Page 242 of ClickBack

“You would.”

“Especially the year you blamed Graves for damaging it.”

His head turns. “That man talks too much.”

“He was the guest.”

“He threw the pass.”

I wait.

Jarrett looks back at the lamp. “I shouldn’t have asked for it.”

I laugh. He catches my hand and draws me over for a kiss.

“Thank you,” he says against my forehead.

“You’re welcome.”

He stands there with me for a moment before taking his bag down the hall. I hear the shower, then a brief curse, then the shower changing volume. I leave him to his education.

There are two meals in the refrigerator, sent home from the facility after his workout. Mine has my name on the lid. I check what is in his before opening my own.

“Leave my potatoes alone,” he says from the doorway.

“I was reading.”

“You can read from over there.”

He is barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt, still drying the back of his head with a towel. I look at him, then at the container.

“Mine has rice.”

“You like rice.”

“I like your potatoes.”

He takes a fork from the drawer and divides them between the two containers without another word. I slide some of my rice onto his side.

“Look at us,” I say.

“Negotiating with a thief.”

We heat the food and carry it to the sofa. He has clips from the afternoon’s run on the television, and I watch while we eat. It is different seeing him in practice clothes, in a room with no announcers, calling to men I now know well enough to recognize from the back.

He rewinds a play twice. On the third viewing, I ask him what I am missing.

“Watch Nico. Corner.”

I find him. Jarrett steps toward the man with the ball. Another player cuts toward the basket, and Nico moves in from the side.

“He has to hold him up until I get back,” Jarrett says.

“And the man he left?”

“Somebody has to get out to him if the pass goes there.”

“Who?”