6. CHAPTER SIX
ROWAN
We lose three-one Saturday.
Minnesota adjusts after Friday, we don’t adjust fast enough, and Percy is the only reason it stays close. By the time Fuller finishes with us, nobody needs the game explained. We know what happened. We have Ohio State next weekend, Monday to fix what needs fixing, and a flight home in the morning.
By Sunday, nobody wants to talk about hockey anymore.
The airport is quiet for our group, which is saying something. Stanley buys enough food at the terminal to survive a weather emergency, complains about the price of an eleven-dollar smoothie while drinking the entire thing, and then falls asleep before the plane finishes climbing.
Most of the team follows him.
I have my headphones around my neck but nothing playing through them. There’s a reading for Novak open on my phone that I’ve been staring at without actually reading for the last ten minutes, so I finally give up and lock the screen.
That’s when I look back. Gianna is four rows behind me on the other side of the aisle, asleep against the window.
She’s wearing the same Camden hoodie she had on yesterday. The hood is pulled halfway over her head, and her arms are folded tight across her stomach like she got cold and never woke up enough to fix it. Her equipment credential is still hanging from the lanyard around her neck.
Donovan is beside her with his laptop open.
I passed the loading dock after midnight Friday and again last night. Both times, she was still there.
Now she’s completely out.
We start descending twenty minutes later. The seatbelt light comes on, and Gianna doesn’t move when the flight attendant makes the announcement.
I pull my phone out. Her number is only in it because she texted me Thursday night about her project. I open the conversation.
Me: Wake up.
I look back.
Still asleep.
Me: Gianna.
She doesn’t move.
I send another.
Me: We’re landing.
Her eyes open slowly, and she lifts her phone in front of her face with one eye open. I look forward and stare at my phone. A few seconds later, mine buzzes.
Gianna: Are we crashing?
I look back again.
She’s squinting at me from four rows away.
I shake my head.
Me: Landing.
She looks down.
Gianna: Worse.
I laugh under my breath.
The guy across the aisle looks at me, and I turn back around.
By the time we get to Camden, unload, and separate everything that belongs at the rink from everything that belongs to us, it’s after two. I get home, shower long enough for the hot water to start running cold, put on sweats, and sleep for almost three hours.
When I come downstairs again, Hawthorne looks like everybody came home from war and dropped whatever they were carrying wherever their body gave up.
There are bags in the living room. Somebody’s suit jacket is hanging over the stair railing.
A pair of shoes is in the middle of the hallway.
The dryer is running, and there’s a pile of clean clothes in front of it that nobody has claimed.
Blue is on the couch with an ice pack over one knee. Stanley is lying on the floor with a pillow under his head, scrolling on his phone. Percy disappeared in his room after we got home and hasn’t come back out.
I’m hungry enough that none of them matter.
There’s a steak in the fridge I bought before the trip, and if I don’t cook it tonight, I’m probably throwing it away tomorrow.
I get a pan hot, season it, and put it down.
While it cooks, I cut up the pepper and broccoli that are about one day away from becoming questionable and start potatoes in the oven too late for them to finish with everything else.
The smell reaches the living room before I’m done.
Stanley braces both hands on the counter and looks into the pan. “Is that steak?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“One.”
He looks up at me slowly. “You bought one steak.”
I nod, eating a raw piece of broccoli. “For me.”
Blue comes in behind him and looks over Stanley’s shoulder. “Dick.”
I turn the steak. “There’s a grocery store ten minutes away.”
“My leg is fucked,” Blue says.
“You walked in here.”
“I limped, asshole.”
I look down at his leg. He’s in sweatpants.
Stanley opens the refrigerator and stares into it. “There’s nothing to eat, Chef.”
I look in the fridge. He’s right, so I point. “There’s yogurt.”
He turns his head. His expression is genuinely offended. “I don’t want yogurt. I want steak.”
“I’m not cooking for everybody.”
“I didn’t ask you to cook for everybody.” Stanley points at the pan. “I asked you to share.”
I shake my head. “No. I told you. I’m not cooking anymore.”
He puts a hand over his chest.
Blue looks at him. “He said that pretty fast. He didn’t even consider it.”
The front door opens before I can defend myself.
Cold air moves through the house, and Lucy comes in first with her coat unzipped and a grocery bag looped around one wrist. Gianna is behind her carrying a backpack and her laptop bag, still in the same hoodie she wore on the plane.
Benson comes in from the back room the second he hears Lucy’s voice.
“Hey.” His whole face changes. “You hungry?”
She says, “I ate.”
“When?”
“Four.”
