Page 62 of On His Team

I look at the sentence on my screen.

Then I close the laptop and follow her.

“Blue,” I say. “Give me yours.”

He tosses it over. “For fuck’s sake.”

Stanley groans.

Chapter 7

GIANNA

I get a B+ on my first speech in COM 220. This is offensive for several reasons, the first being that I have been talking to people since before I had enough teeth to pronounce half my words correctly. I am not afraid of rooms. I am not afraid of strangers. I am definitely not afraid of standing in front of twenty-two college students and explaining what happens inside a hockey equipment room after the final horn.

Apparently none of that means I understand how to give a three-minute speech.

My professor circles 3:31 at the top of the page, tells me my material is strong, my pace is out of control, and writes 19 filler words in the margin.

He fucking counted them.

I take a picture of the feedback sheet because I need evidence and shove it into my bag on the way out.

By lunch, I have more important things to worry about because Ives posted the next step for our event project, and thankfully she has stopped asking us to imagine things and started asking us to prove they can happen. She wants the venue, estimated attendance, rough budget, staffing, major risks, and the actual people we think would need to approve the thing.

I already picked the clinic.

That part is done.

Now I need to figure out how forty or fifty kids magically appear at a hockey rink without me standing outside an elementary school handing out flyers, which I assume Camden would frown upon.

I pull out my phone.

Me: Are you busy?

Rowan answers two minutes later.

Rowan: Class.

Me: So no?

Rowan: That’s usually what class means.

I smile down at my phone.

Me: When are you done?

Rowan: 2:15.

Me: I need your old facilities guy.

There’s a longer pause this time.

Rowan: That sounds illegal.

I laugh.

Rowan: Meet me outside Halloran.