Page 289 of On His Team

“A very large one.”

“It sounds like––”

“Most students are the opposite,” Ives says. “They write beautifully, and then something goes wrong at eight in the morning, and they stand in the middle of a room waiting for an adult. You had two children arrive in figure skates and you solved it in four minutes.”

“Cole did that.”

“You sent Cole. That’s the job.” She shifts her bag on her shoulder. “Athletics takes student event staff every year and there’s an operations internship in the fall that most people don’t know exists because it’s never advertised properly. Talk to Derek Hall in May. Tell him I told you to.” Then she walks off down the hall.

I stand there for a second with a big smile on my face, then I text Rowan, then I text my mom, then my brother.

On Wednesday, Stanley is halfway through explaining why Blue is wrong about an NHL game when Rowan’s phone starts vibrating against the couch cushion beside me.

Blue doesn’t even look at Stanley. “You’re still wrong.”

“I’m literally explaining why I’m not.”

Percy is pretending to watch something on the TV while very obviously listening to both of them. Lucy is tucked against Benson on the other end of the couch, and I’m sitting on the arm beside Rowan while he has his laptop open across his knees.

His phone buzzes again. Rowan looks down at the screen. Something in his face changes. He closes the laptop halfway and answers.

“Hello?”

Stanley is still talking until Benson reaches over and smacks him once on the leg.

The room gets quieter.

Rowan listens for a few seconds, then stands. “Yeah. Hang on.” He heads for the back door without looking at anybody. The door shuts behind him.

For a second, nobody says anything.

Then Stanley looks at me. “What was that?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

Blue glances toward the windows.

Percy finally stops pretending not to pay attention.

Outside, Rowan has one hand in his pocket and the phone pressed to his ear. He says something I can’t hear, listens, then turns away from the house.

Stanley lowers his voice like Rowan can somehow hear him through the wall. “It looks serious.”

Benson looks at him.

I keep looking toward the back door.

Rowan stays outside long enough that Blue eventually goes back to arguing with Stanley, but nobody really settles into it again. Every few minutes, somebody glances toward the windows.

When the door finally opens, Rowan comes back in with the same expression he left with. He sits beside me, puts his phone on the cushion, and opens his laptop again.

Stanley lasts maybe three seconds. “Okay.”

Rowan looks up. “What?”

Stanley gestures toward the back door. “You can’t do that and come back in here like nothing happened.”

Rowan looks at him. “Do what?”