you’re right that it’s not my genre of choice. I met an editor who told me that’s what’s hot at the moment, and I’m following her advice. It’s between this and epic fantasy. Romance always sells well but it’s not my wheelhouse. Like, at all.”

“Well, why not?”

“It’s not a girl thing, you know. Romance isn’t about just writing some half-assed story with a ton of smut. The characters go through this journey, and developing that journey takes a special skill set. I really admire romance authors. In a lot of ways, I wish I could write one, but…”

I pick up a notepad lying on the kitchen island and give it to her. “So, do it.”

Her gaze alternates between the pad and my face as if she wanted to know how serious I am. “It’s not as simple as that. If I told you that just because you’re an athlete, you should have no trouble playing basketball or baseball or something else with a ball, and you had to be proficient enough at it to hold your own, would you be able to?”

“No, but -”

“That tells you how easy it is to just pick a new genre. It’s not. The one time I tried to write a romance, I was in high school and it was a young adult one. I shopped it around to a few agents, who all said they loved my voice but that they just couldn’t get into the romance.”

I chuckle. “That sounds like telling a guy who’s got some natural talent for the game that he’s raw. I see what you mean.”

“Raw?” she asks.

“Yeah. Natural talent but completely unmolded by a professional trainer,” I explain. “It’s not the compliment that it sounds because there are more perseverance-type guys out on the field at any given time than there are sheer prodigies who didn’t give the sport years of their life.”

“That sounds like writing,” she says. “Lots of books are published every day. The majority of them are not the work of novice writers.”

Abby eyes the notepad anyway, her finger tracing the bottom of it.

“Did you think of something?” I ask.

“Actually, yes. Do you mind if I sit somewhere and jot a few ideas down?”

“By all means,” I tell her, motioning for her to go to the living room. “I’ll just clean up in here.”

I spend a few stray seconds watching her pull a loose strand of hair back, and then scribble furiously on the notepad. The intensity of her concentration is a brutal reminder of the power of passions. It’s not lost on me that I’m adrift largely because I don’t have a project for myself. No ambition for what the future might hold.

Being stripped of that project once was too painful for me to contemplate alternatives. But maybe, with Abby here, I should explore my options. Other sports aren’t a bad idea, but if my knee is a problem for football, it’ll screw with me again.

Plates rinsed and leftovers thrown away, I take a seat next to Abby on the couch and watch her work. It’s pacifying enough that I don’t notice myself falling asleep.