I keep my attention on Ben like I’m being graded on it. I watch him peel that jacket off and expose his tan arms. I will him to look in my direction, and I also live in fear that he actually might. I should have known better though; Ben is fully focused on the game. The rabid fans screaming at the top of their lungs don’t even register for him.

  By the time the starting lineup takes the court for tip-off, I’ve downed half of Kayla’s beer. I squeeze the cup with my hand as Anthony jumps up and taps the ball toward Trey. Los Angeles stays in control most of the first half, and it’s easy to follow the game play even though I barely know anything about basketball. Sure, I couldn’t name Ben’s position, but I know he scores a lot. Trey and Anthony pass him the ball, he deftly sinks it into the net, and points build and build on the scoreboard. Everything happens so fast. They sprint up and down the court, and I can barely keep up. God, he must be exhausted. How does he do it?

  The second half is no less amazing than the first. Ben and his team seem unstoppable. It’s like they’ve found a pace of play that can’t be matched. Ben and Anthony are especially in sync. At one point, Ben gets a rebound and passes the ball down to Anthony all the way on the other side of the court. Before Utah can even catch Anthony, he’s already dunked it in the basket.

  “Hel-lo, earth to Raelynn.”

  Kayla waves her hand in front of my face and I blink and lean toward her. Only a bit though, my attention still on Ben as he attempts a three-point shot.

  The ball swoops through the net, and I clench my fist and barely refrain from leaping off my feet in celebration.

  “We’re going to get more food. You want anything?”

  They’ve already had multiple rounds of snacks: popcorn, hot dogs, cotton candy. Anything you can eat in this stadium is now sitting in their stomachs. If the chairs weren’t bolted to the ground, they’d probably go for those too.

  Any other night, I’d join them, but I still have no appetite, especially now. Watching Ben play isn’t relaxing by any means. I’m on the edge of my seat, holding my breath with every pass, every shot, every block. Earlier, when a player from Utah rammed his elbow into Ben’s ribs and garnered a foul, I nearly stopped breathing altogether. I didn’t feel like the two measly free throws the referee awarded Ben were good enough. After it happened, Ben winced and pressed a hand to his side, obviously in pain, and I chewed my bottom lip, wondering how badly he was hurting.

  Now, Kayla throws her hands into the air in defeat, having had enough of me.

  “Oh…no. No. Sorry, I don’t want anything.” I wave her off.

  On the court, Los Angeles calls a timeout and the players jog over to the side. Ben is right in front of me, but we’re divided by the five rows of people between us. Still, it doesn’t feel like much at all. It’s closer than we’ve been in years.

  A trainer passes him a towel and he wipes his face, leaning in to listen to his coach.

  I’m oblivious to the fact that the jumbotron has turned its attention toward the crowd, hopping from fan to fan as they go wild seeing themselves on screen.

  “Oh my god! Hold on! We can’t get food yet. This is my chance!” Julia screams, leaping to her feet and dragging Ryan with her. Kayla joins in too, and then she grabs my hand. I’ve been such a horrible friend tonight that I don’t feel like I can deny them this too.

  I stand and wave my hands gently while they all dance around, enjoying themselves and letting loose. I’m actually shocked when their endeavors pay off and we suddenly appear on screen.

  “GUYS!” Julia screams. “That’s us!”

  Ben, the team, everything is forgotten in that moment as we all go crazy, shouting and dancing and making a spectacle of ourselves. Even I’m excited to see myself up there, blown up and huge. I’m laughing alongside Kayla, who’s thrown her arms around me, and together, we jump up and down. Then the jumbotron swoops to another section of the crowd and we all turn to each other in disbelief.

  “We’re celebrities now!”

  “Can you believe we made it on there?!”

  “Why didn’t I think to get a picture?! No one will believe us!”

