Page 216 of On His Team

Then, just like that, the conversation moves on.

Her dad asks how I’m feeling about tonight. Her mom asks if my parents got in okay. Benson says something about traffic, and my dad starts telling him what route they took.

Gianna steps back into my side while they talk. She wraps both arms around one of mine again and rests her cheek against my shoulder.

I glance down. “You comfortable?”

“Very.”

“You planning to stand like this all day?”

“Yes.”

Her mom laughs. “She was always clingy.”

Gianna lifts her head immediately. “I am not clingy.”

Her dad looks at me.

I say nothing.

Gianna narrows her eyes. “Choose carefully.”

I smile. “She’s very independent.”

“Thank you.” She puts her head back on my shoulder.

Her mom laughs harder.

Benson walks past with a plate and looks at the two of us. “You’re proving her point.”

Gianna lifts one hand from my arm and scowls at him, then hugs me tighter.

I look down at her. She looks completely happy. Not nervous. Not embarrassed. Not trying to hide anything. Just happy. And standing there with both our families around us, Gianna wrapped around me like she belongs there, Senior Night feels a little less like something ending.

At least for a minute.

At the rink, Senior Night has changed the building before we even get dressed. There are flowers stacked near the tunnel and signs with our names propped against the wall. Athletics staff keep stopping people in the hallway to redirect parents toward areas they normally aren’t allowed in, and somebody reminds the seniors three separate times not to disappear after warmups because there is apparently an exact order to all of this.

I don’t like any of it. Stanley, naturally, loves every second. He finds the sign with his name on it near the tunnel and picks it up like somebody has handed him an award.

“This is incredible.”

“You’re enjoying this too much.”

He holds the sign out farther and looks at it. “I’ve been waiting four years to be publicly celebrated.”

“That is not true.”

“It is completely true.”

Benson walks up behind him before Stanley can turn the sign into something worse. “Coach wants us.”

Stanley puts it back against the wall. “I was having a moment.”

“You can have it later.”

Warmups are normal enough that I almost forget what is waiting afterward. We skate, shoot, take our usual routes through the neutral zone, and Percy complains about somebody hitting the same corner too many times. It is familiar in a way everything around it isn’t.