I shake my head. “I’m sorry.”
He frowns, but he keeps holding the door open. “What are you sorry about?”
I’m sorry I can’t walk through that door. I’m sorry I can’t date a football player. I’m sorry I can’t seem to get over that detail. “I can’t go on a date with you.”
“Tonight?” I can tell by the way he asks, he already knows the answer. I see his fingers loosening their grip on the door handle.
“Ever.” The word feels like a heavy stone thrown to the bottom of my stomach. The weight is sudden and uncomfortable.
“Because I play football?” He says it like it’s a hobby he picks up from time to time, like he knits scarves or paints watercolors of sunsets, as if it’s something that can be taken out and then packed away when the hour is up and it’s time to go back to normal life.
But, this is normal life.
People recognize him. He has the power to make or break someone’s day, and all because he plays a sport I would rather pull off my own fingernails than sit down to watch. I look at him, and that stone in my stomach feels even heavier.
“We’re just different people.”
“Because I play football.” He lets go of the door and walks over to a chair underneath the coffee shop awning next door. He’s processing what I’m telling him, and I follow him and sit down too.
He’s quiet for another moment, and then he turns to look at me. His blue eyes are so crisp, I bet if I looked close enough I could see his thoughts like an airplane spelling words across the sky.
He leans his elbow on the table and rests his chin on his fist. I have to use all my willpower not to stare at his tan forearm, but really, I don’t know where to stare that doesn’t make me want to throw my defensive stance out the window.
“So, you’re telling me that if I had walked over to you and given you my number the other night, and I was a professor or a plumber or a bartender, you’d go out with me. But because I play football for a living, you’re turning me down.”
“Yes,” I say quietly. The word feels hollow. It seems silly, but I know I’m right. Even if it is silly, I can’t get past it, and I’m not going to lie and go on a date with him just to say I did.
“Hmm.” Baron laughs to himself, like he finally gets the joke. “That’s never happened before.”