Capturing You

Chapter 32: Opener and Closer

I could breathe easier as soon as they won. Joe and I talked about what we would do after the game, win or lose, and we agreed that I would meet him outside of the locker room and we'd go back to his place with a pie from Funky Anchovy. After that dreaded press conference, of course. So, I waited patiently for him, taking a seat and editing a small batch of photos at a set of couches right outside the locker room. The last set of photos I'd possibly ever edit for the Bengals.

I was no longer the new girl, so I didn't have to get pictures in to Elena immediately after the game like I used to — but there was a quality to mine that she said she preferred, though I'm wondering if it garnered more clicks if people knew that the photographer was none other than the quarterback's girlfriend.

Again, Joe's departure from the locker room felt stalled. Other players greeted me as they left the locker room and headed home to their families, and by now Joe would have launched out of there like a rocket to sweep me in his arms and take me away. I hated that this was something I was even aware of. Avery before she started dating someone like Joe Burrow would have never noticed such a thing. I edited a few more photos before emailing a small package to Elena and shutting my laptop, stuffing it into my backpack and standing up. He had to come out soon.

A couple of minutes passed before Joe emerged, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and throwing me a casual smile and a head nod. It was bizarre – like I was a classmate he was passing by in the hallway. But he threw his arm over my shoulder and tucked me into him to kiss the top of my head, which was one of my favorite things he did, and that eased me a little. Maybe he was just tired.

"Hey, congratulations, Burrow," I told him softly, smiling in admiration at him. "I knew you could do it."

"Thanks, baby," he said, leading the way from the locker room towards the conference room. We were all advised to take a separate way out than the general crowd for obvious reasons. At the end of the hallway, I could see reporters and photographers waiting to ask him questions, Coach Taylor already buffering for the time it took Joe to come out.

Before we got too close to the conference room, Joe stopped me and put his hands on my shoulders. I furrowed my brows at him. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "Listen, it might be a long presser – first game back and all, and it was a win. It's late, and I don't want you to wait up for me too long."
"Oh," I said. Maybe this was the sort of thing he would have told me last year, too, if we had started dating then. Given everything that was going on, though, I couldn't help but feel like it was his gentle way of pushing me away. I wished it was a shove instead; that would have stung less. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." He placed his large hand on the side of my face and looked at me, just at me, and made me feel like I was the only person in the world. He kissed me. "I love you, Ave."

"I love you too, Joe," I told him, nodding. I tried to understand. We couldn't spend as much time with each other now that football season was back; he had a job to do. And so did I.

-

The week passed in a flurry of packing up a couple of suitcases and eating all my food in the refrigerator so that my apartment would just be a shell while I was away in Paris. Joe had somehow convinced me that he would take care of paying for my place for the duration of my internship, and to make me feel better about it, he would spend a few nights there or open it up as a guest room for anyone in his family who was visiting. Given all the home games that I would be missing while I was away, it worked out well.

Joe drove me to the Cleveland Hopkins airport, all the way to the farthest set of terminals that were departing internationally. My stomach was bubbling the whole way there, and I couldn't help but fidget with the promise ring Joe had given me. My conversations with him were brief, like we were strangers, but he was gentle; he knew that my mind was going hundreds of miles a minute. He kept a hand firmly on my lap, every now and then reaching up to pet my head and tell me it was going to be okay. And yet it felt like it was definitely not going to be okay.