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After I leave the gym downstairs, I head to the elevator banks when my phone trills. Hollis’s name appears across the screen along with the icon I assigned to him—a sunburst.
Giddy, I answer the call. “Hey there,” I say, hoping he’s doing okay but prepared for him to be in a funk post-game.
“Hey,” he says, a little heavy.
Funk it is. “What’s going on? You okay?” I ask gently as I hit the up button.
“Not really. The game was shitty. It was all my fault.”
“It was a rough game. But there’ll be another one tomorrow night,” I say, trying to cheer him up.
“You watched it,” he says, less a question, more a statement. A sort of dreamy one.
“I did. Are you surprised?”
“No. Just…weirdly happy?”
I smile as the elevator arrives and I step inside. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just liked that you were there even though you weren’t there. I’m not even sure that makes sense. A lot about today didn’t make sense to me, Briar,” he says, like the words are spilling out in a confession. “I felt off the whole time. Do you know what I mean? Didn’t I seem off?”
From the sincerity in his tone, I can tell he wants an honest answer. “I sensed you felt a little out of sync,” I say as the car chugs upward to the eighth floor.
“I did,” he says, but he sounds relieved that I noticed, or really, that I told him the truth. “But I’ve got to do better, Briar. People depend on me,” he says, and this is the side of him he doesn’t usually show. This is the side of himself he fakes for others. He’s being real with me though.
“And you will. It was a one-off game,” I try to assure him.
“You think so?”
“I know so,” I say as the car slows to a stop and I exit on my floor. “Everyone has a bad game. A bad class. A bad day. Even hockey studs like you.”
He laughs, and it sounds like he’s been carrying the world on his shoulders till now. “And I’m so freaking sore.”
I remember him telling me that, too, in Lucky Falls. That he feels beaten up after a game. “You should get a massage. Do it tomorrow. And get some rest tonight, okay?”
“Okay,” he says, and there’s some light in his voice again. “I thought about you while I was on the ice.”
“So it’s my fault you guys didn’t play well?” I tease as I open the door to my new apartment and say hi to my pogo dog.
“Sounds about right,” he says.
“Well, the thinking about you is mutual,” I say playfully.
Hollis lets out a big breath, then like it costs him something, he says, “My mom told me I should call you.”
I startle. “Your mom knows about me?”
“Not really. But sort of. I just said I was thinking about a girl.”
Warmth blooms in my chest at his words. This makes me unreasonably happy. We talk for another fifteen or twenty minutes about his mom, and the game, and Chicago, and this TV show he’s watching and the music I’m listening to, and a funny video I saw, and the fact that the Sea Dogs won and my dad is probably thrilled. When the conversation winds down, he says, “I’ve missed this.”
“Me too.”
“This is us staying friends, right?” he asks, hopeful, but with real longing too.
“It sure is,” I say, and before I can even hang up, my other line is ringing and it’s Rhys. I say goodbye to Hollis and click over. “Hey, how are you?”
“I think I need to see a sports psychologist,” he blurts out.