  It takes us a second to catch our breaths and calm down from the experience. As they leave to get food, I take my seat and turn back to the court. The guys are back in play now, but when I look down at the row of players resting on the bench on the side of the court, I find Anthony staring back at me, brows furrowed in confusion. When our eyes lock, he rears back, and I suspect he finally realizes I’m the person he suspects me to be. A ghost back from the dead. I don’t know what I expect him to do—scowl, frown, flip me off, but he does none of those things. Instead, he unveils a huge megawatt smile. Fans notice and turn back, looking at me.

  I smile and give him a small wave before he shakes his head, almost in disbelief, and turns back to the game.

  Fortunately, my friends aren’t there to notice.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ben

  I’m walking out of the Staples Center toward my car, escorted by security on both sides. My attention is down on my phone as I check to see if Caleb’s nanny, Donna, messaged me at all during the game. She’s in her mid-sixties and flat-out hates technology. When I first hired her last year, I bought her the newest iPhone and walked her through how to use it. For a few months, she knew nothing beyond how to answer a phone call. Now, she can call and text, and recently, she’s learned how to send photos too. It’s her crowning achievement.

  Tonight, she snapped a shot of Caleb tucked in bed, and I zoom in on it, trying to see as much of him as I can. Donna’s hands aren’t steady and the photo is a little blurry, but I can see that he has one arm wrapped around his Lightning McQueen stuffy and his thumb stuck in his mouth. His face is so relaxed and sweet while he’s asleep. It’s such a juxtaposition to the kind of kid he is when he’s awake. A wrecking ball. A cyclone. A boy on a mission to destroy the world. I smile thinking about it.

  “Bro! Ben! WAIT UP!”

  I glance back to see Anthony all-out sprinting to catch up to me. His security guards are barely able to keep up with him, and I can tell they’re annoyed by having to try.

  I pause and turn back, irritated. I’m ready to be home. I want to check in on Caleb and get some sleep. We play again the day after tomorrow, and I’m tired just thinking about it.

  “What do you want, man?”

  He hunches over and grabs his knees. “Damn, I’ve been trying to catch up with you since the game ended. I lost track of you when you were doing postgame press. I just fucking ran from the locker room.”

  “You in that bad of shape?”

  He shoots fire with his gaze. “You’re kidding, right? How many damn points did I put up on the board tonight? Huh?”

  I grin. “Well, here I am. What do you want?”

  He stands up and his entire expression changes; his eyes go soft and his smile falls. “Raelynn was at the game tonight.”

  For one second, hope lives inside me—before it’s snuffed out by a cold dose of reality.

  I roll my eyes and turn around to keep walking.

  “I’m telling you, it was her!”

  “Right.”

  He runs to catch up to me again. “Dude. Why don’t you believe me? She was there in the stands!”

  I give up fighting him, exhausted from the game. “Okay, she was there.”

  “Why don’t you sound excited? She’s in California!”

  I do a poor job of masking my annoyance when I answer him. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  For one, I don’t really believe him. He thinks he saw Raelynn, but there’s no way she was here.

  No way.

  I’ve had a hell of a time in the last year and a half. It’s been one thing after another—a constant fire burning in every direction. Half the time, I can barely sleep with all the things running through my mind. It’s not as if I’ve been able to properly put Raelynn in my past. I left Texas and flew straight to Tokyo for the Olympic Games, and while I was still there, playing in the tournament, Shelby went into labor three weeks early. Mike called me in Tokyo, and I’ll never forget that moment, where I was, what I was doing. I was back in my apartment at the athletes’ village with the name and number for a private investigator pulled up on my phone. It was a shitty thing to consider, hunting down Raelynn’s information like that. I would have never gone through with it; I’d already decided against it, but still, I vacillated between thinking it was only a little wrong and convincing myself it was outright criminal.

  When Mike called, I already had my phone in my hand, finger poised over the number for the private investigator. I answered in a daze, barely comprehending what he was telling me. Words leapt out at me like “preterm labor”, “NICU”, “premature lungs”, “on oxygen”.

