Spaces in Between

Chapter Seven: James

I stared blankly at the paper. My hand was tapping on my office table loudly and though the thuds of a basketball used to soothe me, this time round, it didn’t. I couldn’t find the words I needed to write my vow for Adrianna and the wedding was just right around the corner. It felt like I was making my English paper and I couldn’t afford to get an F.

“Hey, coach!”

I looked up and stared at my rookie, “Your fiancé’s waiting for you.”

Furrowing my eyebrows and checking my phone if she left a text, I sauntered out of my office, “Ria?”

Adrianna smiled at me and I swear I heard my team make some garbled noise. I glanced at them and they grinned back at me, sheepishly, “She’s just so pretty coach.”

Turning back to her, a blush had already crept on her face. I couldn’t help but smile smugly at my team and then putting an arm around her, I pulled her close, “And she’s mine.”

A chuckle escaped my lips when they pouted but then turn around to return to their practice. I could hear some saying that I was so lucky to have to marry a supermodel; that she didn’t just have a hot body but her looks were to die for. Looking at Adrianna, I knew that they were right. Her beauty was evident even when she obviously did not put on makeup.

“So bachelor party tonight?” she asked, “My brothers’ are insanely excited for it and somehow their excitement had me worried for your wellbeing.”

“They’re not gonna make me do something bad that would put me to prison and then they’ll bail me out just before the wedding right?” I asked, suddenly nervous about tonight although Ethan and Nathan were the ones who planned it. I had to ask Caleb to plan with them too to at least put a sane mind.

When Adrianna shrugged, my nervousness increased a notch, “You have no idea the things my brothers are capable of.”

Wetting my bottom lip, “You’ll bail me out right?”

“I’ll help you with a dead body too,” she replied with a wink.

I couldn’t help but grin at her. She roamed my office, taking in the little and cramped space, “You know I usually imagine since your team is one of the rising ones and nearing to be a part of the NBA, I imagined you having a more spacious office and not something…cramped.”

“Not something that would look almost the same as a high school basketball coach’s office?” I asked, saying the words I knew she wanted to say but refrained from.

When a sheepish smile started forming from her lips, she tried to fight them off but she still ended up giggling, “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“So, it’s not that I don’t love the fact that you paid me a visit,” I started off, “But to what do I owe this pleasure?”

Her brown eyes met mine and they glinted with mischief, “Well, your little sister added me on f*******: and gave me a nice chat about you not knowing what to write for your vow.”

I scratched the back of my neck and cursed Gabriella. I was going to have a nice chat with her later, “Yea, sort of.”

She noticed the blank paper on my desk and then moved to it, “To be honest, I’m having a hard time too which is a first for me. I mean, I can fill an entire page for a vow but when I re-read it, I realize that the vow isn’t for you and that would be unfair.”

I nodded understandably, “And I just can’t really write to save my life.”

She chuckled, “So I told Lily about it and she told me that we should spend the day together.”

“Like?” I asked, pressing on for more details.

Adrianna shrugged, “She said that we could act like friends, or two people getting to know each other, or a couple. Just as long as we have fun so we can have something to write about.”

I nodded and then took her hand and guided her out of my office, “Practice will be over in an hour. Will it be okay with you if we wait for a while? We can grab something to eat after.”

She squeezed my hand and stopped walking, making me halt too, “Can we just grab a bite later? I’m not exactly hungry yet and if you already are, I actually brought you food.”

She pulled something out of her bag and then handed me a bar of chocolate. She had an adorable grin on her face, “See. I heard it’s brain food too. You can think of new plays now.”

I chuckled but grabbed the bar from her and I tore it open, making a show of taking a huge bite, closing my eyes and then opening them, hoping I looked like a crazed scientist, “Brain blast!”

She tried to keep her face straight but then failed and burst into a fit of giggles. She slapped my chest playfully, “You look nothing like Jimmy Neutron.”

I looked around and then pulled her closer to me. And I whispered to her ear, “But I am. I’m James Isaac Neutron. Keep that a secret, I don’t want the FBI to come to me and ask me to invent something.”

She giggled and rolled her eyes, punching me on the stomach, “If you don’t want the FBI to make you invent something then you are now going to invent me something.”

“Oh, I don’t mind being a slave to you,” I replied, winking.

We continued the playful banter as we waited for the team to finish their practice. I had to do my thing a few times but I’ll come back to her after. I made her laugh. I like making her laugh. It makes me happy, seeing her happy and so carefree. And she looks so damn adorable when she giggles and when she has that cute smile on her face that I just want to hold her and then put her in my pocket because she’s too cute to be true.

And I realize one thing though. The reason why I kept giving her pink tulips. She smelled like them. I don’t know if it’s because I practically filled her office with them and the same as with her apartment but the moment I saw the flowers, the scent drew me in. They reminded me of her, seductively fragrant.

“Hey, coach!” One of my players shouted, they were retreating to the locker room, the practice was over, “Stop sniffing her. Might turn her off and cancel the wedding.”

Adrianna turned to me and eyed me as my face heated up. I could bench the kid for doing this to me but he played well, “What were you doing?”

“Hey look, they left some balls. Wanna play?” When her eyes narrowed, I realized the pun that I could’ve meant. Smiling sheepishly, I added, “No pun intended.”

“I don’t know how to play,” she started.

I scoffed, “You lived with three guys your entire life. You do realize that I know all about girls saying they don’t know how to play and when they do, they win because the guy doesn’t realize that she’s actually pretty good at it.”

She raised an eyebrow, taking a ball and tucking it under her arm, “Let me guess, you’ve watched way too many chick flicks.”

