23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ROWAN
For four days after Boston College, everybody at Camden congratulates us like we already won something.
It happens outside class, in the athletic building, in the coffee shop across from campus.
People I have never spoken to know we beat the number-one seed.
Professors mention Vegas before lectures.
Somebody hangs a sign over the entrance to the student center with FROZEN FOUR written across it in letters big enough to read from the road.
Stanley loves all of it. I don’t hate it. I just don’t know what to do with it because we haven’t won anything yet. But that’s the part nobody seems interested in.
At the rink, nobody is acting like we won anything.
Fuller makes sure of that. The first practice back is hard enough that Stanley stops talking twenty minutes in, which might be the best indication of how serious it is.
Minnesota clips are already loaded in the video room.
Special teams get reworked. Everybody’s schedule for the next week is printed and taped inside the locker-room door.
The Frozen Four is suddenly everywhere.
There are eleven days between the win over Boston College and the semifinal. Eleven days sounds like time until I start counting what has to fit inside them.
Class. Practice. Video. Media. Travel.
Then Minnesota.
Maybe Michigan after that.
Maybe nobody after that.
Gianna is in my room Thursday night with an open suitcase on the floor and clothes spread across the end of my bed like she is the one leaving tomorrow.
I’m supposed to be packing. She’s supposed to be helping. Neither of those things are happening.
“You own seven black shirts,” she says.
“They’re different.”
Her head comes up.
I’m sitting at my desk, and the look she gives me makes me smile before she says anything.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I just remember somebody having opinions about my three Camden sweatshirts.”
“That’s different,” I argue.
“How?”
“You were going to Toledo for two nights.”
“And you are going to Vegas for four.”
“Yeah.”
She stares at me.
I know that did not help.
Gianna turns back to the suitcase and picks up two shirts that look almost identical even to me. “Which one?”
“Either.”
“No. You just said they’re different.”
“They are.”
“So which one?”
I point at the one in her left hand.
She looks at both, then at me again. “I’m pretty sure you chose randomly.”
“I did.”
She laughs. “I regret offering my help.”
She folds both shirts and puts them in the suitcase anyway.
I watch her move around my room. She’s pretty much moved in here, and I’ve stopped thinking about it. Her things are here. Her charger, her face wash, hair ties, and one of her coats in my closet. I used to notice every time she left something here. Now I notice when she takes something home.
Gianna picks up a sweatshirt from the floor and folds it. “You’re going to need a bigger suitcase.”
I shake my head. “Nah.”
“You haven’t packed shoes yet. You need dress shoes. And your suit?”
“Garment bag.”
“Toiletries?”
“Side pocket.”
She looks down at the suitcase. Then at me. “Okay.”
I stand and go over to her. She’s still holding one of my sweatshirts when I put my hands on her waist.
“What now?” she asks. I can see the tension in her shoulders. “Am I annoying you?”
“No,” I say, pulling her in. I grab her chin and kiss her.
Her arms go around my neck without hesitation, the sweatshirt caught between us. I take it from her and throw it onto the bed.
“That was folded.”
“I’ll fold it after.”
“Who are you?”
I kiss her again.
She laughs into my mouth, then stops when I pull her closer. I don’t know when it happened, but this stopped feeling temporary. I always looked forward to the next time, but now she’s here in my space, and I can do this whenever I want.
She pulls back slightly.
I look at her and smile. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”
I look around the room. My room at Hawthorne. My suitcase open. Her clothes mixed into mine. The framed picture my mom gave me after Senior Night still sitting on the dresser because I have not figured out where it’s supposed to go.
Gianna follows my eyes. “You mean leaving?”
“Yeah. Growing up.”
Her expression shifts. I did not mean to make it heavy.
“I keep thinking about how many times I’ve packed in this room,” I say. “Road trips. Holidays. Summer. It never felt like anything. And now everything feels like it could be the last version of it.”
She looks at me for a moment. “Lucy and I were talking about that before Toledo,” she says. She looks down at her hands. “Benson. Hawthorne. The team. You.”
I stay quiet.
She says, “I think I spent most of college assuming this would all keep happening. Benson would always be at Hawthorne. There would always be another hockey weekend. Everybody would always end up in that living room afterward.” She gives a small shrug.
