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Still, I don’t push it, because the bonds we’ve reestablished are tentative and neither one of us wants to go charging into what could still be turbulent waters between us

A lot of the single guys went out after the game, and I was on my way out too for soo As she had told me before, it just wasn’t her scene anymore, and more than that, she was exhausted She’s still valiantly working two jobs and wanted to get to sleep early She encouragedme she didn’t hed the joy of partying withsome quiet time with Vale, the choice was sort of easy for reat time and that was that

Except Garrett and Max didn’t feel like going out, and Max suggested playing so in pizza and beer And thus here we sit in Max’s hotel room The round table that nor-size bed Garrett and Max have the two chairs opposite of where Vale and I sit beside each other, our knees barely touching

"All right," Vale says after considering her cards and raising those sparkling eyes to me She throws a quarter into the pile and says, "Call"

Garrett and Max had already folded during the last round of betting, having realized what a deceptively good player Vale is Dave is a good poker player and he taught his daughter when she was very young They used to play for Monopoly h with her poor bank account these days, we put a quarter cap on the betting

Max leans to the left and takes a peek at Vale’s cards in her hand His eyebrows shoot high, and that leads ood

Or Max could be playing on Teaht as well fold," Max says with a devious grin as he settles back in his chair and picks up his beer Garrett shakes his head and chuckles

Max and Garrett know about ot up and , but I had told Max pretty much our entire history over beers that day ent out I didn’t spill ht away, and I half expected he had a crush on her, but by the end of the first beer, I realized we had a lot of stuff in common with each other, one of which wasn’t an attraction to the new athletic trainer

Both of us are the oldest siblings in our fahest kind of love We’re both extres, and Max is Canadian as well, although he’s froual but has only a faint trace of the French-Canadian accent that denotes his heritage After talking about fa I kneas spilling the gist of the story to him I didn’t paint details of the breakup nor what it did to h to knoe had a history that had ended on the ugly side of things

By the time Max and I had finished three beers, I cas

First, I needed the truth froht Max pointed out that we’d neverThat’s what proo and pull her out with the guise of taking her to aI learned frole to balance career and relationships is not atypical Max had a high school sweetheart he lost to the distance and rigors of beco a professional athlete He as much as admitted that he didn’t put her first, and didn’t really even realize her feelings for hihtly better about losing touch with Oliver and gave me the final push I needed to reach out to him

While the call ard for all of about thirty seconds, it was clear that Oliver couldn’t have been happier forabout losing touch I apologized He accepted Since then we’ve talked one ether

So with ly back on track, and old relationships reopened and currently being explored, as well as a mutual decision by Vale and myself to move forward--whatever thatany of this froh the locker room with Vale’s name on my hip sort of told the story I admitted to one of my teammates it was indeed Vale the AT who had residence on my pelvis, and by day’s end, the story had spread like wildfire I even got an elad I had reconnected with her

Soain, very literally, very soon

"How about an additional bet?" I ask Vale, waggling my eyebrows at her

"Oh, yeah?" she asks impishly as she turns her cards facedown on the table "Like what?"

"If I e say good night to these two boneheads, you coet to tie you up" I say all of this in a low voice with a direct stare of challenge to Vale Max and Garrett are all but forgotten, until I hear Garrett cough and mutter, "Aard"

Vale neither blushes nor looks offended by irl like the old days, she isn’t afraid of her sexuality either In fact, her eyebrows raise in interest as she stares back at otten to her as well