Chapter 25 Bohdan
Bohdan
Then - College
“You’re sure?”
It’s a stupid question, and it’s met with the belated, stretching silence it deserves.
Shay clears her throat on the other end of the phone.
“Am I sure? Yes, Bohdan, given that I’ve been doing this for quite a while, I’m intimately familiar with the rules of the draft.
And seeing as you’re the first-ranked player in the nation, and Seattle won the lottery—I’m fairly confident in my assessment.
And you can tell Jay Choi, unless he overtakes you in points for the rest of the season, he’s probably going to Philadelphia.
But I’m sure he’s on the phone with his agent as we speak, getting the exact same news you are, though I do hope he’s receiving it better. ”
“I’m not receiving it poorly,” I say flatly, pressing my head against my doorframe and banging it there once.
I can hear her eyes roll. “Really? The last time I got to deliver this kind of news to a generational talent kind of player—which isn’t a lot, by the way—that they were going to go first overall, and a team won the lottery that didn’t even have the worst record, he was elated.”
Pressing my fist to my mouth, I knock my head against the frame again. “Kurva. Zkurve—”
She cuts me off before I can keep going. “Please don’t swear at me in Czech.”
“I’m not swearing at you.”
“Really?” she deadpans. I can picture her, pressing her palms together and blinking at me from behind her mahogany desk in her office that sits way too high in a skyscraper in Manhattan.
“Should I call Seattle and tell them you’ll pass?
Maybe call the league and say you want to be removed from the draft entirely?
You can go to Europe like your other little friend, what a waste of talent that was. ”
“I don’t want to go to Europe.” I push off the frame, scrubbing my face. “I wanted to play in Canada.”
“Ah.” She sounds like she’s nodding along. “So the girlfriend could go to grad school at home and you maybe wouldn’t be apart for even longer. You know, Bohdan—”
“If you tell me Sloan’s just lucky to be along for the ride, I swear to God, Shay—”
“I wouldn’t say that,” she interjects softly.
“I like Sloan, quite a lot. I was going to say that I want you to remember what you want. That we probably couldn’t have handpicked a better team for you.
They structure their offense in a way that complements your playing style.
You’re going to respond well to their coaching, it’s exactly what a player like you needs to bring out the best.”
“I’m already the best.”
She laughs. “There he is. This is a good thing. You have a record-breaking career ahead of you, Bohdan. And I can’t wait to say I knew you when.”
I nod, even though she can’t see me.
Shay clears her throat again. “I have other calls to make. Not all my clients are going to fare as well in this draft as you. But I can try to negotiate something for her. Flying her out? God knows I’ve had to ask for stranger things, and God knows teams have given players stranger things.”
“I’ll have the money to fly her to Seattle.”
“That you will. I’ll make sure of it.” I can hear the smile in her voice.
I tell her the truth, even though I’m not sure why. She’s my agent, not my mother. She’s barely a decade older than me. “I’m not disappointed. I don’t want to disappoint Sloan. There’s a difference.”
“Can I give you some unsolicited advice? I won’t even charge you for it.
” Her words turn sharp. “Life is full of disappointments. I promise you, in the grand scheme of things, this won’t be one.
Celebrate. Enjoy. Make headlines with Choi about drinking too much and causing a scene at a bar, waving around money you don’t have yet.
I don’t care, I’ll clean up after you. Just don’t listen to anything Valdez says, or you’ll end up in a frozen wasteland. My other line’s ringing.”
She hangs up, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the hallway.
I hear the low murmur of Talon’s voice from downstairs, followed by the echo of the best sound in the world.
Sloan’s laughter.
I take each step down the stairs, hating that she might stop laughing when I get down there, turn the corner into the living room, and she sees it all over my face.
It’s not what I’m met with when I round the corner.
Talon sits in the middle of the couch, leaning forward, elbows on his knees and eyes glued to his video game, fingers moving with rapid speed across the controller.
Tia sits beside him, watching and looking like she wants to grab the controller because whatever her brother’s doing seems wrong, judging by the sounds of rapid gunfire and seemingly dying characters coming from the television.
Sloan’s got her legs tucked under her at the end of the couch, an old sweater of mine with my number stitched along the hood hanging off her shoulders, and a textbook from her favourite archaeology seminar open on her lap.
