Cole slid into the seat across from me, Phoenix materializing beside him like they’d been attached by invisible string. Cole’s eyes went to my face, cataloged the damage with that same unhurried assessment everyone seemed to be doing this morning, then moved on.
“You visiting your mom today?” he asked.
I blinked. I’d mentioned it once, maybe twice, in passing conversations over the last week. The fact that he’d remembered felt significant in a way I couldn’t quite believe.
“Yeah,” I said. “Supposed to head over around eleven.”
“Where’s she live?” Phoenix asked.
“Bridgeport. South Side.”
Taz materialized at the end of the table with a plate piled high enough to feed three people. He sat down without ceremony andlooked at me with those dark, evaluating eyes. “You shouldn’t go alone.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then realized I didn’t actually have an argument. Three guys had jumped me in a bathroom last night. The fact that they’d been arrested didn’t mean their friends weren’t still out there, still looking for someone to blame for their friends getting arrested.
“I’ll be fine,” I said anyway, because that was what you said.
“We’ll come with you,” Cole said, in that flat, decisive way he had when he’d already made up his mind about something.
Phoenix nodded his agreement. Max looked up from his coffee and said, “Good idea.”
“I don’t need—” I started.
“We know,” Keegan cut in. “We’re coming anyway.”
Cinder leaned forward. “Your mom cook?”
I stared at him. “What?”
“Your mom. Does she cook? Because if you’re showing up with five extra hockey players, she should probably know.”
“Six,” Taz corrected with an eyebrow lift at Ash who nodded again.
“I’m not asking my mom to cook for—”
“Call her,” Max said. It wasn’t quite an order, but it had that ring of inevitability that Max’s suggestions always had. “If she’s like my grand-maman, she’ll want to. Tell her you’re bringing friends. See what she says.”
I pulled out my phone and stared at it for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain this. My mom had been asking about my teammates since I’d arrived in Denver. Asking if I’d made friends, if people were treating me okay, if I felt like I belonged. I’d been giving her carefully neutral answers for two months—yeah, they’re good guys, yeah, it’s fine, yeah, I’m settling in—because I hadn’t known how to explain that I’d been living in a kind of professional purgatory where people were politebut distant and I’d spent sixty-three days wondering if I’d ever actually be part of this team.
I called her.
She picked up on the second ring. “Dante! Are you okay? I saw the game last night, those hits you took, and then I just heard something about a fight—”
“I’m fine, Ma. Little banged up, but fine.”
“Little banged up,” she repeated, in that tone mothers used when they knew you were fobbing them off. “Define little.”
“Bruised cheekbone. Sore ribs. Nothing serious.”
Silence on the other end. Then: “Sore ribs can be serious, Dante Michael Russo.”
The full name. “I know. I’m being careful. Team medic checked me out, I’m good to travel, and I’m still coming over today if that’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay. Are you sure you should be—”
“I’m sure. But, uh, there’s a thing.” I looked around the table at five faces watching me with varying degrees of amusement. “Some of the guys want to come with me. To make sure I’m okay. And they, uh, they want to know if you cook.”
Another silence. Then she squealed in excitement. Then laughed—that full, delighted laugh I hadn’t heard in months. “How many guys?”
