Page 154 of On His Team

I’m halfway to the stairs before he calls after me. “Was she hot?”

I laugh without turning around.

That is apparently all the confirmation Stanley needs that I was with somebody, because he starts shouting questions I ignore all the way to my room.

I close the door behind me, toss my phone onto the bed, and change.

The night comes back while I’m brushing my teeth. The way she was sitting on the couch with her feet underneath my thigh, asking me ridiculous questions between bites of loaded fries. How she wants to run things someday, something with events or youth hockey where she could build something and then watch people actually experience it. I remember her asking about hockey and looking genuinely confused when I told her professional hockey had never been the center of whatever came next for me.

Mostly, I remember her saying she just wanted to know me.

Gianna asks questions the way most people breathe. Some of them are ridiculous. Some of them are invasive enough that anybody else asking would probably irritate me. She never seems to care whether there’s a graceful way into a conversation, either. One minute she’s asking about my worst mistake in high school. Five minutes later she wants to know if I’ve ever been in love.

I should find that exhausting. Instead, I keep thinking of things I didn’t tell her.

I get into bed and open my phone.

There’s already a message.

Gianna: Did you survive the drive home?

Me: Barely.

Gianna: Wow. Terrifying. Four whole minutes.

Me: Roads were dangerous.

Gianna: Probably all the women throwing themselves in front of your truck.

I smile.

Me: Exactly.

Three dots appear.

Gianna: Goodnight, row.

I look at the message longer than I need to.

Me: Night, G.

I put the phone on the charger.

For once, I fall asleep without opening anything about graduate school, jobs, hockey, or whatever comes after this place.

Thursday starts early. We lift before class, then skate at one. Bowling Green is tomorrow night, and Coach Fuller keeps the session short enough that nobody complains but hard enough that my legs feel it anyway.

The last few weeks have stripped some of the patience out of everybody.

We lost both games to Michigan State. Then we went to Ohio and came home with a loss and a tie. That is enough bad hockey clustered together that every mistake feels larger than it would have in November.

Nobody needs a speech about what Bowling Green means.

We need points.

That’s it.

Aspen is up in the stands during practice with her laptop open. She’s been around more lately, partly because Stanley has apparently decided she should live at the rink and partly because Fuller actually uses what she sends him now.