Capturing You

Chapter 23: I'll Teach You

     We drove for a while longer that day and I loved that we had no destination; the vague idea of one was enough for me. I could hardly believe I'd been spending a whole day, uninterrupted, with none other than Joe Burrow. It was both something I had to get used to and learn how to cherish fast, because I knew that his break would only last for so long until it was time for both of us to kick it back into high gear again preparing for the new season. For now, I would relish getting used to having him around.

     Driving around, we talked a lot about life, more about family. I'd asked Joe more about his own since he had probably known all too much about mine already in the last 24 or so hours he had spent in Lake Charles. He told me about how he still lived with his parents, a detail he hadn't disclosed when I visited a few weeks ago to avoid embarrassment. They had been in the slow process of moving things out of his childhood home in The Plains all the way over to Cincinnati, which I didn't blame them for; that explained the peculiar emptiness of his presumed bachelor pad. I was not the type to judge someone's closeness to their family, though he felt the need to justify it by saying he didn't see the point in having a large house with no one to live in it. He added that he wanted to give back to his mom and dad, too, for giving him everything — and I'd come to the conclusion that even if he said it as a passing thought, it was probably the first thing on his mind.

Joe was a full-on momma's boy, too, and I liked that.

     I opened up some more about my mom — not so much the way she died, but how she lived her life. We talked about the kind of mom she was to me throughout my childhood and young adulthood — a great one, I'd said — and how she was an even better wife to my dad. Their relationship was not perfect by any means, and I knew that, and had seen it with my own eyes. They fought often and fought hard, but when they loved each other, that love trumped all of that. And I was a product of that love between them, someone so goddamn stubborn but hardworking and determined.

At lunch, we stopped at a small diner downtown.

     I asked Joe what traits he thought he inherited from his parents and he told me he got his caring nature from his mom and his ambition from his dad. Mr. Burrow was a retired football coach and Mrs. Burrow was a school principal. I'd never met them, but talking about them excited the hell out of me; I'd let myself get anxious about impressing them when the time came. All I knew was that Joe put them on one hell of a pedestal, and they were so lucky to be thought of so highly by their son.

     It wasn't until these deeper conversations on my drive with Joe that I realized I was more family-oriented than I thought. Maybe being farther away from home — being in Cincinnati and all and not having paid a visit down here in about a year — made me all sentimental, but I thought about how much Joe seemed to love his family and how much I wanted to give that same positive energy to mine. I was not the most personable member of the family, taking more to my mom's reserved nature while my dad spoke for all of us with his goofy, instantly likable personality; albeit it came on a bit strong.

     I couldn't explain why falling in love with Joe led me to all of these revelations. Part of me even wanted to reject them, deny that being with him could ever change me — but I thought about how change wasn't always a bad thing, and how sometimes, change can lead to better things. I learned from my parents that love was about bringing the best out of people and supporting them when they were at their worst. The relationship between Joe and I was as fresh as a spring flower first being planted; we could not possibly be so deeply in love with each other. And yet I anticipated the moment I could watch the petals of our relationship fully grow and emit a beauty worth capturing a photo of.

     Around 3 p.m., after I'd spent about 20 minutes scouring for a hotel with Joe's qualifications — "It has to have a pool or something, maybe a jacuzzi in the suite," he said — we'd finally rolled up to where we would be staying for the rest of my trip home, Hotel On The Lake. It was an independently owned hotel, humble; nowhere near the luxury of The Mark back in Cincinnati, but it possessed a southern charm that was both classy and quaint. Most importantly, it was less likely to be as packed as other hotels in the area due to looking more like a bed-and-breakfast than a big chain, and that meant more privacy for the golden quarterback and I to enjoy our solitude.