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His Callyisms, as I’d started to think of them, delighted me. I loved knowing that I could bring up the most random topic—as long as it wasn’t pop culture—and he’d be able to give a whole TED Talk on it. I loved knowing that he walked through the world one way, but with me, he could drop the mask and just be himself.
My gaze swung his direction to find that he had turned away from the group, one hand pressed flat on the table, his other arm propped on the chair back, his attention fixed out over the crowd beyond our little corner.
As if he could feel my eyes on him, Cally spun back around and stared at me, his lips quirked slightly to the side.
“You good?” I mouthed, setting my hand on his thigh under the table.
His fingers came down over mine and squeezed before he pulled free to pick up his beer.
“I’m good,” he answered out loud. “You?”
“I’m great,” I said with a wide smile. “Really fucking great.”
I tuned back into the conversation just as Dave groaned and said, “Fuck. I should probably set up an appointment.”
“Yup,” Soren said, lifting his hand to hail our server. “You definitely should.”
Dave sighed. “Shoot me his contact info, and I’ll make an appointment.”
Soren pulled his phone out, scrolled for a second, then Dave’s phone pinged from inside his jacket pocket.
“Now that that’s settled.” Pauly slapped the table, leaning forward to address Cally. “Tell me how it felt laying out that douchebag last month? That hit was pure poetry, man!”
A dark smile crept onto Cally’s face. “He kept taking cheap shots all night, then he had the nerve to act surprised when I caught him with his head down. Pretty sure he was tasting blood after that.” He tipped his beer back to swallow the last of it. “Shame we lost, though.”
Chirping was a natural part of our sport. Most of it was harmless—a defender from San Jose had once called me a turtle, while one of my favorites was to call an opponent a dumb fucking potato. Cally had teased me for a week about that one the first time he heard it.
But seeing the menacing glint in Cally’s eyes as he recounted the hit had me wondering all over again what McBride might have said to cause Cally to lash out like that. He was an exceptionally clean player—one of the cleanest in the league—but that hit had been downright dirty. He’d likely played himself out of Lady Byng contention with those five minutes in the box.
“Like I said, fucking poetic.” Pauly thrust his fist across the table, and Cally bumped it with his own, the ghost of a smile forming on his lips.
The conversation shifted away from hockey then, the guys explaining they didn’t want to give me a big head. And as we jumped from one new topic to the next, it became clear that my friends loved Cally, which was … honestly a bit of a surprise, really.
I’d known he would be polite—he always was. Maybe even friendly. But I had not expected him to laugh so hard that real tears leaked from the corner of his eyes when Pauly told him about the time we’d competed in a lawn mower relay race we probably would have won if Sal hadn’t driven into a ditch because he’d been too busy flirting with Mona Salinger.
When our next round of drinks arrived, Pauly slapped Cally hard on the back, nearly knocking him out of his chair, and declared loudly, “You’re good people, man. Seriously good fucking people.”
From Pauly, that was the highest honor a person could achieve. It was also a sign that he was about to start crying, and that was our signal to wrap things up.
We eventually made it out of the bar—and yes, Pauly had started sobbing, pulling me into a tight hug and telling me how proud he was—and by the time Cally and I climbed into the back seat of our Uber, I was more than ready to climb into bed.
I leaned over, resting my tired head on Cally’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of his cologne mixed with the faint smell of beer.
“Cal?” I murmured softly, my eyes heavy.
“Yeah?” he whispered back.
“I think this might be the best day of my life.”
I felt him shift slightly, tilting his head down so his cheek rested against the top of my head.
“Me too,” I thought I heard him whisper just before the rhythmic sound of the car’s tires rolling over wet asphalt lulled me to sleep.
THIRTY-TWO
CALLY
Mikey hooked his leg over me, draping the top half of his body over my chest and burying his face into the side of my neck, the warm, damp puff of his breath brushing over the sensitive skin right under my jaw.
