I'll Find You

I Want A New Drug

I want a new drug, one that won't go away
One that won't keep me up at night
One that won't make me sleep all day
One that won't make me nervous
Wonderin' what to do
One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you
----I Want A New Drug, Huey Lewis & The News

January 16, 2018

She shouldn't have been watching. Cait knew she should have been trying to sleep. Her cold was getting worse, not better, and she had three events this weekend, two Downhill and a Super G. And they were the last events before the Olympic team would be formally named. She needed to rest, to get rid of this cold and to get ready to ski.

But she told herself that since she was awake anyhow, it wouldn't hurt to watch the game. She engaged in blatant rationalization and convinced herself that seeing Grayson play against Miami would be good medicine, if not for her sinus headache, maybe for her pathetic Grayson-starved soul.

So even though the game started at 1:00 a.m. in Italy, she propped herself up in bed with her box of tissues and her laptop and tuned in.

Grayson still wasn't shooting well, but it was even harder to watch him throwing his body around.  Late in the first half, he slipped while driving the lane and grabbed his ankle, causing Cait to practically scream at her laptop.  Her hands flew to her mouth, but she watched him bounce up and then come up with a huge steal so that Gary could hit a three and send them into the locker room with a lead. 

They got behind in the second half, were really sloppy for awhile.  Grayson managed a steal and breakaway dunk.  Even though he wasn't shooting well, he was playing hard.  But she was still worried about him. 

They finally pulled out the win, 83-75.  Gary and Wendell had huge games.  And as much as Cait was relieved, she was concerned about Grayson.

She texted Grayson after the game, but knew he wouldn't be able to look at his phone for awhile. And she needed to sleep. She wasn't taking anything for her cold, because she wasn't going to take any risk of failing a drug test. The World Anti-Doping Agency was constantly updating the list of banned substances and she wasn't about to take any chances.

Unfortunately, the medicine she really wanted was in Durham, and wouldn't be showing up in Italy.  But there was one way to get some sleep that was totally legal. So she downed two shots of whiskey from the hotel minibar and forced herself to close her eyes. And she allowed her mind to wander to the memory of Grayson's hands on her skin.
*****

Grayson saw the text and smiled.  She should have been sleeping.  But he couldn't deny that he loved the fact that she'd watched anyhow.  He quickly sent a response, saying that he hoped she was asleep by now and that she should rest up.  That he was fine and that he loved her.

And he was off on a bus to the airport and then another flight back to Durham, Justin pestering him to talk about Cait again.  But he didn't mind.  He was discovering that it did actually help him to talk about her.  Maybe it wasn't solving whatever was wrong with his shot, but it was helping his attitude. And it wasn't like he could block her out of his mind anyhow.  At least Justin provided an outlet. 

His teammates seemed to have noticed too, and they had started to mention her regularly, even joking about what her reactions would have been to certain things or doing impressions of her.  Grayson rolled his eyes at them and threatened to take video and send it to her, which usually scared them straight for a little while.  But he actually kind of enjoyed the fact that they tried to keep something of her around for him, even if it wasn't the same as having her there.