"Luca." His voice is different now. Careful. "It's a number."
"It's my number. You reached over me and changed it."
He is quiet for a long time. I can hear him breathing behind me. I don't turn around. My fingers are still on the closed laptop.
"You're right," he says. "I should have asked."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"Thank you."
"Luca, look at me. Please."
I don't look at him. I sit in the chair with my knees pulled up and the silence between us filling up with the things I want to say.
He sits on the edge of the bed. I hear the mattress. He doesn't come closer. He doesn't push, patient and steady, and I can feel him waiting.
"Come to bed," he says softly after a while. "Please."
"I don't want to fight about this anymore."
"We're not fighting. Come to bed."
I go to bed. He pulls the covers over both of us and his arm goes around my waist and his forehead presses against the back of my neck and his breath is warm on my skin.
I pick up my phone and open the spreadsheet. His six-eight is still in the cell. I stare at it. I close the app and set the phone on the nightstand, screen down, and his arm tightens around me and neither of us speaks.
?
Chapter 12: Wes
The locker room is loud with the win. The stereo is playing with a song Paulson put on that has a heavy beat. I sit at my stall and pull the tape off my shin pads and drop it in the bin.
Paulson catches my eye across the horseshoe. "Twenty-two, Mercy. Twenty-two before Christmas. That release was filthy."
"You made the pass."
"I made an average pass. You turned it into a highlight." He tosses the towel into his stall and leans against the frame. "You going to celebrate? Dinner? Drinks? Anything?"
"I'm going home."
"You are always going home."
"Then you already knew the answer." I pull off the rest of my gear.
"I did know the answer. I'm asking because I keep hoping the answer changes."
"The answer doesn't change."
"Consistent. That is our guy. Twenty-two goals and he goes home to his couch."
Reeves leans over from two stalls down. "Mercy, that sauce on the goal was sick. Where was that in the second period?"
"It wasn't open in the second."
"That is the most Mercy answer anyone has ever given."
