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“Just because my career is probably over doesn’t mean I can’t be the best wingman in the tri-state area.”
My gut clenches as his eyelids droop.
“Where does he think we are?” Faye asks. The only state line we’re close to is Washington.
“I know what I see right in front of my own two eyes,” Freddy slurs, pointing to his eyes and nearly poking them. His head droops back against the mattress.
“I think that’s our cue,” Faye says. I step back to follow her out the door.
“Faye, you treat him right, you hear me? Don’t break his heart.” Freddy’s face is suddenly serious, and heat rushes into my face and ears.
But Faye laughs, good-natured in the way only she can.
“I’ll feed him first,” she says, squeezing the end of his bed on her way out.
I pause, feeling the need to say something more. To apologize for not protecting him or tell him he’s going to get back on the ice this season—but he might not.
Our days of playing together could be over. The thought settles cold and hard in my chest, scratching at something deep and vulnerable inside me, a question I’ve avoided for as long as I’ve been playing hockey: what happens when it’s over? A hollow sensation fills my chest as my gaze shifts to where Faye just left the room.
“Freddy,” I start, clearing my throat, but he shakes his head and waves his hand at me.
“Go get your girl, Coop,” he says.
She’s not my girl, she’s my friend. That’s all she’s ever wanted to be, she’s made that perfectly clear from the get-go. As she dealt with AAA in Zach’s shitty gravel lot, and he lectured me not to try anything with his regular, I brushed him off, told him there was no way a girl like her—smart, beautiful, classy—would ever give me a second glance. I wasn’t lying when I said she was too good for me, but I was still thrown when I asked her to have lunch and she clarified we could have lunch as friends.
But over the past year, her friendship has come to mean the world. I’m not going to risk losing her friendship by crossing that line.
“See you soon.” I nod and back out of his room to catch up with Faye. And yet, I can’t stop the goofy grin spreading across my face at hearing Freddy call Faye my girl.
“I thought you were having a girls’ night?” I ask when I find her in the hall, staring at her phone.
“Yeah,” she says, distracted.
“Did you drive?”
“No,” she says, closing the screen to her phone. The flush in her cheeks makes more sense.
“Faye Benington, are you drunk?”
“No,” she says a little too quickly. She bites on her bottom lip and damn, if that little flash of white digging into her plump lip doesn’t do something to me. “Aly made palomas.”
“You drank something Aly made?”
She cringes and I chuckle.
“Come on, I’ll take you home.”
“You must be exhausted. And you’re already on this side of the river. I can call a Lyft,” she says.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say, walking toward the elevator. I press a hand to her lower back and she doesn’t react. She’s definitely had a few if she doesn’t tense when I touch her. And I don’t exactly hate it.
“You need some food, and you’re already so close to home—”
“It’s fine,” I say. “And I’m not letting you get into some rando’s car when you’ve been drinking.”
“That’s literally why people call a Lyft.”
“I’m driving you home. End of discussion.”