“That’s not dinner.”
Lucy gives him a look. “It was a quesadilla.”
“That’s definitely not dinner,” he says as they walk into the kitchen.
Gianna drops her backpack beside the island and starts pulling her hoodie off. “Thank you for asking her, Benson, because I’m starving. I could eat an entire cow right now.”
I look down at the steak and offer, “You can have some of mine.”
The kitchen goes quiet.
Stanley and Blue glare at me.
Stanley blinks. “I’m sorry?”
Gianna looks between us. “What happened?”
“He just told me no,” Stanley says like a starving animal.
I say, “You asked me to cook for you.”
“No. I asked you to share.” Stanley blinks at me again.
Blue points toward the pan. “He said no.”
Gianna looks at me.
I shrug. “They’re being dramatic.”
Stanley pushes away from the counter. “You’re giving her your steak.”
I shrug. “She just spent three days working for us.”
Stanley throws his hands towards her. “That’s her job.”
Gianna comes around the island and leans slightly over the pan. “How much steak are we talking?”
I look at it. “Half.”
Her eyebrows lift, satisfied. “Half?”
Behind her, Stanley makes a dying sound. I ignore him.
Gianna points at the vegetables. “And those?”
I nod. “Yeah. And the potatoes have six minutes.”
She considers this like we’re negotiating a contract. “Sold.”
Stanley throws both hands in the air. “Unbelievable.”
Gianna looks over her shoulder. “Are you mad because I’m eating?”
“I’m mad because apparently there are tiers.”
“There are definitely tiers.” Blue nods in agreement.
I turn to him. “Can we eat in peace?”
Stanley grins, mocking me with a childish face, and heads back toward the couch. Blue follows him, still muttering something about betrayal.
Gianna watches them go, then looks at me. “Should I feel guilty?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Good. I wasn’t going to.”
I laugh and take two plates down.
By the time we’re done eating, Benson and Lucy have disappeared upstairs, Stanley has found something else to complain about, and the kitchen is quiet again. Gianna sits across from me at the table with her laptop open beside her empty plate.
Gianna pulls her computer closer, and I watch her eyes read the screen, deep in thought. I don’t ask what she’s doing. She doesn’t ask what I’m doing either.
She types. I read. The dryer starts another cycle down the hall. Somebody laughs in the living room. Every once in a while, Gianna makes a face at her screen like she can’t believe her eyes.
After the third unusual face, I look over the top of mine. Her forehead is wrinkled. She clicks something. Smashes the delete button. She types again and then deletes again. She exhales through her nose.
“What?” I finally ask.
Her eyes stay on the screen. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been fighting that spreadsheet for five minutes.”
Her head comes up.
“Are you watching me?”
“You’re right in front of me.”
“My laptop is facing me.”
“I can still see your face.”
She narrows her eyes and turns the computer a few inches away from me.
“Problem solved.”
I smile and go back to my reading.
Thirty seconds pass.
Another sigh.
I look up again.
She sees me this time. She shakes her head at me.
“I didn’t say anything.” I hold back my smile.
“You’re about to.”
I look at her. “I can help.”
She keeps her eyes on her screen. “I can handle it, Rowan.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” I say.
“You implied it.”
“I’m offering to help.”
She leans back in the chair and crosses her arms. “Aggressively.”
“I said three words.”
“Your face added several more.”
“My face?” I question.
“That is exactly the problem with your face.”
I laugh and look back at my laptop. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
The kitchen settles again. I make it through two pages of the reading. Gianna clicks around. I hear her mutter something that sounds like stupid fucking formula.
I don’t look up.
Another minute passes.
“So,” she says and hesitates, keeping her eyes on the screen.
My eyes drop back to mine. “You can handle it.”
It’s awfully quiet. I look up.
She’s glaring at me.
I smile.
She says, “That was rude.”
“You said you could handle it.”
“I can.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“I just want to know if there’s a faster way.”
“Sounds like you need help.”
“It’s not help exactly. I just need information.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Different thing.”
“Completely.”
I close my laptop halfway and turn toward her. “Show me.”
She hesitates just long enough to make sure I know this was her decision, then rotates the computer between us.
“It’s Finance,” she says.
“I can see that.”
She points at one section of the spreadsheet. “We have to build an operating budget and then calculate the variance between projected and actual expenses. I know how to do the variance. I’m trying to make it automatically flag the category when it goes over.”
“You used the wrong reference.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I look at her. “You did.”
She stares back. “I did not.”
I reach for the trackpad, and she immediately catches my wrist.
“Explain first.”
I look down at her hand.
She lets go.