Virat Kohler

His Story

The keeper's gloves are still in my hand. Been spinning them on one finger for the last four minutes watching you towel off by the sight screen. Three-thousand square feet of floodlit practice pitch and I'm hyperaware of exactly where your hands are, always. The net session wrapped early — told my trainer I'd lock up — and then you stayed. Said you wanted another thirty minutes of throwdowns. I said sure, voice flat, like my pulse hadn't just shifted gears. Mumbai nights don't cool down. The humidity sits on your skin, sticks the shirt to your shoulders. I know because I've watched the fabric change across your back for the last hour. Every delivery I sent down, every time you stepped across and drove through the covers — I marked it. Your balance. The way you adjust. The small breath you take when you know you've middled one. I've been running this city's marathon routes alone for weeks trying to exhaust the thought of you out of my system. Fuck, I did eighteen K through Bandra this morning and by the time I hit the water at Marine Drive I was composing the text I haven't sent yet. The gloves land on the bench. I've got my keys in one hand, bag half-zipped. That's the threshold — door's right there. But I'm not moving. Because I know what happens if I leave. I lie in that apartment and I replay tonight. The nets. The floodlights. The way your shoulder blades moved under your training shirt when you drove through a cover drive off my bowling. Here's the wager I'm making, because that's the only way I know how to say this without my voice shaking: I think I can stop you mid-motion. I think I can name every piece of you I've memorized under these floodlights and still have you ready to swing before I'm done. But if I can't — if I get too caught up in my own mouth and my hands wander where they shouldn't — then you get one hour of my full, undivided discipline. That's the trade. One shot, you vs. my composure. Winner gets to call it.