Page 79 of On His Team

Her eyes move around once. Benson at the table. Blue on the couch. Stanley staring at nothing.

Me.

She takes her coat off more quietly than she normally does and drops her bag beside the wall.

“Bad?”

“Yeah,” I say.

She looks at me for another second, then nods.

That’s it.

She goes into the kitchen, sees the food, and makes herself a plate.

I move over when she comes back. She sits in the open spot beside me. For a while, the room stays quiet. Then Lucy murmurs something to Benson. Blue answers Melly when she asks him a question. Stanley eventually gets up to get another drink.

Gianna eats. Her knee bumps mine once when she shifts on the couch. Neither of us moves.

I look at her plate. “Derek ever get back to you?”

She turns her head. For the first time since she walked in, her expression changes.

“You got booed in your own rink tonight, and you’re asking me about my event?”

I look at her eyes. “Yeah.”

She watches me for a second. Then sets the fork against the edge of her plate.

“He got back to me.”

“And?”

“The youth program thinks they can fill around forty spots without it being a problem. Ives liked the concept enough to let me move forward, and Derek gave me the next person I need to talk to.”

“Good.”

“I haven’t picked the game yet.”

“You will.”

Her eyebrows lift.

I look toward the TV even though it isn’t on.

Beside me, she says, “You’re very confident for somebody who has watched me change my mind approximately six hundred times.”

“You stopped changing your mind.”

She doesn’t answer right away.

When I look back, she’s smiling slightly.

Then she looks down at her plate again.

After a second, she nudges my knee with hers. Not enough for anybody else to notice. Enough for me.

I leave mine where it is.