Page 68 of Offside Angle

My parents have apparently been quietly keeping Santiago Vega in the family rotation while I’ve spent the last several weeks having an existential crisis every time he looks at me for too long.

And now they’re literally handing me directions to his house.

Dad points toward the paper. “What are you waiting for?”

I look down at Santi’s address in my hand, and suddenly the excuse I was about to make disappears before I can even say it.

Well.

Fuck.

I guess I’m going to Santi’s house.

It’s a little after ten and I’m at my desk, working my way through pictures from the last few games with old-school Latino music playing quietly in the background. I should have stopped an hour ago, but I keep finding reasons to go back through the same folder.

Most of those reasons are named Matteo Rivera.

There’s one shot from tonight I’ve opened three times already, Matteo cutting across the ice with that look on his face he gets when he forgets everything except hockey. No confusion. No panic. No trying to figure himself out. Just Matteo being very fucking good at what he does.

I’m adjusting the contrast when someone knocks.

I glance at the time and sigh.

If Mr. Arnold has come over to complain about music he can barely hear again, I’m buying him earplugs tomorrow and attaching them to his door with a bow.

I get up and head over, already preparing my apology as I open the door.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Arn—”

I stop.

Matteo is standing in my hallway.

For a moment, all I can do is look at him.

Then I notice the flowers.

He’s holding a messy bouquet of wildflowers in both hands, bright and slightly crooked, and somehow that makes the sight of him even more unexpected. Matteo, who can chirp a six-foot-four defenseman without blinking, is standing outside my apartment looking like knocking on my door required more courage than an entire playoff series.

It might be the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.

His eyes flick from me to the flowers and back again, and I watch him visibly forget whatever speech he apparently prepared before coming here.

Oh, cariño.

I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling too much and making this worse for him.

“These are…” He looks down at the bouquet as if he needs to confirm what he’s holding. “They’re for you.”

That nearly does me in.

“For me?” I ask, because apparently I’m cruel enough to make him say it twice.

Matteo gives me a look that would be much more effective if his cheeks weren’t turning pink. “No, Santiago. I brought flowers to your apartment at ten at night for your fucking neighbor.”

I laugh before I can stop myself.

There he is.