Page 65 of After the Snap

“You actually watched,” King says.

Calliope looks offended. “I watch football.”

“You brought a book to the playoff game two years ago.”

King throws his arm over her shoulder, but Calliope is already looking past him at me.

“You played well.”

I’ve heard some version of that sentence enough times since the final whistle that the answer should be automatic. From her, it isn’t. She saw all of it—the touchdowns, the turnovers, JJ taking over after halftime—and she’s still looking at me the same way she did before I walked onto the field.

“Thanks.”

Calliope finally glances toward the locker room doors. “You should probably shower before you make everyone suffer.”

King looks personally offended. “I smell fantastic.”

“You don’t.”

Sullivan catches the back of King’s jersey and hauls him toward the locker room before he can defend himself. King twists around to keep arguing with Calliope as Sullivan drags him through the doors, and she laughs when his voice finally disappears behind them.

I should follow, but I stay rooted in place with my helmet tucked against my hip, and for the first time since I walked out of the tunnel, there isn’t a teammate or coach close enough to fill the space between us. Her eyes drop again, catching on the chain above the collar of my undershirt, and I touch it without thinking.

There’s nothing hanging from the chain anymore. Her mother’s ring is back with her, exactly where it belongs, but it has felt different against my skin since I gave the ring back, lighter without the weight of it, even though every time my fingers find the bare links, I remember what used to rest there.

Calliope’s gaze follows my hand before lifting to mine, and Houston slips between us so easily that my body remembers the way she looked at me when there wasn’t a jersey involved, touching me like there was nothing about myself I needed to prove first. She knows exactly who I am now, though. She watched me walk onto that field with thousands of people screaming my name and still looks at me like she knew me before any of it mattered.

“You stayed.”

Her eyebrows lift. “I told you I was going to watch.”

I know she did, but that isn’t what I mean. Hearing her say it once apparently isn’t enough after I spent the walk in here searching every face near those doors for hers.

“The entire game?”

Her expression changes enough that I know she hears the question underneath the one I asked. “Yes, Jubal. The entire game.”

She stayed through the touchdowns and the turnover, through the half I spent on the sideline while JJ ran the offense and there was nothing left for me to show her. I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by people who were proud of what I could do on a football field, including my father, and I’ve never doubted that his pride in me was real, but I don’t have many memories of what that looked like when there wasn’t a game to win, a camp to attend, or another opportunity waiting for us. Calliope stayed anyway, and that means more than every congratulation I’ve heard since the final whistle.

“Don’t make it weird, Duvall.”

I laugh, and she joins me, dragging us back toward something easier before I can figure out what to do with any of that. “You’re the one who made it weird.”

“I answered a question.”

“It was the way you said it.”

I laugh again, but I still don’t move. Nothing between us has felt this close to Houston since we learned who the other person really was, except now, I’m standing inside the most public part of my life, and Calliope is looking at me like none of it has replaced the man she met first.

Calliope tips her head toward the locker room. “You need to go shower. If left to his own devices, Easton will come back for you.”

I finally take a step backward, and she smiles like she knows exactly how difficult she’s making something that should be easy.

“Night, Duvall.”

“Night, Calliope.”

I make it three steps before looking back to find her still there, and when her eyes meet mine again, I want to walk right back to her. For one stupid second, I almost do, but I turn toward the locker room instead and keep walking with a smile I can’t get rid of.