The line clicked dead.
For a split second, I was seventeen again, working the overnight stock shift at a grimy Food Mart on Michigan Avenue. Scrubbing my hands raw with cheap soap after every shift, trying to scrub off the certainty that this was it, that this was all I’d ever get. Back then, the future was a locked door, and I didn’t have the key.
Then the radiator in my room clicked off, and the sudden silence snapped me back.
My shoulders dropped. The death grip on my phone loosened. A breath I didn’t know I’d been holding for days dragged itself out of my lungs. Standing perfectly still in the middle of my stripped room kept the jinx away.
Smiling, breathing too deep, letting any of it feel real; that was exactly when things got snatched back. Signing the contractpapers had to happen first. Then maybe the reality of it all would set in.
Lowering the phone to my side, I rolled my shoulders, making the tension in my spine relax a fraction.
With the Ice House mostly empty, I was used to voices bleeding through these thin walls at all hours, but now the silence felt strange. Not bad. Just strange.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, the familiar rhythm of worn sneakers on old floorboards.
And then Karter stepped inside my room wearing a gray t-shirt and old sweatpants, his hair pushed back and messy. The late afternoon sun slanted through the grimy window blinds, hitting his face and making his eyes appear even brighter than they usually did.
He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “OK, so you’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you’re trying to pretend that something really important doesn’t matter.” He raised a single eyebrow as a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He then jutted his chin towards my hand. “Was that the scout?”
The phone was still warm against my palm. I’d been checking it every few hours since we got back from the tournament, a nervous habit Karter had clocked by day two. He’d caught me staring at the blank screen over breakfast yesterday and said nothing. He hadn’t said anything the time before that, either. Karter just watched and waited, the same way he was watching me now.
“It was Leadsom,” I said. The next few words left my mouth like another piece of gear to pack. “Two-year affiliate deal. Camp starts in July.”
Karter didn’t play it cool. The grin that split his face was the kind that rearranged everything, and then he was crossing theshort distance between us and grabbing two fistfuls of my shirt, the fabric bunching under his grip.
“I knew it. I told you.” He shook me once, hard enough to rattle my teeth. “I told you they’d call.”
“You’ve said that five times since Sunday.”
“Because I was right five times since Sunday.” He let go of my shirt and paced the cramped strip of floor between the mattress and the door. “Okay. Milwaukee. That’s what, four hours? Straight up I-94.”
“Four hours is a lot of gas.”
He stopped mid-stride and turned, one eyebrow cocked. “Did you just say no to me before I even asked the question?”
“I said it’s a lot of gas.”
“I didn’t ask you a question.” Karter held up a hand, ticking off fingers. “Friday practices end at four. I can be on the road by five, at your door by nine. If you’ve got a rest day Sunday, you drive down here. Or we meet in the middle. There’s probably a city halfway. I’ll look it up.”
He hadn’t asked if I wanted him there. He hadn’t asked whether this changed anything. He’d already drawn the route on a map that existed entirely in his head.
“Rockford,” I said.
“What?”
“Halfway. Rockford.” Shoving my hands into my pockets, I let the corner of my mouth twitch. “You’re not the only one who looked at a map.”
Karter stopped pacing. The smile on his face shifted into something warmer. Not the victory smile from the championship, not the sharp one he wore when he was about to win an argument. Again.
This one was private... and just for me.
“Look at you,” he said. “Already planning our weekends.”
A breath pushed out of my lungs, heavier than I meant it to be. I gazed over at Karter, who stood there with that grin and his messy hair, waiting for me to confirm a travel schedule for next season like it was already a done deal. Like of course he’d be there. Like the distance was just a number on a road sign.
