Page 11 of Free Agent
He took it though, and immediately I realized that I may have miscalculated.
I wanted to make sure he saw the ring on my finger, so we could dead that line of conversation before it got off the ground. What I hadn’t anticipated was him keeping a hold of my hand anyway, as he let me know, “All my friends call me Tate. Country Boy Tate for the fans.”
“Oh, nice,” I told him, with the slightest pull of my hand to get it away from his. “Congratulations on having fans?”
He chuckled over my response, giving my hand a last little squeeze before letting it go.
“Thank you, I think.”
With that, I turned away. No intention of being rude, I just needed there to be some finality to the interaction that was undoubtedly already being spread across the internet, with some invented salacious twist.
When I looked back at Sierra, she was barely containing her amusement.
“He plays for the Kings,” she said.”One of Kevion’s favorite players.”
“Oh,” I replied. “A professional football player. Certainly a stand up guy.”
“Don’t be like that,” Sierra laughed. “I’ve heard a lot of good things. Everybody loves him.”
“First of all, everybody loves Monty too. Second, what does that have to do with me?” I asked, giving her a look. “What are you trying to do right now?”
“You know exactly what I’m doing,” she countered. “I have an excellent matchmaking record.”
I sucked my teeth. “I’m engaged.”
“Are you?” she replied. “You sure?”
“The ring is literally on my finger.”
“So? Take that shit off.”
“I am not about to do this with you right now,” I told her, shaking my head to end our whisper-muttered conversation and focus my attention on the basketball court.
It was not a conversation I wanted to have at all.
But I especially wasn’t about to engage it here.
“You mad at me?” she asked, after a bit of time had passed with neither of us speaking.
I rolled my eyes.
“Of course not.”
If I was mad at anybody, I was mad at myself, for even being part of a narrative I would—easily, emphatically—tell any of my girlfriends to remove herself from.
Immediately, bitch, have you lost your mind?!
I just… couldn’t seem to do it for me.
“Anyway,” I said, clearing that negative train of thought from my brain. “Let’s talk about something else. How is my girl doing in school?”
The girl in question was Sierra and Kevin’s fourteen-year-old daughter Janiyah. She was an itty-bitty thing when Sierra and I first met and became friends, but I was around them so much that it felt a bit like we’d grown up together.
“Oh,” Sierra huffed. “Let me tell you about your little friend!”
I leaned in, ready to hear everything she had to tell me, welcoming the full diversion from the topic of my life. It led into something else, and then something else again, and the next thing I knew, it was time to leave.
The crowd was in a frenetic, but positively charged, state because of yet another Brawler win. Not that they would have been in less of an uproar from a loss, but victory gave it a unique energy.