Molly:These men.
Molly:These strong, stubborn successful men. Something about them just gets me SO WET. Bwahahahaha.
Now would be the perfect time to slip our make-out session into this conversation, but something makes me hesitate.
It was a private moment I don’t think Duke would want shared.
Not with his agent's girlfriend.
Me:ANDDdd we’re done here LOL
Molly:All right, all right, all right, I’ll behave…
I tuck my phone back in the center console cup holder and sit back, watching the world whip by as Duke drives. He’s now on a phone call, and I try to drown out his words. At the same time, I try to determine who he could possibly be on the phone with.
“Sure, I gotcha.” He pauses. “I dunno, I like this truck. Might have a hankerin’ to drive myself to Dallas instead of flying.”
Could be Eli, could be the team owner?
“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’ll take too long.” He turns his head and rolls his eyes at me, then winks. “On my way to see the boys since I’m not too far away.” Pause. “Yup, Dallas is a sophomore this year—his throwin’ arm is like a rocket.”
He talks a bit more about his brothers, singing their praises to whoever is on the other end of his call, then a bit more about his mama. He mentions something about a penthouse in downtown Dallas that his mother still owns that he plans to use during the season and the desire to unload the lease on his place in New York.
I find the whole conversationfascinating.
“Your brother’s name is Dallas. I take it he was born there?”
“Conceived.” Duke laughs. “Born in a town south of there. My pops was in Dallas for a game. I was maybe three or four at the time. Mama was stayin’ at a hotel so she could watch the game and not have to drive all the way home afterward. Nine months later, out came Dallas.”
Out came Dallas? He makes it sound like they ordered his brother from a bakery.
“And the younger brothers?”
“The Twins—that’s what I call them. Always into trouble and even though they’re notidenticalidentical, they like to cause mischief.”
“So they’re identical, but they’re not? How does that work?”
“Pretty easy to tell them apart once you get to know them. One’s taller. The other one has darker hair. Drake has freckles. Drew has dimples. Same but different, I dunno.”
“I always wanted to be an identical twin. When I was younger, I had this book series about identical twins, Elizabeth and Jessica, and I would have given anything to have a sister I could play tricks with.” I laugh. “Or oh my gosh, twin daughters. How neat would that be?”
He shrugs. “Sounds horrible. Twin teenage girls? I’ll pass.”
“Oh, come on.” I nudge his arm across the center console. “Teenage girls aren’t all that bad.”
“If you say so.”
We drive on, my nerves starting to get the best of me as we officially enter Madison, Wisconsin, passing the WELCOME TO MADISON sign, HOME OF THE WISCONSIN BADGERS.
“How are you going to explain me to your brothers?”
He glances over. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. What are you going to tell them?”
“That I’m stayin’ with you? They won’t care. They’re so self-absorbed they won’t even realize we’re there.”
But the second we drive up, arriving at a white house off campus with a rickety old porch, a banged-up screen door, and dead plants in the front yard—three overgrown boys come stumbling down the steps, shoving and pushing each other, each trying to reach the truck before the other.