There were a very little amount of things that could ruin days such as these. The ones where the sun felt more like a blanket than a burn, coaxing you into a dreamy sort of stillness. Where the smell of cut grass and flowers drifted through the air, mixing with the faint chlorine bite from the pool a few yards away.

You’d carved this spot out together, his house in the off-season turning into something almost mythic in your mind. A bubble that made the outside world feel like background noise. You liked it best like this: lazy, a little too hot to do anything real, stretched out together on the big old daybed he dragged out to the patio last spring. Pillows were piled high, your sunscreen-slick legs tangled with his, the ice in your glasses melting faster than you could drink it.

Joe had you tucked tight into the crook of his arm, your book balanced on your stomach while he hand held his phone at an angle in front of himself. The screen flickered with some basketball game he’d pulled up, volume turned so low it almost blended into the hum of cicadas in the trees—almost being the problem.

It was the third squeak of sneakers and muffled cheers that made your eye twitch. You huffed, digging the heel of your foot into the side of his calf. It wasn’t anything hard enough to really hurt him, but sharp enough to say turn it down without actually speaking.

He exhaled a pointed breath through his nose, thumb tapping at the buttons on the side of his phone to lower the volume for all of two seconds before you hear it rise again.