I hug him hard. His arm goes around my back, and his face goes into the side of my hair. He smells like the rink and soap, and faintly, like my fabric softener, because his hoodie has gone through my dryer at some point in the last week.
I pull back and look at him. “This is good.”
“Yeah,” he says, looking down at me. “Knew you’d think so.”
I smile up at him. He kisses my temple, my nose, then my mouth. He brushes his tongue against mine for a minute too long, and Penelope, from the couch, says, without looking up, “I’m right here, you two.”
Blue says into my mouth, “Hi, Pen.”
He kisses me again.
We end up on the couch next to Penelope. He hooks his arm around my shoulders and pulls my legs over his lap. He puts his hand on my shin. This has become our thing on the couch in the last two weeks — my legs across his thighs, his hand on my legs.
“Coach told me he had been watching me favor the right side for a few weeks and was about to bench me.”
“Blue!”
“Yeah.”
“If you had been benched —”
“I would’ve blown it.”
He pauses, grinning into the side of my hair.
“Coach has me on a manageable load plan. I don’t get the penalty kill. No fights. I play my line, two-way responsibilities only. He said I am asking you to be a professional, Golding, and you are going to be a professional.”
“That’s good.” I nod.
He agrees. “My girlfriend said don’t pick a fight , and I have not picked a fight in three weeks.”
I press my mouth together. “Mhm. You’re not a naughty boy anymore.”
“Only for you, baby.”
Penelope huffs, “You two are too much.”
We smile at each other.
The week settles.
That night we study at my kitchen island. He has a quiz on Friday and a problem set due Thursday. I have a forty-page policy memo for my social work professor that I have been avoiding for a week. We eat takeout so that we can get the work done and not have to cook and clean. Blue stays the night. He drives home at six in the morning for practice. He kisses me at the door before he goes. I fall back asleep with his hoodie wrapped around me.
On Wednesday, I have class until four. He texts me at three. PT went good. They iced me after. I love you. I read it walking out of the building, and I have to lean against the brick wall outside for a second because my heart cannot handle being texted I love you by Blue Golding. It still doesn’t seem real.
Wednesday night, he comes over again. I cook something simple. We watch a movie. Penelope is at the kitchen table with her studio crit due Friday, and she is panicking. Blue helps her carry her project across the apartment to the door so she can take it to her crit space at nine PM.
Thursday is the home game.
I’m getting ready at six. I’m in the same blue sweater when he tossed the puck to me. I keep the puck on my nightstand and touch it every morning when I wake up and every night when I fall asleep. My hair is half-up the way Blue likes it. Mila is on the floor of my room with her own makeup bag, doing her eyeliner in the small handheld mirror she carries everywhere. Penelope is at the kitchen table, recovered from the studio crit, eating a yogurt and reading.
My phone buzzes.
Blue: I did warmups and the shoulder’s good.
Me: Hell yeah!
Blue: Yeah.
