Page 221 of On His Team

He looks at me for half a second longer than necessary, then nods once.

“Go.”

He goes.

I’m still smiling when I look at the clock again.

Then I remember I have class in twenty-three minutes and I am not dressed. “Fuck.”

The week after Senior Night has an odd, unfinished feeling to it. The regular season is over, so there are no more Friday-and-Saturday home weekends circled on anybody’s calendar and no more pretending March is some distant thing they will eventually have to deal with. The team still practices. Rowan still disappears into the rink every afternoon. Hawthorne is still full of hockey bags and protein powder and somebody’s wet gloves drying where they shouldn’t be. But now every day points toward something that can end.

Penn State comes first. Best-of-three quarterfinal. Friday. Saturday. Sunday if necessary.

I know more about postseason college hockey than I ever expected to know about anything in my life, which is how I end up lying beside Rowan on Thursday night asking questions like I am studying for an exam.

“What happens if you lose the series?”

“We don’t move on.”

“I know that.”

He is flat on his back in my bed with one arm behind his head. His other hand is resting loosely on my hip beneath the hem of my shirt, moving every so often like he is not really thinking about it.

“What happens after?”

“We wait.”

“For Selection Sunday.”

“Yeah.”

“And you could still get into the NCAA tournament.”

“Could.”

That one word carries enough irritation that I lift my head off his chest. “You hate that.”

He looks at me. “Hate what?”

“Not knowing.”

“I know we need to win two games.”

“No. The part where if you don’t, somebody else decides whether your season is over.”

He doesn’t answer immediately.

That is answer enough.

“I hate not controlling it,” he says eventually.

“Yeah.”

I settle my chin against his chest.

His fingers continue their slow path along my side.

There is another thing I have been meaning to ask, and now that we are apparently discussing the future, it comes out.