  Here was this pivotal moment in my life, the exact instant in which I went from caring solely for myself to desperately loving another human beyond comprehension. I barely knew about this baby boy. It shouldn’t have wrecked my world that his life was in peril, and yet, it did. I was a mess from what had transpired with Raelynn, and I was already not in a sound state of mind. I barely recall how I stayed in Tokyo the last few days of the tournament. I packed my things after I got off the phone with Mike, called Coach Dalton, and told him I was getting the first flight back to the States. I remember Anthony finding me at the elevator bank, yanking me back, trying to get me to look him in the eyes as he convinced me my baby boy would be alright. He’d talked to Mike on the phone too. Caleb was stable, for now. It wasn’t as dire as it seemed.

  Still, I was a mess. Coach Dalton didn’t force me to stay those last two days, but what choice did I have? We had that final game in the championship, blew Spain out of the water, and I took the first flight back to California before the dust had even settled on the court.

  My feelings for Raelynn were never something I could fully dwell on once I arrived back home. Caleb was in the NICU for a week and I barely got to visit him because of all the restrictions at the hospital, not to mention, once he was released, Shelby and I were still finalizing our divorce and barely on speaking terms. The custody arrangements hadn’t been worked out, and since she was exclusively breastfeeding, Caleb had to stay with her. It was a fucking mess. I was drinking more and losing focus. I didn’t return phone calls and missed offseason practices. I barely saw my friends and teammates and considered ending my contract with Los Angeles, taking a year off, or even quitting the game altogether.

  Through it all, somehow, during dark moments and lonely times, I thought about Raelynn. I wondered what she was doing, how she was, if Patrick still messed with her, if people were tipping her well at Dale’s, if her grandmother was still doing okay. On my worst days, I imagined she’d moved on from me and had a boyfriend. I pictured her with some guy from her small town. The two of them settling down together, starting a family. I bought plane tickets to Texas four times, telling myself I was just going to show up and see her, convince her to give me a real chance. I’d pack my bags, drive to the airport—one time I even made it all the way to the gate, and then I looked at my life and realized I had nothing to offer her. Everything was chaos.

  Even after Caleb made it out of the woods, he was a small baby. The first few weeks were touch and go, and his pediatrician was concerned with his failure to thrive. Shelby and I argued about our custody agreement, and I still couldn’t stand to be in the same room as Mike. A part of me hoped their romance would fizzle out once Caleb arrived, not because I loved Shelby still, but because I was miserable and I wanted everyone else to be miserable too. But Mike didn’t disappear no matter how much I wanted him to.

  Slowly, over time, Caleb started growing, and since then, that boy has never stopped. He’s an eater. Anything we put in front of him gets shoveled into his mouth, and now, he’s off the charts for height and weight.

  Against all odds, we adapted to our nontraditional family dynamic. I learned to live with Mike. He learned to defer to me concerning my son, and Shelby and I eventually agreed that we would split time with Caleb down the middle, though she takes him more when I have a heavy travel schedule, and I get more days with him during my offseason.

  A few months back, Mike and Shelby even got married, and though I didn’t attend the small ceremony, I was somehow…okay with it all, even somewhat happy for them. Don’t ask me why. I guess I just know that Mike’s good with Caleb, and I’d rather Shelby be with someone I can trust around my son.

  So here we are. One big family.

  So what if I’m lonelier than ever? So what if I haven’t had time or interest to delve into dating since I left Raelynn behind in Texas? I’ve been focusing on being a dad, and right now, that’s the most important thing in my life. There’s no room for anything else. Caleb needs me.

  “She’s here, Ben,” Anthony repeats like he wishes he could shake some sense into me.

  I turn and walk away from him.

  I don’t know what he wants from me. I’m still not even convinced he saw her. He’s my friend and he wants the best for me, but telling me Raelynn is here, giving me that hope…

  I just can’t do it again.

