Love With Training Wheels

Maya isn’t looking for love. When her virtual world collides with her real world, she’s bound to crash headfirst into it.

Maya has a hard time saying no. She’ll say yes to helping her friends, to extra errands for her elderly neighbor, and to chasing another virtual jersey with a mystery guy on her bicycle training program. Maya wishes she could say no to Ethan, the great-grandson of her neighbor, who keeps handing off his chores to her, but she can’t.

Ethan is only a voice on the phone to Maya, and the mystery guy she trains with is only a virtual avatar on a screen. When Maya finally meets Ethan, they grow close, and she’s torn between him and the mystery guy she only knows as Mr. Awesome. Mr. Awesome understands Maya and helps her train for a spot on an esports cycling team. But when a crime destroys her opportunity and her neighbor ends up in the hospital, Maya will have to learn to say no. Can she do it, even if it means hurting someone she loves?

Race into this sweet sports romance and get sucked into the draft of Maya chasing after her heart and her pain when she throws off the training wheels of love too soon. Can Maya recover and who will be there to help pick her up?

If there’s a scent worse than cat pee, I haven’t encountered it in my seventeen years. I push open the screen door and in addition to the scent of old stuff and mildew, I catch a whiff of feline urine. The pungent odor causes my nose to twitch.

“Ethan.” I hiss his name under my breath. I’ve never met the guy who tops my list of least favorite people.

“Maya?” An aged voice croaks from an adjacent room as I step into the entry hall. “Is that you?”

The screen door bangs shut behind me. “Yes.” I adjust the package and envelopes in my hands. Who else would it be? I’m the only one who stops by every weekday at the same time for the last month. “I have your mail.”

I pass between the dining room and kitchen into the living room where Helen sits in a recliner with her feet up and a fluffy, yellow cat in her lap.

“Let me see.” Helen holds out her hands and I place the mail in them. She shuffles through the envelopes, most of which are junk mail. Helen’s thin eyebrows squish together as she shakes the box. She’s addicted to ordering useless things from catalogs aimed at the senior population.

“Do you want me to open it for you?” I ask.

“Yes.” Helen returns the items to me. “Thank you.”
I set the mail on the large oval table in the dining room, which is used for storage and not eating.

“Did Ethan stop by yesterday?” I crane my neck to see Helen around the wall separating the two rooms.

Helen nods, her focus on the television as she strokes the cat, Luna. “Yes. He brought me a tin of cookies.” Helen’s voice brightens as she talks about her great-grandson. “They’re on the counter in the kitchen. You’ll have to look at them.”

I roll my eyes. Ethan is the reason the house smells. Luna is picky and needs her litter box cleaned every day or she chooses somewhere else to empty her bladder. The scent is strong today, which means Ethan didn’t take care of Luna during his weekly Sunday afternoon visit. I really hate cat pee and Ethan belongs with it in the litter box.

I grab the box cutter and slice open the heavy tape on the package. Helen has arthritis in her hands and after a failed attempt to open a box, which resulted in blood, I’m the package opener. I pry the flaps of the small box back and pull out two objects covered in bubble wrap.

“What is it?” Helen’s mind is clear and high functioning for a ninety-one-year-old woman, but because she orders a catalog worth of stuff, she can never remember what is arriving and when.

I clasp the objects in my hands and return to the living room. “They look like cat shaped salt and pepper shakers.”

“Let me see.” Helen motions with swollen fingers for me to hold the shakers in front of her. She touches one, grabs it with a clumsy motion, and strokes the ceramic object as if it has fur. “Ah. Yes. I remember. I thought they looked like Luna.” Helen hands the shaker back to me. “You can put them on the table.”

I don’t dare ask what Helen will do with them. I know she won’t use them for their intended purpose. Ancient salt and pepper shakers sit near the stove, and they haven’t been used in years. Helen doesn’t cook. I help make her meals or she has them delivered by the senior care program.

“What did you do with Ethan?” I place the box with the comical cat shakers on the overcrowded dining table. The romance book of the month I opened last week sits on the table, as does a lighted magnifying glass I couldn’t get to work out of the box. I expect I’ll have to return it later this week.

“He couldn’t stay long,” Helen says. “But he’s going to start taking me out for lunch on Sundays.”

“That’s nice,” I say.

Helen won’t ask about my weekend at my dad’s. She never asks about my life, and it doesn’t bother me. Helen might seem selfish, but I think she’s rather intuitive. I don’t offer up facts about myself because I’m not one for people prying into my business, though Helen is the only business I have, or rather, community service.

“I’m going to clean Luna’s box now,” I say.

“Don’t forget to feed her and wash her water bowl,” Helen says as I pass on my way to the laundry room.

“Sure,” I say.

It’s the same reminder every time. I like things with Helen are predictable, but at the same time, it’s kind of annoying. I’ve been stopping by Helen’s house on weekdays since early August. My mom hooked me up with Helen to fulfill my twenty hours of community service required by my school for my senior year. It started as mail retrieval, taking out the garbage, and has morphed into running errands, preparing meals, and doing whatever else Ethan once did and passed on to me.

Luna’s litter box is full and saturated. I grumble Ethan’s name as I dump the contents out and replace the litter. All he has to do is scoop the poop and I take care of the rest, but no, the precious college freshman can’t even do this one thing to help his great-grandmother. I should get the tin of cookies for all the help and freedom I give Ethan.