Page 267 of On His Team

“—also plays a really good game of hockey.”

I finally sit down, and my parents come through the restaurant a minute later.

“The Reeves,” I announce.

My mother rolls her eyes.

“National championship, Mom.” I look at my dad. “Dad? Your little boy is captain of the team playing for a national championship tomorrow.”

His mouth twitches before he even sits down. “I’m aware.”

“You don’t seem excited enough.”

“He hasn’t stopped talking about it since last night,” my mom says.

I look at my dad and grin. “Good.”

Once everybody settles in, I do not shut up about how good the guys played. Nobody stops me.

The end of brunch turns into everybody trying to figure out how to fill an entire day in Vegas while the guys are locked into team obligations. Melly wants to see the fountains. Penelope wants to walk the Strip. Mara wants to gamble, which is obviously a problem because she is not twenty-one.

Aspen has exactly three hours before she has to work.

Everybody groans at her.

“I’m not apologizing for having a job.”

“You’re in Vegas,” I tell her.

“So is my laptop.”

“That’s tragic.”

We spend most of the afternoon walking the Strip, taking an obscene number of pictures and stopping anywhere that looks remotely interesting. It’s eighty degrees in April, which feels illegal after Michigan. Melly buys sunglasses within four minutes because apparently the desert surprised her.

Vegas is insane. Everything is too big and too bright and somehow fake-looking even when I’m standing inside it. It’s almost like an adult Disneyland, except nothing beats Disney and I refuse to hear arguments.

By the time we get to the mini-Eiffel Tower, I have forced everybody into at least fifty more pictures.

Most of them will probably sit in my phone forever.

I don’t care.

I want them.

I want all of it.

Somewhere near there, we stop in a gift shop, and I find the ugliest snow globe I have ever seen. Inside is a plastic version of the Las Vegas skyline. In front of the skyline is a small green alligator wearing sunglasses. There is no explanation for the alligator anywhere. I love it immediately.

“You cannot buy that,” Mara says.

“I’m buying it for my boyfriend.”

Melly laughs.

Mara rolls her eyes.

I hold it up. “Actually, I think we all need one.”