  I can’t go back to that place.

  In the morning, I wake up when a foot collides with my nose.

  Jesus Christ.

  I jolt awake and look over to see Caleb sleeping sideways on the pillow beside me.

  I went in and got him out of his crib last night. I don’t do it all the time. I know Shelby would kill me if she knew I was messing with his sleep habits, but I was away a lot last week and I didn’t get to see him much yesterday either.

  I shift him and tuck him in right beside me. He stays like a limp noodle, totally out.

  I glance over at the time, and once I see it’s past five AM, I know there’s no chance I’ll be able to fall back asleep. Even if I do, Caleb usually wakes up around six.

  I grab my phone, keeping the light directed away from Caleb, and ignore the emails piled up. I scroll through social media, get bored, open the Kindle app, read a few pages, then get bored of that too. I glance over at Caleb to make sure he’s still sleeping, and then I open the internet browser and pause. I haven’t looked into Raelynn in months. It was a bad habit I needed to break, stalking her like that, perpetually hungry for details about her life. Now though, since last night, I’m too curious to resist the urge. What if Anthony was right? What if she’s back in California? I type Raelynn’s name into Google alongside Caltech, and I’m surprised when a new result propagates. I’d done the same thing in the past, and there were only the old articles about her scholarships and grants. There’s a link to the Caltech directory for her specific department. The page has a list of faculty, administrators, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students. Raelynn is listed among the graduate students, and her name is a link as well. My pulse pounds as I click on it, but then disappointment follows swiftly when I see how little information the page actually contains: just her email, department, faculty adviser, and the physical address for the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics.

  I go back to Google and try a different combination of search criteria. I don’t delve too deeply into the implications of what I’m doing. It’s early and I’m lying in my dark bedroom, and I can almost live in denial. It’s not until I combine her name with her faculty adviser that a course website and PDF syllabus appears. At the top of the syllabus there’s a class name, time, and location.

  I stare at it and contemplate doing the unthinkable.

  Then Caleb stirs and I turn my phone off quickly, setting it face down on my bedside table like I’ve been caught. He pops his head up, his short curls flying in every direction.

  “Morning, buddy.”

  He tries to say morning back to me and he’s almost got it.

  “I brought you into Daddy’s bed last night.”

  He looks around, assessing the room. Then he laughs and throws himself on top of me, his head slamming into my rib cage.

  “Ow! You stinker, that hurts.”

  He only laughs harder, climbing on me. I tickle underneath his chin and he really loses it, and then I slide off the bed, grabbing him by his legs, and swing him up and into my arms.

  “Let’s go eat breakfast.”

  “Eggs!”

  “How about a waffle?” I ask him, playing our game.

  “Eggs!”

  “Cereal?”

  “Eggs!” he repeats vehemently.

  “Ohhh, you want some scrambled eggs. You should have told me.”

  My housekeeper, Nina, and Donna are already in the kitchen when I arrive with Caleb in my arms. He squeals and wriggles and demands to be put down so he can run over and cling to Donna’s leg.

  “Good morning, baby,” she says, rubbing her hand through his curls. “I went in to check on you this morning and you’d mysteriously disappeared from your crib.”

  Her gaze slices up to me, and I wink. She laughs and shakes her head.

  “Are you cooking breakfast or do you want me to whip something up?” she asks me.

  “I’ve got it. In fact, I’ll be fine with Caleb most of the morning. I just have to go in this afternoon to review film.”

  “That’s fine. I have a date with my coffee and The Today Show. Don’t you two bother me.”

  She tries to walk away, and Caleb clings to her leg.

  “Has anyone seen Caleb?” I ask, starting to turn in a circle as if looking for him.

  He erupts into a fit of giggles.

  “Caleb? Caleb?”

  He lets go of Donna and runs over to tug on my pajama pants, trying to get my attention.

  “Cay-yub. Cay-yub,” he says, trying to alert me to where he is.