“I can dig it.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What you want?”

“You loving me.”

I kissed her forehead and then her lips. I had been wanting to make love to Mary-Ann for a long time, and I figured I would when the time was right. When she moved against me, I wanted her right then and there.

“Look, can’t we wait?” I said.

“Why?” she whispered in my ear.

I slid my hand along the small of her back and down her hips until I was holding the back of her thigh and wondering why myself.

“Because I want it to be different,” I said.

“No, you don’t.” Mary-Ann turned away from me. “The last thing in the world you want is for our making love to be different because the only way it’s going to be different is if you make a commitment to me. If you can get out of your head long enough to love somebody.”

“Why don’t you split?” I said, pulling my arm from around her. “If you just came over here to fight with me, you can leave now.”

“Are you afraid to say that you love me?”

“I ain’t afraid to say nothing.”

“Then say it, Lonnie.”

“Why?”

“Do you love me?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess so?”

“I love you,” I said, “okay?”

“I didn’t hear you,” she said. “You’re going to have to whisper it very softly into my ear.”

She leaned against me gently, and I turned to her and whispered very softly into her ear that I loved her. She got on her knees on the bed and leaned over me and whispered into my ear that she loved me. Then she turned her ear again to my lips, and I whispered that I loved her, and some other things, and kissed her. I held her for a while, and we kissed as she undressed. I told her again that I loved her as the neon sign from the cut-rate liquor store across the street turned the dirty shade a bright orange.

Afterwards I felt good and bad about what had happened. Mary-Ann had been wrong when she said that I didn’t want to make it different because I didn’t want to make a commitment to her. I did want to love her, to have her for my woman, but it wasn’t easy. I had been holding back for so long that I wasn’t sure if I could love her or anyone else. I looked at her, the sheets twisted about her body as she slept, and knew that I loved her more than anything that I had ever loved before. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her, to let her know how much I felt for her, but I wasn’t sure I could. But I knew, somehow, that I would have to if I wanted her to love me.

I kissed her, and still sleeping, she smiled.

* * *

When Cal didn’t show for practice the next morning, I was disappointed and nervous. I tried to get some enthusiasm in the practice, but it didn’t come. When he didn’t show for the next couple of days, I felt myself pushing the panic button. We played one game without Cal and lost to a mediocre team from Staten Island that we should have beaten easily. When I saw how the guys were acting, how down they were, I knew that they had put a lot of faith in Cal the same way that I had. The tournament didn’t mean as much without someone to play for, without Cal.