Page 63 of On His Team

At 2:14, Rowan is sitting on the low brick wall outside Halloran with his backpack between his boots and both hands tucked into the pockets of his black coat.

It takes me a second to realize why he looks different. There’s no rink. No jersey. No gear bag. No Hawthorne kitchen behind him. Nobody yelling his last name from across a locker room.

He just looks like a college student waiting for class to end.

His coat is black and old enough that the cuffs are fading, and his hair is still flattened slightly on one side, like he put a hat on when he left Hawthorne and took it off somewhere along the way.

His eyes find me before I get all the way across the walkway.

“I picked the clinic,” I say.

He stands and swings his backpack over one shoulder. “Good.”

I stop in front of him. “That sounded smug.”

“It wasn’t.”

I stick out my chin. “It sounded a little smug.”

“It’s the one that’ll actually happen.”

“I know.” I pull my laptop bag higher on my shoulder. “That’s why I picked it.”

That gets the smallest shift at the corner of his mouth. “Okay.”

“I need to know where the kids come from.”

He starts walking. I fall into step beside him.

“Where do kids come from?” he says softly, almost to himself.

I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“You’re funny, Reeve.”

He looks down at me for half a second, and I grin. “Me?”

He nods. “Do you want to know where kids come from?”

“Shut up,” I laugh.

He laughs.

“Actually, no. Tell me, please.”

“Usually, there are two people, and they get together––”

“I’ve heard enough,” I say, widening my eyes, walking ahead of him.

The athletics building is on the other side of the quad. Rowan holds the door when we get there, and I walk under his arm into a blast of warm air that immediately makes me sweat.

“Great.” I pull off my top layer.

Rowan looks over. “What?”

“I can’t breathe.”

He waits, watching me tug it off. He glances at my shirt for a moment, and then he leads me upstairs.