LaMarcus waited patiently for his date to say something. She was the desperate one, right?
“Um, well, I like going to art galleries,” Jennifer offered, sipping her coffee.
“Art is okay,” LaMarcus said with little interest in his voice. “I like sports better.”
“Oh, that’s right, your profile said you play for the Portland Trailblazers. My ex used to love playing ultimate frisbee!”
“Ultimate frisbee?” Lamarcus asked, confused.
Jennifer’s enthusiasm was unflagging. “That’s what you play, right? I love how everybody who plays it isn’t some roided-up jockmonster. No offense towards you, of course. I’m sure it helps to be tall, then you can just throw the frisbee over everybody’s head!” She laughed at her own cleverness as Wes scribbled more words on his newspaper.
“Actually, I play basketball,” LaMarcus corrected. How could somebody who lived in Portland not know? “That’s what the Blazers play. Basketball. Not frisbee.”
“That’s too bad,” Jennifer said. “So, what do you for your real job?”
“Basketball.”
“Get ouuuuut. Really?” Jennifer asked, disbelief evident in her tone. Her eyes, tucked behind square-rimmed glasses, searched LaMarcus’ face for evidence of dishonesty. “That makes being a yoga teacher sound super lame.”
“You’re a yoga teacher?” LaMarcus asked, eager to talk about something other himself. Only desperate people talked about their own accomplishments. That’s what Wes had said.
“Well, not really. I take the classes sometimes. Right now I live with my parents and do freelance writing.”
Writing? Like “poems” writing or “journalist” writing? LaMarcus was about to ask when he noticed that his teammate was holding up another hand-written sign.
On this one, Wes had written way too much, and the purple letters were too small to read from across the store. All he could really make out was a big dollar sign at the bottom with some exclamation points.
So Wes wanted him to talk about how much money he made? Jennifer would smell the desperation quicker than if he farted out a whole bean burrito. LaMarcus tried to shake his head “no”.
Apparently, his gesture was not subtle enough, because Jennifer followed his eyes and then turned around to look towards where Wes was sitting. Wes immediately hid himself behind his newspaper, but it was too late. “Who’s that guy that you were looking at? Do you know him?”
“I don’t know him at all. No clue who he is,” LaMarcus stammered. Wes started waving his arms to try to get LaMarcus to start talking about something else.
“He’s behaving pretty oddly. Does he recognize you from basketball?”
“Probably,” LaMarcus said, now not even bothering to hide where his gaze was directed. “A lot of people in this city know who I am.”
Wes, meanwhile, had gotten up from his seat. “GET OUT! GET OUT NOW!” he yelled, before sprinting out of the shop.
“It was cool talking with you,” LaMarcus said, standing up himself. “We should do this again sometime.” He wanted to say he would text her, but remembered how needy that would seem. “Text me.”
With that, he followed his teammate out of the coffee shop.
—
“Dude, pause the game. I just got a text!” LaMarcus yelped, feeling the phone vibrate in his pocket.
“It’s probably from your mom like the last hundred bajillion,” Wes said with annoyance, pausing the NBA 2K match which he was winning handily.
“Not so!” LaMarcus said triumphantly. “It’s from Jennifer!” But as he continued to read, his voice became sadder. “Oh, she says…she says she doesn’t want to go on another date.”
“Well, that’s fine,” Wes said bracingly. “Definitely by now tinder should let you have more swipes. Just hop back on and keep matching all those chicks.”
“You know what, dude? Now that I got rejected I just had a thought.”
Wes looked longingly at the screen where the game was paused. “What thought was that?”
“Maybe I don’t need a girlfriend after all.”
Looking indignant, Wes said, “Then why did you have me be your personal life coach and girlfriend-acquiring slave for the past week? Just for fun?”
LaMarcus ignored his teammate’s question. “I think I’m happy just banging chicks on the side and baching it up the rest of the time. I didn’t realize how hard it is going on dates and stuff. There’s another reason too.”
“What might that be?” Wes snarled.
“I’m thinking I’m not going to stay in Portland anyway.”