Page 4 of Here We Go Again

The first reel is a recipe for a citrus pound cake that only requires five ingredients. Perfect.

But the next one makes my heart rate quicken the slightest bit. It’s a Jaguars video—one of those social media ones they film for fun, asking the players questions in the locker room. I quickly hit pause and set my phone face down on the table.

I have rules for a reason.

Because I don’t want to think about Theo. I don’t want to remember that he’s close by or be reminded that once upon a time, he used to belong to me.

So why am I suddenly itching to watch?

Right after we moved, I used to get Jaguars reels in my feed all the time. It took some very intentional scrolling to convince my algorithm I wasn’t a hockey fan, and it eventually caught on, but they still show up every once in a while.

Usually, I’m so good at scrolling on by, master of my rules and my algorithm.

I’m blaming it on the billboard this morning. It dropped Theo into my brain with all the grace of a sledgehammer, and now I can’t seem to stop thinking about him.

I glance over at a family having dinner at the table next to mine. The youngest is wearing a Jaguars jersey, her blonde hair in long pigtails down her back. She’s talking loudly, gesturing with her hands as she tells a story about a goal and the way she used her stick and isn’t hockey the best thing ever?

Choosing to take it as a sign, I pick up my phone, find the reel, and push play.

2

BECCA

The reel is one of those human-interest videos where someone interviews the players, asking them questions totally unrelated to hockey. The interviewer moves around the locker room, off-screen, stopping to talk to a variety of players. But the question is the same every time.

What’s your idea of the perfect date?

I press my palms against the table in front of me, phone centered in between them, and gnaw at my lip. I doubt they’ll interview every player, and a part of me hopes they don’t talk to Theo.

It feels like a weirdly personal question. They’re hockey players. Why not ask about hockey?

Do people want to know this kind of thing?

But that’s a dumb thought. Of course people want to know. That’s how fandom works.

It only feels personal for me because a little over nine years ago, Theo Williamson took me on his ideal date. At least, that’s what he told me at the end of the night. That he couldn’t imagine a better way to spend the evening. A pile of pillows and blankets in the bed of his pickup truck, a picnic dinner, then stargazing under the vast Texas sky.

It was the night he kissed me for the first time. Then asked if we could make our relationship official.

It had been the easiest yes I’d ever given. As I’d lain there in the crook of his arm, gazing up at the Big Dipper, I’d been positive we were on our way to forever.

Finally, the camera pans to Theo. He has the same flirty look in his eyes that he had in high school, an air of mystery that’s a stark contrast to his brother’s golden retriever need to please.

I suddenly wonder if his answer to the question will be the same.

He’s lived an entire life since high school. Moved out of Texas. Made it to the NHL. With his pro-athlete income, his ideal date is probably miles more high-class than a dusty pick-up truck and a Texas sky.

So why does a part of me still hope it will be?

“What’s your idea of a perfect date?” the interviewer asks Theo.

He cocks his head to the side, like he’s really thinking about his answer. My eyes drop to his hands. There’s no scar, no sign of the injury that brought him to the hospital at the end of last season. So this is an old video, then. Probably filmed last year.

“I’m not the person to ask about that,” Theo says, a shadow passing over his expression. “Carter’s always been the romantic one.” Someone laughs off-screen, and Theo turns, grinning as he rolls his eyes at whoever it is, then the video cuts to a Georgia Jaguars team logo before ending altogether.

I start the video again, then track forward to the part with Theo.

His words aren’t true. Growing up, Carter was steady and kind, good to his core, but Theo was the romantic. He was the one with the grand gestures and fancy words. The one who wrote me a poem for my seventeenth birthday entitled “My Rebecca.” A good poem. Even our AP English teacher was impressed, something I know because Theo asked her to proofread it and make suggestions before he gave it to me. He was that committed to making sure it was perfect.