19. CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
At two, I go upstairs and sit on the edge of my bed. I’ve lived in this house for four years. This room has been mine this year because one summer, Percy decided to move his room downstairs. I didn’t mind the change of scenery.
My first year here, I could barely lift my arm above my shoulder without pain. I spent that season watching everybody else play and telling myself it counted because I was still here. Then the next three years happened fast.
Nothing is packed because graduation is still months away. There might be another year if grad school works out. I know all of that. Still. Tonight could be my last game in this building if I don’t get in.
My phone buzzes.
Gianna: Downstairs.
I look at it.
Me: Why?
Gianna: Because your girlfriend is downstairs.
Gianna: Come here.
I go, and she’s standing near the back door in jeans and a Camden sweatshirt when I walk into the kitchen.
The second she sees me, her face changes slightly. “What’re you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“You have the face,” she says. “The one where you’re thinking too much.”
I open the refrigerator.
She follows me. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Good.”
“But you can.”
“I know.” I take out water.
Gianna leans back against the counter.
“You nervous?”
“A little.”
“For hockey?” she asks.
“No.”
She nods, and she doesn’t poke anymore. She reaches out and catches the bottom of my shirt between her fingers.
“Come here.”
I step closer. She wraps both arms around my waist and presses her face into my chest. I look down at the top of her head.
“You called me downstairs for a hug?” I ask.
“Basically.”
I put one arm around her, and Gianna squeezes me tighter like she has no intention of letting go anytime soon.
“I’m proud of you,” she says.
“Game hasn’t started.”
“Not about tonight.”
That quiets me. I look down at her for a second, then bend and kiss her forehead.
She smiles against my chest. “Go be a senior. Go be old.”
I laugh softly and kiss her properly this time.
When I pull back, she is still wrapped around me. She glances toward the living room and says, “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“My parents are here.”
I look over her head. “Yeah. I know.”
“No, I mean come say hi.”
“I’ve met your parents.”
“Not like this.”
That makes me look at her again.
Gianna’s smile gets wider. “Exactly.”
She takes my hand, but that apparently is not enough for her, because by the time we cross the kitchen she has looped herself around my arm too. Her cheek is against my shoulder, her fingers are threaded through mine, and she is basically attached to my side.
Her parents are sitting near the windows, talking with Benson and my dad. Her mom notices us first. Her eyes move from Gianna’s face to mine, then down to the way Gianna is practically hanging off me.
A smile starts immediately.
Gianna points at her before she can say anything. “Mom.”
Her mom smiles. “Gianna.”
Her dad looks over and gives me a small smile. “Rowan Laurens.”
“Hi, Mr. Reeve.”
Gianna squeezes my arm tighter, which I didn’t think was possible. Her mom looks between us again, and Gianna lasts maybe two seconds before she caves.
“So,” she says, grinning, “this is my boyfriend.”
Her mom’s smile gets bigger.
I look down at Gianna.
Her dad laughs, and the tension I didn’t realize I had goes out of my shoulders. There is no interrogation. No awkward pause. Her mom gets up and hugs Gianna first, then turns and hugs me too.
“Official now?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“Very official,” Gianna adds from beside me.
I look at her. She smiles sweetly, completely unbothered.
Her dad stands and shakes my hand. “You’re a good man. It’s good to see you.”
“You too.”
Then, just like that, the conversation moves on.
Her dad asks how I’m feeling about tonight. Her mom asks if my parents got in okay. Benson says something about traffic, and my dad starts telling him what route they took.
Gianna steps back into my side while they talk. She wraps both arms around one of mine again and rests her cheek against my shoulder.
I glance down. “You comfortable?”
“Very.”
“You planning to stand like this all day?”
“Yes.”
Her mom laughs. “She was always clingy.”
Gianna lifts her head immediately. “I am not clingy.”
Her dad looks at me.
I say nothing.
Gianna narrows her eyes. “Choose carefully.”
I smile. “She’s very independent.”
“Thank you.” She puts her head back on my shoulder.
Her mom laughs harder.
Benson walks past with a plate and looks at the two of us. “You’re proving her point.”
Gianna lifts one hand from my arm and scowls at him, then hugs me tighter.
I look down at her. She looks completely happy. Not nervous. Not embarrassed. Not trying to hide anything. Just happy. And standing there with both our families around us, Gianna wrapped around me like she belongs there, Senior Night feels a little less like something ending.
At least for a minute.
At the rink, Senior Night has changed the building before we even get dressed.
There are flowers stacked near the tunnel and signs with our names propped against the wall.
Athletics staff keep stopping people in the hallway to redirect parents toward areas they normally aren’t allowed in, and somebody reminds the seniors three separate times not to disappear after warmups because there is apparently an exact order to all of this.
I don’t like any of it. Stanley, naturally, loves every second. He finds the sign with his name on it near the tunnel and picks it up like somebody has handed him an award.
“This is incredible.”
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
He holds the sign out farther and looks at it. “I’ve been waiting four years to be publicly celebrated.”
“That is not true.”
“It is completely true.”
Benson walks up behind him before Stanley can turn the sign into something worse. “Coach wants us.”
Stanley puts it back against the wall. “I was having a moment.”
“You can have it later.”
Warmups are normal enough that I almost forget what is waiting afterward. We skate, shoot, take our usual routes through the neutral zone, and Percy complains about somebody hitting the same corner too many times. It is familiar in a way everything around it isn’t.
Then the horn goes.
Instead of heading down the tunnel with everybody else, the five seniors stay near the boards.
Tate. Faulkner. Me. Ermington. Reeve.
For a second, standing there in a line feels stranger than anything else tonight. I’ve heard my name over this sound system hundreds of times. Starting lineups, goals, penalties, assists. I’ve heard it when I played well and when I wanted the building to forget I existed.
Tonight it sounds different.
The announcer starts with Tate. His parents come out.
Then Faulkner.
Then me.
My mom is already crying before she gets all the way onto the ice. My dad gets to me first, and I hug him before my mom steps in and wraps both arms around me. She hangs on long enough that I can feel her trying not to make it worse.
“Mom,” I tell her.
“I don’t care.”
She pulls back and kisses my cheek anyway. My dad puts one hand on my shoulder and says something, but the crowd is loud enough that I don’t hear it.
I see it instead. Proud of you.