Him & I

Nights Are Forever

Soft and low the music moans
I can't stop thinking about you
Thinking 'bout you
I didn't know if would be so strong
Waiting and wondering about you
I didn't know it would last so long
Nights are forever without you
----Nights Are Forever, England Dan and J.F. Coley

November 11, 2018

Grayson was leaving today for another long trip, but Cait found herself getting up very early to take a flight to Durham.  She was meeting her father, Joan and Connor to go to Duke's game against Army.  The game was at 1:00 Eastern, so she probably should have left on Saturday, but she had no intention of leaving Grayson a day early.  Her father had pointed out that if she took a company plane and left early enough on Sunday, she should be able to get to Durham for the game.

That meant getting up before the crack of dawn, but it seemed important to her father that Cait make it to this game.  She knew it was a big deal to him and to Coach, Duke playing Army.  It hadn't happened in a few years. And her father insisted that it was Connor's first trip to a Duke game and that they should share the experience as a family.

So Cait forced herself to get out of bed before dawn and get to the airport.  She really hated to leave, when Grayson would be home until mid-afternoon, but he'd told her to go.  He said he was jealous that she got to go to Durham and to see Duke play.  Grayson woke up enough to thoroughly kiss her goodbye.  They'd see each other in Philadelphia on Friday, but that seemed like forever.

She really didn't want to go, ridiculous as that seemed. She was tired already and she hadn't even left Utah yet. She attributed that to not getting a whole lot of sleep the night before.  But she and Grayson had both been determined to make productive use of their limited remaining time together.  So they'd spent another night just wrapped around each other, Grayson insisting that he was getting better at slow.

At least they weren't flying from Durham back to New York until Monday, since Connor was off for Veteran's Day.  That gave Cait some hope that she wouldn't be completely exhausted.

She arrived in Durham and found the car waiting for her to get her to Cameron.  Her dad had told her to just meet them there, since he wanted Connor to get the full experience.  She walked in just as Everytime We Touch was playing and that made her ache for Grayson to be there.  The last time she'd heard that song in this building had been the day that Grayson asked her to marry him.

She wasn't sure that she was prepared to see a game here that he wasn't playing in.  Or that she was prepared to see someone else sporting that number three.  It felt like it was much too soon for that. 

But Connor was so excited that he was bouncing.  The team had remembered him from his visit in August and they'd all waved and said hello during warm ups.  And when Cait got there, she got waves from them too.

Army turned out to be a bit tougher opponent than Kentucky, amazingly enough. Duke was sloppy with the ball and Cait watched Coach rip into them during a time out. Obviously, the incredible hype that had followed the victory over Kentucky had gotten in their heads a bit.

The defense was spotty, which felt all too familiar. And Duke was only up by eight at the half. In a game they were supposed to win by 40.

Duke opened up a bigger lead in the second half and won 94-72.  And Zion was every bit as good as advertised. But Cait couldn't imagine that Coach would be thrilled with their performance.

After the game, Cait got a steady stream of hugs outside the locker room.  She'd really missed these guys.  Jack and Javin insisted that she had to come out with them to celebrate the win, since they'd probably be running most of practice the day the next day.  Cait pointed out that she didn't want to ditch her brother and they settled on Devine's instead of Shooters.  They did have class the next day, in addition to what promised to be an unpleasant practice, Justin reminded them.