Beautiful Player
Page 10
The waiter came by to fill our water glasses, and we explained that we were waiting on a few more people to join the table.
Max looked back to me. “So you have plans to see her again, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m sure we’ll go out and do something this weekend. I think we’ll run together again.”
I didn’t miss the way his eyes widened. “Letting someone in your private little running headspace? That seems like it would be more intimate than sex to you, William.”
I waved him off. “Whatever.”
“So it was fun then? Catching up with the little sis and all?”
It had been fun. It hadn’t been wild, or even anything all that special—we’d gone for a run, of all things. But I still felt a little shaken by how unexpected she had been. I’d gone in thinking there had to be a reason for her isolation, other than her long work hours. I’d expected she would be awkward, or hideous, or the poster child for inappropriate social behavior.
But she’d been none of those things, and she definitely didn’t seem anything like someone’s “little sister.” She was na?ve and a bit unfiltered at times, but really she was simply hardworking and had found herself trapped in a set of habits she didn’t enjoy anymore. I could relate.
I’d first met the Bergstroms over Christmas, my sophomore year in college. I hadn’t been able to afford to fly home that year, and Jensen’s mother had such a fit at the idea of me staying alone in the dorms that she drove down from Boston two days before Christmas to pick me up and bring me home for the holidays. The family was as loving and loud as one would expect with five kids spaced almost exactly two years apart.
True to form for that stage in my life, I’d thanked them by secretly fooling around with their oldest daughter in the shed out back.
A few years later I’d interned for Johan, and lived at the Bergstrom house. Most of the other kids had moved out or stayed near college for the summer, so it was just me and Jensen, and the youngest daughter, Ziggy. Theirs had come to feel like a second home to me. Still, even though I’d lived near her for three months, and had seen her a few years ago at Jensen’s wedding, when she’d called yesterday, it had been hard to even remember her face.
But when I saw her at the park, more memories than I realized I’d had came flooding in. Ziggy at twelve, her freckled nose hidden behind books. She’d offer only the occasional shy smile across the dinner table, but otherwise avoided contact with me. I’d been nineteen and nearly oblivious anyway. And I remembered Ziggy at sixteen, all legs and elbows, her tangled hair cascading down her back. She spent her afternoons wearing cutoff shorts and tank tops, reading on a blanket in the backyard while I worked with her father. I’d checked her out, like I’d checked out every female at the time, as if I were scanning and cataloging body parts. The girl was curvy, but quiet, and obviously na?ve enough about the art of flirting to earn my scornful disinterest. At the time, my life had been full of curiosity and kink, younger and older women who were willing to try anything once.
But this afternoon, it felt as though a bomb had gone off in my head. Seeing her face was—strangely—like being home again, but also like meeting a beautiful girl for the first time. She didn’t look anything like Liv or Jensen, who were towheaded and gangly, almost carbon copies of one another. Ziggy looked like her father, for better or worse. She had the paradoxical combination of her father’s long limbs and her mother’s curves. She inherited Johan’s gray eyes, light brown hair, and freckles, but her mother’s wide-open smile.
I’d hesitated when she stepped forward, wrapped her arms around my neck, and squeezed. It was a comfortable hug, bordering on intimate. Other than Chloe and Sara, I didn’t have a lot of females in my life who were strictly friends. When I hugged a woman like that—close and pressing—there was generally some sexual element. Ziggy had always been the kid sister, but there in my arms it fully registered that she wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a twenty-something woman with her warm hands on my neck and her body flush to mine. She smelled like shampoo and coffee. She smelled like a woman, and beneath the bulk of her sweatshirt and pathetically thin jacket, I could feel the shape of her br**sts press against my chest. When she stepped back and looked me over, I’d immediately liked her: she hadn’t dressed up, hadn’t put on makeup or expensive workout gear. She wore her brother’s Yale sweatshirt, black pants that were too short, and shoes that definitely looked like they’d seen better days. She wasn’t trying to impress me; she just wanted to see me.
