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He led her away from the basketball court to a patch of trees. It was hardly a good time for this, with the game about to start, but Jack wanted to remind himself what she meant to him.

As they walked, he considered how fondling her felt easier than reaching out to hold her hand. He convinced himself he was avoiding that because of his ashy palms. But Becca grabbed his hand. She made no comment on his skin and laughed about something Jack did.

Jack wasn't sure what she was laughing about because he was so caught up in how her sundress twirled. Her olive skin seemed to shimmer. 

She careened ahead. She guided him behind a thin tree—no real shield from the eyes of his teammates. He psyched himself up through this embarrassment with the mantra, let them watch, as if he was Donald fucking Draper; and he kissed her. And her lips were so thick and he watched her shut her eyes and grin. He maneuvered up her shirt, hoping she would let him sneak under her bra. She stopped him but not for any moral reasons his previous girlfriends would have guilted him with.

"I don't have time for that," she said with a giggle. She teasingly stuck the tip of her index finger between his lips. He heard his teammates oohing. 

Becca could be flirty and make it look effortless. Perhaps that's what dragged him in to Becca to begin with. Becca could seduce with a flick of her eyebrow or a change in her voice that was so smooth it made Jack nervous—nervous that he could not match her smoothness.

He had tried. He took her dancing once. And when she invited him to dance with her, he had three objections ready: his leg was hurting, he was too drunk, too tired. After some drinks he joined a line dance, but that was it.

Maybe he would stop taking her dancing. Gorgeous Colombians, with their gelled hair and tight pants, shook their hips and made Becca laugh while they salsa'd her around the dance floor like a poodle at a dog show. Jack was the jealous type. 

"You'd better get out there," she said, jolting him from his anxious thoughts.

The whistle blew and he was running the basketball court. Every time he sank a three-pointer he would touch his thumb to his lips and point at the sky like Steph Curry. He praised Jesus for his team's win. Then he remembered he had to go to the food pantry later that evening. No, I get to go, he told himself. 

At the food pantry, he guided the poor around their circle of food options—food deemed past its shelf-life by Walmarts. None of them made eye contact with Jack. He tried to make jokes and say nice things like, "Hey nice jacket," but he never got much response—just the occasional courtesy grin. 

He called Becca on the way home, but she didn't answer. He played Lauren Daigle on Spotify and considered picking up Jack in the Box. Or maybe Taco Bell? He had spaghetti in the fridge but he didn't feel like heating it up. He found himself passing all the food places, and ended up parked in front of his apartment that, from this angle, looked like a prison.

But when he got to the front door Becca opened it. Jack's eyes filled with tears all of a sudden and he tried to hide it, but he couldn't hide shit from Becca.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah yeah, just tough seeing the poor today, you know? Sometimes it just hits me." He didn't know why he said that. The poor certainly didn't make him feel this much. He sensed Becca knew that too so he changed the subject. "I didn't think you'd swing by today," he said.

"I thought I'd surprise you."

He looked past the kitchen and saw a Little Caesars box on the dining room table. 

"The most underrated pizza place. You know me too well."

"Yeah I do," she said. She turned around and nudged her butt at him, willing him to slap it. Her smile brightened the kitchen. He slapped her ass, but softly. He was suddenly drowning in a familiar emotional place where he felt tired and lonely and worthless all at once. 

"What's up?" she asked. He laughed to hide his feelings, so she wouldn't caught on to his drastic emotional shift. 

Okay, maybe I can hide some things from Becca.

"It's been a weird day." He poured himself a glass of water to distract himself. Calm down, dude, he told himself. Just calm down.

"Oh yeah, the poor," she said without sarcasm. "Let's eat."

They mostly ate in silence. And Jack could tell that Becca was picking up more and more on his mood. He was becoming less and less able to hide it.

She gave the most caring, "Are you okay?" that Jack had ever heard.

"Not really," he said. He started crying in bursts, and Becca gave him tissues. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

Becca just waited while he smothered his loud sobs by tightening his chest until he felt like it might burst. He was afraid she would take it personally and say, "How can you be so upset when you have me?"

But she just listened. She put her hand on his ashy hand and said, "What feels wrong with you?"

"I don't know," he said. "I feel like I'm just fucking my life up. Like I'm supposed to be doing more. I used to feel like I had it all figured out."

And Becca just squeezed his hand tighter. She nodded her head as if she'd felt the same way a thousand times. And they sat together and ate pizza. He could taste the pepperoni now that he was relaxed. The movie 300 played on TV and they laughed at its corniness. And Jack cozied up on his sectional, snuggled with Becca, and let his little Chihuahua nip at his hand for attention.

Jack wasn't sure when, but at some point he fell asleep. The last thing he remembered was Becca's kiss on his lips.