“Hey, guys!” KC says through a mouthful of food.
“We were hoping we were the only team to make it on this flight,” Yumi admits readily, screwing up her face.
“Ah, sorry to disappoint.” He does look genuinely sympathetic. “Gabe and I were just grabbing some fuel.” He hoists his burger, like we hadn’t just seen him eating it. “Matt and Morgan were at the food court, too, but I don’t know what flight they’re on.”
“Shoot.” Yumi leans back in her chair, crossing her arms petulantly. Then she suddenly stands. “Disappointment calls for snacks. Noe, you want anything?”
I shake my head. “No thanks, babe.”
She gives me a very Aliona-esque thumbs-up and points at the nearby newsstand. “I’ll be quick.”
“How did your challenge go yesterday?” Gabriel asks, settling his enormous body into the seat across from me. KC follows suit, slinging off his pack.
“Rough. She had to do the tango, and not all of us are dancers for a living.” I give them a look. “How was cooking?”
KC grins at me. “Oh, it wasn’t really cooking. We had to hang beef in the meatpacking district. It was no joke.”
Gabriel nods. “Those things were like five hundred pounds. Ashley and Marina finished before us, they’re beasts.”
It takes me a moment of mental reorientation to place Ashley and Marina as the Cowboys. “Did you—” I’m stunned into silence when KC pulls up the leg of his pants to adjust them, and I see metal where I was expecting flesh.
He catches my gaze before I glance away, giving me an understanding smile. “Surprise,” he says, raising his eyebrows playfully.
“Oh,” I say, shaking my head at being caught off guard. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I was just…”
“Surprised?” he supplies, smiling. “I know. That’s why I said ‘surprise.’ ”
I laugh but wonder how many people he’s had to put at ease about his own body.
He extends his prosthetic leg slightly. “Lost it after a nasty football injury. Some”—he glances at the camera—“jerk went for my knee. Snapped my leg right in two.” He mimes a breaking motion with his hands.
“Bone was sticking out and everything,” Gabriel says, popping the remainder of his burger into his mouth and crumpling the wrapper. He tosses it over KC’s head, landing it perfectly in the garbage can.
“Wow,” I say, scrunching my face up at the visual.
“Yeah, it was gnarly. Infection got bad and they had to amputate,” KC says, like he’s describing a minor inconvenience rather than a career-ending injury. “I don’t hide it, so don’t worry about looking. I just wear pants because it’s more comfortable with the socket.”
“It’s kind of hard to hide an injury like that when you had a career like KC’s.”
I look between them. “I was raised in more of a hockey family. Were you good?”
The two men exchange a grin, delight dancing across their faces.
“Yeah,” Gabriel says, crossing his legs at the ankles. He can barely contain his smile. “Yeah, you could say he was good.”
“So was Gabe,” KC adds.
“Power couple,” Gabriel says, holding out his hand for a fist bump.
“You said you watch hockey?” KC says, eyeing me.
I nod.
“Crazy sport,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m from upstate PA. You know the Penguins?”
I fight back a smile, imagining telling my dad that someone asked me if I knew the Penguins. I hope they air this so we can laugh at it together. “Yeah, I know the Penguins.”
“I don’t want to speak out of turn, but my injury would be like if Crosby took a bad check into the boards and could never play again.”
