Page 14 of On His Team

Stanley stops behind me and grins. “They cooked.”

Blue looks past him into the house. “They cooked?”

“Because they love us,” Stanley says, proud.

I drop my bag beside the stairs. “Or because they were hungry.”

He shakes his head. “Negative mindset.”

Lucy sticks her head around the kitchen doorway and announces, “They’re home.”

Benson is gone before anybody else moves. He crosses the room, puts both hands around her waist, and lifts her off the floor.

I go around them. Not my business. But this is. The kitchen table is covered. Eggs. Bacon. Pancakes. Fruit. Coffee.

Mara is sitting on the counter holding a glass. Gianna is already at the table.

Lucy tells Benson, “G drank half the orange juice.”

G shrugs. “Mimosas are traditional.”

Benson says, “It is ten-thirty in the morning.”

She takes a sip. “That is when mimosas happen.”

Gianna looks different than she did last night. Her hair is tied on top of her head. No makeup that I can see. Oversized Camden sweatshirt, bare legs tucked beneath her chair. She looks awake. Which feels unfair. I barely drank anything, and I feel like somebody took my body apart at practice and put it back together wrong.

She looks at me when I walk in. Just for a second. Then at my bag. “How bad was practice?” She almost laughs over the rim of her mimosa.

“Fine,” I reply.

Benson, behind me, laughs.

Gianna looks back at me. “That means terrible.”

I counter, “It was fine.”

She puts her cup down and says, “You look like shit, Laurens.”

I shrug. “I’m hungry.”

I get a plate.

She smiles into her coffee.

I look at her smile for a second, and then focus on grabbing food.

The room fills up around the table. People talk over each other. Someone complains about the toaster. Stanley takes over one side of the kitchen because he believes being Aspen’s boyfriend somehow qualifies him to help.

I eat standing at the counter for the first few minutes because sitting down would slow me down. Hockey hunger is different from normal hunger. It feels like the inside of your body is missing something.

By the time I sit, Gianna is stealing bacon from Stanley’s plate. He slaps at her hand. She gets it anyway and laughs. She moves through this house like she has always belonged here. She doesn’t live at Hawthorne. Doesn’t play hockey. Isn’t dating anybody who does. Still, she knows where everything is. Takes food off everybody’s plates. Yells up the stairs without asking if someone is sleeping. Opens the fridge and complains when nobody buys the creamer she likes.

Benson brought her into this world. At some point, everybody else stopped treating her like a visitor.

Stanley swallows half a pancake. “I’ve been thinking.”

Benson puts down his fork. “No.”