Page 67 of Gave Proof Through the Night

He goes still.

“Wait.” His eyes come back up to mine, slow, like he’s rerunning the last several weeks through a different filter entirely. “That’s actually your name. You weren’t joking.”

“Don’t spread it around.”

He doesn’t say anything for a second. Just looks at me like I just handed him the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

“Erica,” he says again, testing the weight of it, and then, softer, “America the beautiful.”

Alrighty then.

“My middle name isn’t The-Beautiful, though. I really was joking about that.”

The corner of his mouth tilts into the most adorable grin. “I figured as much.”

He holds my gaze softly, like I’m the eighth wonder of the world.

“I have to go,” I say, before I do something catastrophic like stand here and let him keep looking at me like that.

“Right.” He holds his pinky and thumb up to his cheek. “Call me!”

“Will do,” I confirm, already backing away, already feeling the pull of him like gravity, and I make myself turn around and walk back to the front desk.

Clive looks up, hopeful, the second I’m in range.

“Change of plans,” I say, sliding back into the French accent.

He blinks. “The reservation?”

“Cancel it. Tell them Miss McFlurry sends her regrets.”

15

JEREMIAH

Chapter playlist:

American Girl — Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Coach Badaszek stands at the boards, arms crossed, waiting for us to notice him, which, in my opinion, is worse than yelling.

“Two.” He holds up two fingers, like we might’ve lost count. “Two losses in a row. Somebody tell me what that is.”

Nobody answers. Answering is how you end up doing suicides until your legs file for divorce from your body.

“That is a habit forming,” Badaszek says. “And I did not fly to Washington, DC to watch you people practice bad habits.”

Tyson Lane skates up next to me, chest still heaving from the last drill. He doesn’t look at Badaszek when he mutters, “Man really said ‘you people’ like we’re a book club that keeps forgetting to read the book.”

Accurate, I think, and keep my face very still, because Badaszek’s eyes are doing a slow sweep of the group like a jailer’s spotlight looking for escapees.

He checks on Colt first. Something about gap control. Then Levi, for losing the same draw twice. By the time he gets to me, I’m braced for it, but all he says is, “Precio. Faster hands, slower mouth. Both this time.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Both,” he says again, like I might’ve missed it the first time, and heads off toward the net to torment Josh instead.

He’s rough on us for the next twenty minutes, but it’s the kind of rough that comes with a softer side. He’ll ream a guy out mid-drill and then find him alone by his stall an hour later to make sure everything is all right at home. It’s tough love.