Page 146 of Bluffed By the Offense

“Tonight, you’ve got an offer for pizza and Mission Impossible, or whatever grilled chicken dish you’re planning on subjecting yourself to and your obsessive mental replay of today’s game. Your choice,” I say, secretly hoping he picks a night of forgetting it all and hanging out here.

“Pizza it is,” he says.

He walks toward the couches. “Do I get a blanket too?”

“You can have two,” I say, trying to stifle my smile. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Tell me the Cold Turkey story.”

He smiles. “I guess you’ve earned it.”

He sits on one of my couches and kicks off his shoes. I remind myself to stay in this moment. This will all be a memory soon enough. I don’t need to ruin this night with thoughts about our future—or lack of a future together.

I bring him the blanket Winona usually chooses and he smiles up at me when I hand it to him. Then I call in a pizza order.

When I hang up, I look over at Marcus. He’s sprawled on half my couch, looking twice as relaxed as he did when he pulled up.

“So this story … ” he says, “... is not very impressive.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” I say, pulling my blanket around me and sitting on the couch where I had been settled before. I’m not at the complete other end, but I’m not right next to him either.

“We had an away game one Thanksgiving a few years back. It happens. Anyway, I thought I’d be the big man and order a traditional Thanksgiving meal to be delivered up to the suites.” He glances over at me, a boyish expression on his face.

My stomach does this happy little flip.

I’m going to miss him.

“Anyway, by the time we got treatments and did press and met with coaches, we got back to the hotel at around ten or something. The meal was cold.”

“Including the turkey,” I laugh softly.

“Yeah. I ordered up bread and we made leftover sandwiches, but the guys started calling me Cold Turkey right after that and it stuck.”

“So it has nothing to do with you being afraid to do something or trying to quit a habit and failing.”

“Nope. Just ordering Thanksgiving at a hotel.”

“That has to be weird,” I say. “Being on the road for holidays.”

“Yeah. It’s not ideal. But it comes with the job.”

“You lost some mystique tonight,” I tell him.

“Did I gain anything in exchange?” he asks, his piercing grey-blue eyes fixed on mine.

Everything. You can have it all.

“You get the last slice of pizza,” I offer.

“Fair,” he says with a half smile.

I grab the remote and click play. A little while later the pizza arrives. We eat and watch. Marcus seems to take up more of the couch as the movie progresses. By the time the credits are rolling, he’s sitting right next to me. Not exactly sitting, he’s sort of reclined, with one leg up and bent on the cushions and the other down on the floor. He stretches and his arms span the back of the couch, even behind me. I practically freeze in place.

Then, the front door opens and Winona comes in.

“Oh, hey Marcus! I didn’t know you were coming over.”