“Well?” She closes the book, looks up, wrinkling her nose, and there’s all this excitement etched in the curves of her cheeks.
Talon’s phone vibrates against the coffee table. He chucks the controller to Tia and leans forward, eyes tracking the screen.
He looks back up at me, grin splitting across his face. “Seattle? No shit.”
I nod, a bit afraid to look over at Sloan, but she’s out of her seat, textbook clattering to the floor and her arms winding around my neck, head buried in my shoulders before I can start fumbling over some semblance of apology.
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers, small hands pushing into my back.
I wrap my arms around her and press my mouth to the crown of her head because I’m a coward and I do want to enjoy it, just for a minute, before she looks at me and I see the wheels turning.
“And you!” Talon bounds off the couch, practically pushing us over to get to Jay when he steps off the stairs. He claps his hands to his shoulders, shaking him. “Philadelphia. They’ve had the worst fucking record the last three seasons, but—”
Jay shrugs. “Not anymore.”
Talon gives him another shake before he turns to me. “You’ll get the mountains, Jay gets the ‘passionate’ fans, and I’ll get the chocolate.”
“You’re thinking of Switzerland.” Tia doesn’t look away from the TV.
“Really?” Talon blinks.
“Yes.” She finally breaks away, smiling widely at us. “Congratulations, boys.”
“Huh.” Talon considers, stepping back from Jay and shoving my shoulder harder than necessary. “This calls for celebration.”
I feel Sloan nod against my shoulder before she pulls back, looking up at me so brightly, with this adorable wrinkle to her nose that doesn’t seem like it is, but maybe it’s hiding disappointment.
Talon’s version of celebrating hasn’t changed since the day I met him, so the night goes the way it always does: He invites our entire team over, fills our house with more people than the fire code allows, and plays music so loud you can’t hear yourself think.
I’m pretty good at reading Sloan—I’ve learned a lot over the last two years, and I try to notice cues before maybe even she does, and I spend a disproportionate amount of the night watching her grip a red plastic cup, waiting for her fingers to tell me something.
But she speaks before they can.
Her hand finds mine; she pulls me up the stairs into the quieter hallway, pushes back against the doorframe where I was banging my head earlier, and takes the little noise cancelling loop earplugs out that Tia bought her. “Why do you keep looking at my hands?”
“I’m sorry.” I scrub my face.
“You’re sorry?” Sloan furrows her brow, tapping her cup to the Cupid’s bow of her lip. “Bohdan, your dreams are coming true.”
“Yours aren’t.”
She pulls her head back, and I see it then—the sharp inhale and the way her eyes go wide, fingers tightening against the red plastic.
“You wanted to go home,” I clarify, words slow and measured, and I take the cup from her, emptying it before tossing it on the ground with all the others that Talon won’t bother to clean up, even though the mess is his fault. “Go to grad school in Toronto or Vancouver.”
Sloan blinks with a slow breath, a tiny nod of understanding. “Anthropology programs don’t only exist in Canadian universities, you know. I can apply to UW, I can apply—”
“It’s not what you wanted.” I sound pathetic, voice all hoarse. I am pathetic, as far as she’s concerned. In all the best ways and all the worst ways and I have been since she walked down those steps from her dorm two years ago.
She considers, scrunching her nose, and her voice cracks. “I didn’t always . . . I’ve never felt like enough there. My head’s always worse and it’s all too loud but it’s always quieter and . . . I feel like enough with you.”
The idea that she feels quiet with me, enough with me, to want this so badly—that’ll become the only thing I ever really remember about this day when I look back years later.
The best day of my life, but not for the reason anyone else would think.
“You’d follow a boy?” I ask dryly.
Sloan gives a shrug of one shoulder with a roll of her eyes. “You’re not a boy. I don’t think you ever were. Did you come out of the womb all sharp lines and seriousness?”
“Okay.” I give her a flat look, but there’s a stupid grin fighting at the corners of my mouth. “You’d follow a man, then? That might be even worse.”
Sloan angles her head, all of her going soft and beautiful and not at all disappointed in me when she whispers, “Only ever you.”