Page 41 of On His Team

I look between them. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Mara keeps walking.

I watch her go, then look back at Gianna.

She’s already scrolling again.

“Page four is worse,” she says.

“It got an A.”

She points the pen at me without looking up. “I’m serious. Stop.”

Chapter 5

GIANNA

Donovan texts me as I walk out of Sport Law.

Donovan: Come down when you can.

That is not a reassuring message.

I spend the entire walk to the rink going through everything I did on Tuesday and all the possible ways I screwed something up. I logged the sticks. I logged them with numbers and dates and not on a sticky note. I hung the practice jerseys. I did the tape. I—

The socks.

Something with the socks.

By the time I get down the hallway behind the locker room, I’ve convinced myself I’m about to receive a lecture about socks.

I push open the equipment-room door and immediately stop.

Cole is sitting on the skate bench with his elbows on his knees, and his hoodie zipped all the way to his chin. His face is pale, his eyes are glassy, and he looks like death.

I gasp, “Oh my God.”

“Don’t come near me,” he croaks.

I put both hands up. “I wasn’t going to.”

Donovan comes around the shelving with a clipboard and doesn’t slow down. “Gianna. Can you travel?”

“What?”

He waits. Then my brain catches up.

Minnesota.

They leave this afternoon for two games, Friday and Saturday. I built the travel list. I spent two hours going through last year’s version line by line and found enough mistakes that I stopped trusting anything on it by the end.

“He’s not getting on a plane,” Donovan says, pointing the clipboard toward Cole. “He’s going home. Evan isn’t cleared to travel and has a lab practical tomorrow. You’ve worked eleven home games, you know the room, and you built the list. I need somebody who already knows what’s in the bags.”

My stomach drops in a completely different direction. “Yes.”

Donovan pauses. “I didn’t finish.”