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“Which they didn’t notice because they don’t have your dynamic sight.” He motions at the chair in front of him, and I plop my butt down on it. Max leans forward and whispers, “I’m married to hockey.”
“Oh.” I frown at the mix of annoyance and relief roiling in my gut. “You weirdo.”
He turns off his headphones and sets them down, giving me his full attention. “Aren’t you the same?”
I busy myself by taking my laptop and a few other trinkets from my bag.
“Sure. Fully committed, until death do us part sooner or later. Hopefully later.”
“Exactly. Having to take so much time out of training for schoolwork is almost like cheating already.”
My eyebrows go up. He seems to mean it.
“Oh.” I tilt my head. “So you actually want to go pro?”
“Don’t you?” Cassiano blinks at me, as if confused. “Go pro or die trying?”
For the second time today, he sucks the air out of my lungs. But this time for an entirely different reason.
He reels back when he sees the change in my demeanor. The memories of almost dying while trying rush back, and a switch flips on, sending my nerves into overdrive. The flare of stress-induced pain along with the arrogance of someone who doesn’t even fathom it turns my whole demeanor from curious into sour grapes.
Cálmate, I tell myself. He doesn’t know I almost did die trying.
“Let’s just get to work,” I snap, and for the entire session, I’m unable to look up from my laptop screen.
CHAPTER 13
MAX
You know when there’s something in the back of your mind that’s bothering you, but you don’t know what it is?
That niggling feeling doesn’t leave me the entire week. I train on and off the ice, go to class, study, eat, and even shower, trying to pinpoint it. I work my brain so hard that I become unable to use my mouth. In fact, I miss a couple of yes, sirs to Coach Green during practice that earn me extra skating time.
The eureka moment only occurs when I’m sitting at O’Malley’s with the Bolts. I’m scarfing down a burger when the Strikes walk in and my eyes settle on their captain. It’s as if a voice in my head says her. It’s because of her.
“If my roommate teases me about our loss one more time,” Nate says, balling up a dirty napkin and throwing it onto his empty plate with violence, “I’ll get kicked off the team because I’ll wring his neck.”
“You too?” Conor shakes his head. “It’s like we were all paired with roommates who hate hockey.”
“Not hockey.” I speak without tearing my eyes away from Tinker Bell, who hasn’t noticed me yet. “They hate everything sports. It’s not intellectual enough.”
Nate rolls his eyes. “Obviously they don’t understand the game.”
Not only is it packed with rules, but the strategies are full of nuance. We have to consider the skills and condition of each player, juxtaposed with the performance of the opposite team. All this on top of being a contact sport where the action is very, very fast, and decisions have to be made in fractions of a second.
See? I even know the word juxtaposed. I have more neurons than Brett gives me credit for.
It’s not him who had me annoyed the whole week, though. I’ve barely seen him since class on Monday. That last bit can be said about Tinker Bell too. Aside from our library study session, we’ve barely crossed paths at the facilities. But I can trace the beginnings of my funk back to that moment, when her expression shifted from easy-going to an impenetrable fortress.
Yeah, my original goal with setting up the session was to make some progress on our project. I’m not in the business of neglecting my studies, no matter how much I want my future to be all about hockey. Having to work with her, though, is like a cherry on top. I’m certain I’d be much less enthusiastic about that class in general if, say, I had to pair up with Brett. Or any of the other snobs looking down their noses at me.
Tinker Bell knows where I’m coming from because she’s there too. And talking with her almost has the same dynamic as playing a hockey game. There’s always a faceoff, every quip is a goal scored on the other’s net, and my heart rate is always high.
Not during that study session, though.
“Ah, so that’s why,” I muse aloud, off tune with the conversation. The guys turn to me.
“What’s why?”
