Page 275 of On His Team

Turns.

And I don’t think a single thing.

If I think, I might talk myself out of it.

“I love you.”

Everything in his face changes. Like the words hit exactly where they were supposed to.

He presses his lips together for half a second, then walks straight back toward me.

Fast.

His hands are on me before I can say anything else.

He kisses me harder this time, hungry enough that my back meets the wall again. I grab the front of his jacket and pull him closer.

When he finally breaks the kiss, his forehead presses against mine.

“I love you too, G.”

My entire chest goes warm.

I chew my bottom lip because I cannot stop smiling.

“Go.”

He smiles too.

Then he fixes my hair again, gives me one last kiss, and steps away. He looks back once before he disappears around the corner. Then he’s gone, and I stay. Just standing in a hotel hallway in Las Vegas, staring at a blank wall with my heart trying to climb out of my chest. And because I am apparently incapable of experiencing anything without documenting it now, I pull out my phone. I take a picture of the hallway.

There’s nothing in it. Closed doors. Beige carpet. A stack of chairs. Nobody else would know why it matters. I do. I look at the picture and smile.

Tomorrow my brother plays for a national championship.

Tomorrow Rowan plays for a national championship.

And tonight, in the ugliest hallway in Las Vegas, I told him I loved him.

And he said it back.

Chapter 25

ROWAN

I wake up at ten past seven on our national championship morning, and the first thing in my head isn’t Michigan. It’s a hallway with a stack of chairs against one wall and Gianna Reeve standing in the middle of it telling me she loves me.

That’s what my brain gives me first. Not the game. Not their forecheck. Her, six steps down a hallway, saying my name so I would turn around. And me walking back to her. I said it back without thinking about it first. I didn’t consider it or weigh it or wonder whether I was supposed to wait. She said it, and I heard myself say it back because it had already been true for longer than I realized at the time.

There’s something that happens to me when Gianna comes around. Something that has been happening for months. Now I have words for it.

I look at the ceiling for another minute and remember the way she said it. I want her to say it again. Then I get up because there’s a hockey game.

Championship morning looks almost exactly like every other game morning.

Breakfast is at eight. Half the room is in team sweats, and the other half looks like they got dressed without opening their eyes. Marsh eats four eggs without speaking. Owens is on his phone. Stanley eats continuously with no visible enjoyment while explaining to Beaumont why he might or might not buy a car. Percy sits at the end of the table with plain toast. Blue says maybe four words all morning. Benson looks significantly better than he did yesterday, which just means he probably slept. Good. He needed it.

We have treatment at nine. My shin is better, exactly like the trainers said it would be.