Page 204 of ClickBack

He looks at our hands on the seat between us. “You sure?”

“Byron said what he came to say. So did I.”

Jarrett draws my hand into his lap. I rest my head against him for the drive. I have spent enough of the evening with my former husband in my thoughts.

By Wednesday evening, he is on my sofa explaining a soccer match I made the mistake of asking about. The replay is paused with the ball nowhere near the man he keeps pointing out.

“Watch him,” Jarrett says.

“The one running away?”

“Yeah.”

“It seems an odd way to participate.”

He laughs and starts the replay again. The man runs, slows, and takes a defender with him. Another player goes into the space and receives the pass.

“Oh.”

Jarrett looks at me.

“I saw it,” I say before he can speak.

“Fourth time’s the charm.”

“You could have told me which one to watch the first time.”

“I did.”

“Their shirts are alike.”

“That’s the team part.”

I push his shoulder. He keeps laughing, then tells me the player’s number so I can find him again.

We have finished the takeout he brought. He takes my carton when he gets up for his own, comes back, and puts my feet across his lap without asking where I want them. It is where I had them before dinner. I let him have the remote and open the book I brought down earlier.

For a while, we do our separate things beside each other. He complains at the screen. I reread a sentence because I was listening to him, then ask what happened.

“You want the short answer?”

“Do you have one?”

“He should’ve passed.”

I look at the television. “To the man I wasn’t watching?”

Jarrett points at me. “Now you got it.”

He starts to explain why, then catches my expression and picks up the remote.

“I can leave it running.”

“No, show me.”

He does. He hasn’t played this game. He has simply watched enough to notice things and gone looking for answers when he didn’t understand them. I like that. I like the way he admits when he doesn’t know why a decision was made, then gets annoyed at the commentator for failing to explain it.

“You have a microphone,” he tells the man. “Help me out.”