“I play sometimes when I have time.” I shrug one shoulder. “I’m bad at it.”
He stares at me in disbelief. "You're bad at a sport."
"One single sport."
"Jamie Nash is bad at something." He looks like I've handed him a gift. The grin is spreading, slow, starting at the corner of his mouth. "This is the best thing that's happened to me all week."
"I’m captain of the hockey team. I’m literally above you. One bad sport is not embarrassing." I reply, monotone.
"Still." He's grinning now — the real one, the crooked one that makes his eyes twinkle. "How bad?"
"I understand it, but that’s about it."
"Why do you play then?"
"Because I'm bad at it," I say. My voice lowers along with my eyes. "It's the only thing I can do where being bad is fine."
He goes quiet and I hear the words again the way you only do after they’re already out in the air and there’s no pulling them back now. Too honest. Too much. More of myself than I meant to hand him.
"That's—" He stops. Starts again. "That's actually kind of sad."He hooks the side of his mouth down and looks away, like he doesn’t know how to respond to me, as if he’s being careful.
"It's not sad."
"It's a little sad."
"Callahan—"
"I'm not judging, I'm just saying." He falls back into stride beside me. "You do one thing where you're allowed to be bad at it and it's a sport you play alone, probably?"
"I didn't say alone."
"Do you play with other people?"
Pause.
"Sometimes Kowalski comes.”
"Is Kowalski also bad?"
"Kowalski is somehow worse."
Rhys actually laughs at that. Proper laugh, head back slightly, and something unknots in my chest at the sound of it. And where I had felt tight a second ago, the tension immediately dissipates. Like hearing him laugh is enough to fix it.
"Okay," he says, when he comes back down. "Okay, your turn."
"My turn what?"
"Ask me something."
I look at him sternly. "I don't—"
He cuts me off. "Nash. Ask me something. One thing. I told you stuff about me all morning."
"That was all against my will, I tried to get you to stop," I mutter.
"Ok, fine, something personal, then. My high school coach used to call me a fuck up and he would text me after every game I won at Eldridge, which I found deeply satisfying. Like he’s trying to stay good with me in case I go pro or something.” He holds his arms out, spreading them wide, the gesture expansiveand ridiculous. "Like I said, open book. Go."
"Fine," I say.
