Epilogue
Shay
The thing about team buses was that they had their own frequency.
Not the sharp, compressed chaos of the locker room, not the echoing noise of a rink.
Bus noise was lazier. Looser. A long, stretched,out sound made of bad stories, worse snacks, and twenty,something men who had just done something hard together and were now trapped in a moving tube with nothing but time and each other.
I lived for that, too.
We were halfway to the airport. Night outside the windows, highway lights sliding past, the low hum of the engine underneath everything. Mivo was across the aisle, gesturing with a bag of chips. Kieran was in the seat ahead of us, turned around backwards like a raccoon that had learned to talk.
“Okay,” I said, “but listen. This is important historical information. The people deserve to know what you did to that poor rental car.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Mivo said.
“You put it in neutral at a red light,” I said. “On a hill.”
“It was an experiment.”
“It was a cry for help.”
Kieran, bless him, was fully committed to the bit. He had his seatbelt twisted around his chest like a harness and was miming the car rolling backward, one hand on an imaginary wheel, the other over his heart.
“‘I’ve got it,’” Kieran declaimed, in a terrible impression of Mivo’s voice. “‘Guys, it’s fine.’”
“Stop,” Mivo said, already laughing.
“‘I am in complete control of the situation,’” Kieran continued, as the rookies in the row behind him lost their minds. “As the car majestically returns to the previous intersection,”
The rookies were gone. Finished. One of them had his head on the back of the seat in front of him, wheezing. Reeves had his phone out, because of course he did, documenting the whole thing for future blackmail.
Hartley had headphones in and his hood up, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
I had the aisle, as always. My throne. My audience.
Beside me, in the window seat, Felix had his head tilted back against the glass, eyes closed.
His mouth, though.
His mouth was doing the small curve it did when he was actually amused and pretending he wasn’t. The one I’d once watched across Charlie and Henry’s table and lost my place for half a beat over.
He wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all me.
“and then,” I said, leaning into the aisle, “Mivo discovers the handbrake.”
“Shay,”
“Too late,” I said. “The damage is done. Three witnesses, two traffic cones, one deeply traumatized compact sedan.”
The bus dissolved again.
I sat back. Let the noise roll over me , the laughter, the protests, Kieran pledging his lifelong loyalty to rental car companies everywhere. The specific, perfect pitch of a team in a good mood, headed out on a road trip with a win behind them and the season still in front of them.
This was my frequency.
My home.
I nudged Felix’s knee with mine.
“Admit you love this,” I said.
His eyes stayed closed for a second, like he was considering pretending he hadn’t heard me. Then he opened one , just one, lazy and completely aware.
“This?” he said.
“The chaos,” I said. “The joy. The organized disaster. Me.”
I added that last part lightly. Casually. Like it was a joke.
It wasn’t.
He looked at me for a long beat, one eye still half,open, the bus reflected in it , the aisle, the guys, Kieran’s reenactment entering its second act.
“I love exactly one thing on this bus,” he said.
Then he closed his eye again.
He didn’t elaborate.
He didn’t have to.
My face did something that should probably have earned me a minor penalty. My grin was so big it hurt , an actual ache in the muscles, the kind you got from laughing too long or yelling too loud.
I let my knee stay pressed against his.
Kieran launched into a whole new version of the story where the rental car was secretly sentient. Mivo was protesting his innocence to Reeves, who was not listening. Someone had started a very loud argument about which fast food fries were objectively superior.
Felix, eyes closed, small smile, let it all happen around him.
Unbothered.
Not unbothered.
Mine.
I leaned back against the seat, let my head tip to the side until it rested, just for a second, against his shoulder.
He didn’t move away.
He always said he didn’t lose control.
Turns out he just needed something worth losing it for.