Offsides - A Forbidden Summer novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Same Seat
Katie picks Devin's lap for the whole round of 16 match, and the whistle brings a promise of tomorrow's four o'clock kickoff.
The referee waved off the goal, and Devin swore so loudly the dog left the room.
"Offside by a toenail," he said. "A toenail, Kate."
"I told you the yellow shirts were sneaky," I said.
I was standing behind the couch with a bowl of popcorn.
The match was ten minutes old, and I had already decided where I was going to sit.
The couch in the den is deep and grey, and it holds three people easily.
Devin had the middle cushion, one arm along the back, his bare feet on the coffee table.
The cushion on his left was empty. So was the one on his right.
I walked around the end of the couch, put the popcorn in his hand, and sat down on his lap.
He went completely still.
"There's a whole couch," he said.
"The angle's better from here."
"It's the same TV, Katie."
"Then it won't matter," I said.
I settled my weight back against his chest and tucked my feet up beside his thigh.
For a few seconds he held the popcorn bowl in the air.
Then he put it on the arm of the couch and said nothing else.
That was how the first half started.
Devin Hayes is thirty-nine, and he has been my stepfather for three years.
I was twenty-two, home with a new diploma, and my mother was in Denver on a three-month nursing contract, so it was just the two of us in his house, and a month of matches on the big TV.
In the twentieth minute the red shirts won a corner, and Devin leaned forward without thinking.
His chest pressed along my back, and his chin came close to my shoulder.
I felt his breath on my neck, and I didn't lean away.
"Come on," he muttered at the screen. "Come on, come on."
The ball went over everyone's head, and he groaned and sat back.
His hand had landed on my hip to steady me when he moved.
It stayed there.
I watched the next five minutes of football and could not have told you a single thing that happened in them.
At halftime the score was nothing to nothing.
Devin said, "I'm getting a beer," and then he didn't move.
"You'd have to put me down," I said.
"I know."
"I'm comfortable."
"I can tell," he said, very dry.
His hand was still on my hip. His thumb moved once, about an inch, and stopped.
Neither of us said anything about that.
I looked past the TV at the hallway, where the front door was.
There's a blue ceramic dish on the table beside it for keys.
His wedding ring was sitting in the dish, the way it had been for weeks.
I figured teachers lose things. I figured he took it off to run.
He had not looked at that dish once all afternoon, and I did not look at it long either.
The second half was slow, and then it wasn't.
The yellow shirts scored in the sixty-first minute, and Devin shouted and grabbed me with both arms.
He lifted me an inch off his lap by accident, and when I came back down, I felt it.
He was hard.
It was unmistakable, hot and thick against the seam of my shorts.
He stopped shouting.
His arms stayed around my waist, and I could hear him breathing through his nose, slow and careful.
I should have stood up.
Any sensible woman would have stood up, said "sorry," and gone to get a glass of water.
Instead I said, "Did we score?"
"They did," he said, hoarse. "Katie."
"Mm?"
"You should get up."
"The red shirts need a goal," I said, and I stayed exactly where I was.
For the next twenty minutes I didn't move at all.
I held the whole length of my body still against his, and he held his, and the TV went on shouting about a game that no longer mattered.
His heartbeat knocked against my back. His fingers were pressed into my hips, tight enough that I would find the marks later.
The red shirts equalized in the eighty-eighth minute.
Neither of us cheered.
When the whistle finally blew, he let go of me one finger at a time.
"Up, Kate," he said quietly.
I stood. My legs weren't quite steady, and I turned around so he could see my face.
His jaw was tight, and he was looking at the ceiling and not at me.
"Same seat tomorrow?" I asked.
"The quarterfinal's at four o'clock," he said.
"So I'll see you at four."
He finally looked at me then.
"I know what time it is," he said.
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