“Or I have sisters,” I pointed out before snatching the ball from her and taking a shot, hearing the perfect swish of the net a moment later.

She glanced at the net and then turned back to me, “So what made you be a coach than a player?”

“Tore my ACL beyond repair. Playing would strain it more,” I answered simply, “Dad thought that my injury would’ve made me stop acting out and take the business like I’m supposed to. I ended up as a coach.”

She nodded, not commenting further, “Let’s play?”

When she grabbed the ball and started dribbling, I feigned snatching it from her but somehow, she knew how to dodge me. She ran to the three-point line and I was blocking her, doing my best but also laying it easy on her. When she faked a right and made a shot, I was surprised to see it land just like mine.

“Three points from Adrianna!” she shouted in the empty gym, “And the crowd goes ahh.”

I watched as she spun herself around, arms open wide and her hair falling perfectly on her shoulders. If you look closer, you’ll realize she didn’t even bother putting on the lightest of makeup. It was all natural, and the beauty that she held was beyond beautiful. Ethereal.

I’ve been so busy staring at her that I didn’t realize that she stopped and was looking at me too, “What?”

“I just don’t understand why he left you,” I finally said and this was probably the first time that I was the one who opened that topic. It was usually her, “Someone so beautiful. So charming.”

She looked down at her feet and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, “Maybe beauty wasn’t all that much for him.”

“One day he’ll realize you’ll be the one who got away,” I started, “And he’ll beg for you.”

But when she looked up at me, I saw it again, the flash of hope in her eyes. I blinked, after all this time I was hoping that the time we spent together had somehow diminished that hope, that it helped her forget about him even just a little bit, “It’s still him, huh?”

I couldn’t hide the hurt in my voice. I don’t even understand why it’s hurting me when we’re not even in any kind of real relationship. So we were getting married, but what was the foundation of that? A business deal? “James. It’s not that easy to just completely forget about him. He used to be my everything.”

I nodded and then grabbed the ball, dribbling it, “I know. I get it. It’s hard for me too. Well, before. I don’t know what came over me that made it slightly easy for me now.”

She stayed quiet for a moment and I’m sure she’s lost in her Adam world and I just continued playing with the ball, making shots but also making sure that it doesn’t trigger a slight pain for my injury. And then I remembered it again, that with the pain of being stripped away from playing my favorite gain came the pain of loss too because it was around that time that Georgina chose to break up with me.

She had impeccable timing.

“She broke up with me when I stopped playing,” I said out loud, letting a few of my shots be missed as I went through the memories I chose to lock up, “It was probably the hardest year for me. Losing the chance to be a player and losing the girl I loved.”

Adrianna stood there and watched me, listening to every word I spoke, “She said that it wasn’t because I stopped playing. It was just she was no longer in love with me. And she’s been cheating on me with one of my friends.”

“You’re breaking up with me?” I asked, the confusion dawning in on me, “Why? What’s wrong? George, tell me what’s wrong and we’ll fix it. I’ll fix it.”

Georgina shook her head, “James. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this to you anymore. I can’t take care of you by day and go rendezvous with someone else by night.”

I blinked, “You’re cheating on me? With who?”

I demanded the answers and I didn’t care that she was crying. I was so angry, so hurt and couple it with the pain on my leg, the rage was too much, “James, please.”

I took a hold of her hand, gripping it tightly, “Answer me, Georgina.”

“It’s Christian!” she finally said and I fell sicker than I already was. Christian was my college teammate, we were drafted together to play for the Warriors. He was a good friend.

He was a traitor.

“James, I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

“But shouldn’t you have been angry at her all this time?” Adrianna asked. I already stopped playing and I was sitting on the gym floor and she sat across from me, “She cheated on you.”

I shrugged, “I was so blinded by what I felt for her. I just honestly thought that she was the one.”

She nodded and then we silently passed the ball between each other, both of us still lost in our thoughts. When I used to think of Georgina, pain shoots up in my chest and I have this desperate need to see how she’s doing. I remembered when I got over her betrayal that the first thing I did was leave New York and search for her in LA. I was gone for a month, silently following her in LA, lurking around the corners wherever she was at. I was a stalker. And then when Ethan and Caleb brought me back home, Jade gave me a letter that was from Georgina.

“And what about now?” she asked after a while, “Is she still the one?”

I stopped passing her the ball, choosing to roll it in my palms as I thought about what feelings I had for Georgina. I knew in my heart that there will always be a part of me that will love her, always. But now, now that feeling wasn’t so strong, now I no longer wanted to scour the earth to look for her. I don’t know why a month ago she was still the girl that was always on my mind.

“If you ask my broken self I would’ve said yes,” I said softly, “But now, I’m not so broken anymore. I don’t know how I can manage to say that, how I’m sure that I’m different from the James that I’ve been for the past three years. But I just feel different, you know. Better.

“I would explain to you how it feels but, I just, I can’t put it into words. It’s just that, I feel okay, I feel better,” I said quietly, adding a light shrug.

Adrianna stayed quiet. I didn’t know what was going on in her mind but I wished that she’d share her thoughts with me. I scooted closer to her, placing a hand on her arm. She flinched at my touch for a second but then warmed up. I didn’t expect her to lay her head on my shoulder. I slowly snaked my hands on hers, interlacing our hands. I expected her to shake me off but she didn’t. A quick glance from her, I could see her staring at our interlaced hands.

“One day it’ll be okay,” I found myself saying, “One day you’ll be okay. It happened to me. It’ll happen to you too. Just let it.”