Max looked back to me. “So you have plans to see her again, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m sure we’ll go out and do something this weekend. I think we’ll run together again.”
I didn’t miss the way his eyes widened. “Letting someone in your private little running headspace? That seems like it would be more intimate than sex to you, William.”
I waved him off. “Whatever.”
“So it was fun then? Catching up with the little sis and all?”
It had been fun. It hadn’t been wild, or even anything all that special—we’d gone for a run, of all things. But I still felt a little shaken by how unexpected she had been. I’d gone in thinking there had to be a reason for her isolation, other than her long work hours. I’d expected she would be awkward, or hideous, or the poster child for inappropriate social behavior.
But she’d been none of those things, and she definitely didn’t seem anything like someone’s “little sister.” She was na?ve and a bit unfiltered at times, but really she was simply hardworking and had found herself trapped in a set of habits she didn’t enjoy anymore. I could relate.
I’d first met the Bergstroms over Christmas, my sophomore year in college. I hadn’t been able to afford to fly home that year, and Jensen’s mother had such a fit at the idea of me staying alone in the dorms that she drove down from Boston two days before Christmas to pick me up and bring me home for the holidays. The family was as loving and loud as one would expect with five kids spaced almost exactly two years apart.
True to form for that stage in my life, I’d thanked them by secretly fooling around with their oldest daughter in the shed out back.
A few years later I’d interned for Johan, and lived at the Bergstrom house. Most of the other kids had moved out or stayed near college for the summer, so it was just me and Jensen, and the youngest daughter, Ziggy. Theirs had come to feel like a second home to me. Still, even though I’d lived near her for three months, and had seen her a few years ago at Jensen’s wedding, when she’d called yesterday, it had been hard to even remember her face.
But when I saw her at the park, more memories than I realized I’d had came flooding in. Ziggy at twelve, her freckled nose hidden behind books. She’d offer only the occasional shy smile across the dinner table, but otherwise avoided contact with me. I’d been nineteen and nearly oblivious anyway. And I remembered Ziggy at sixteen, all legs and elbows, her tangled hair cascading down her back. She spent her afternoons wearing cutoff shorts and tank tops, reading on a blanket in the backyard while I worked with her father. I’d checked her out, like I’d checked out every female at the time, as if I were scanning and cataloging body parts. The girl was curvy, but quiet, and obviously na?ve enough about the art of flirting to earn my scornful disinterest. At the time, my life had been full of curiosity and kink, younger and older women who were willing to try anything once.
But this afternoon, it felt as though a bomb had gone off in my head. Seeing her face was—strangely—like being home again, but also like meeting a beautiful girl for the first time. She didn’t look anything like Liv or Jensen, who were towheaded and gangly, almost carbon copies of one another. Ziggy looked like her father, for better or worse. She had the paradoxical combination of her father’s long limbs and her mother’s curves. She inherited Johan’s gray eyes, light brown hair, and freckles, but her mother’s wide-open smile.
I’d hesitated when she stepped forward, wrapped her arms around my neck, and squeezed. It was a comfortable hug, bordering on intimate. Other than Chloe and Sara, I didn’t have a lot of females in my life who were strictly friends. When I hugged a woman like that—close and pressing—there was generally some sexual element. Ziggy had always been the kid sister, but there in my arms it fully registered that she wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a twenty-something woman with her warm hands on my neck and her body flush to mine. She smelled like shampoo and coffee. She smelled like a woman, and beneath the bulk of her sweatshirt and pathetically thin jacket, I could feel the shape of her br**sts press against my chest. When she stepped back and looked me over, I’d immediately liked her: she hadn’t dressed up, hadn’t put on makeup or expensive workout gear. She wore her brother’s Yale sweatshirt, black pants that were too short, and shoes that definitely looked like they’d seen better days. She wasn’t trying to impress me; she just wanted to see me.
