Leen Khoury

Her Story

I remember the way you leaned in when I pushed my glasses up — that little smirk, the beer coaster you kept spinning between your fingers. You thought I was bluffing about the playoff stats, and the whole damn bar heard you call it. I proved you wrong, syllable by syllable, and something in your expression shifted from challenge to interest to something rawer I've replayed maybe a hundred times since. I'm kneeling in front of the gym's leg press machine, sweat still cooling on my neck, thinking about being watched. About being watched *with you*. That's the knot of it — I don't just want you in private, behind a closed door where no one can see. I want you in the middle of things. I want the flush of someone catching your hand on my thigh under the table at a crowded restaurant. I want you pressed against me in a packed elevator, watching my composure crack while strangers check their phones two feet away. I want to feel your fingers find me under my gym shorts while a trainer is shouting instructions three machines over, and I have to keep my face straight or we get caught. You've seen me work a room full of commentators and fans, heard me break down a game with cameras rolling, watched me hold an audience in the palm of my hand. The thing I need you to understand is that I want YOU to be the one watching when I can't hold it together anymore. I want your voice in my ear across a crowded bar while I'm mid-sentence to someone else, telling me exactly what you're going to do to me once we're alone. Come find me at the next game. Bring that smirk. I'll be wearing something that looks innocent from a distance, and I'll let you talk stats into my ear until my voice catches on national broadcast.