“And then I realized there’s not always another one. ”
I have been thinking the same thing.
The difference is Gianna says things before they turn into a problem.
I reach for her hand.
“What happens next year?” she asks.
It isn’t really a question about next year.
“Benson’s gone,” she says quietly like she’s still processing that.
“Yeah.”
She swallows. “Stanley too.”
“Yeah.”
“Penelope.”
“Yeah.”
She runs her thumb across my knuckles. “And maybe you.”
I look at her.
She immediately shakes her head. “I’m not asking.”
“You kind of are.”
“No.” She says it faster this time. “I mean, obviously I want to know. But I’m not asking you to make a decision because of me.”
“I already applied. And I wanted the program before we were together.”
“I know.” She glances down again. “I just don’t know what I’m allowed to hope for without making it weird.”
I turn toward her fully. “You can hope I stay.”
Her eyes lift.
I grab her. “It doesn’t make the decision yours.”
She searches my face like she is checking whether I mean it. “Well, I do.” She nods. “I hope you stay, Rowan.”
“I know.”
“I hope a lot.”
I smile. “Figured.”
“But if something better happens—”
“G.”
She stops. Her brows draw together.
I tighten my hand around hers. “If hockey gives me something, I’ll figure it out. If grad school gives me something, I’ll figure that out too.” I pause. “But I’m not making plans like you’re not part of them.”
She goes very still.
“Okay,” she says quietly.
“Okay.”
Her mouth curves. “That was very boyfriend of you.”
“I am your boyfriend.”
“I know. It still catches me off guard when you’re good at it.”
I pull her into me. I step back until I’m sitting on the bed.
She laughs as she comes across my lap. Her hands settle against my shoulders. For a while, we stop talking about next year.
That night, she stays. The suitcase doesn’t get finished until morning.
Three days later, Coach catches me outside the video room.
“Laurens.”
I stop.
He waits until the last couple of guys move past us. “Check your email.”
I look at him. “What?”
“Your university email.”
“Why?”
He gives me the same look he gives Stanley when Stanley asks something he already knows the answer to.
“How would I know?”
I chuckle. “You clearly know.”
“I know somebody called looking for you.”
My stomach tightens. “Who?”
“Graduate admissions.”
For a second, I just stare at him. Then I pull out my phone.
Fuller walks away before I can ask anything else.
There are two unread emails. One from a professor. One from admissions. I open the second. It takes me longer than it should to understand the first line. Then I read it again.
Congratulations.
I keep going.
Sport Administration.
Fall semester.
Accepted.
The hallway keeps moving around me while I stand there with my phone in my hand.
Camden.
Another year.
Not this year again. That’s impossible. Benson will be gone. Stanley will be gone. Hawthorne changes. But Camden is still here. I am still here.
My first thought is my parents. My second is Gianna. I call her first.
She answers after two rings. “Oh, Laurens.”
“I got in.”
There’s a pause. “What?”
“Grad school.”
Then something bangs on her end of the call.
“G?”
She squeals, “You got in?”
I pull the phone away from my ear and smile. “Yeah.”
“Oh my God! Rowan!”
I can hear her moving around, then another voice farther away asking what happened.
“You got in.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re staying!”
That’s her first thought. Not congratulations. Not I knew you would. You’re staying. Like she thought maybe I wouldn’t.
I lean back against the wall and nod. “For another year.”
The line goes quiet.
I can hear her breathing.
Then, very softly, “Yeah.”
I close my eyes. There is so much inside that one word that I do not need her to explain it.
“G.”
She replies, “I’m not crying.”
I laugh.
“I’m not, Laurens. Don’t even ask, okay? I’m not.”
I stare at the ground, feeling warmth spread through my chest. “You sound like you are.”
“I’m happy,” she cries. “I’m really, really happy.”
A laugh gets out of me.
“Can you come over right now?” she asks.
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
“I have class in forty minutes.”
“Okay. After.”
“You’re already coming over after.”
She laughs again. “Yeah. I’ll be there. Congratulations, Row.”
“Thanks.”
“You did that.”
“Yeah.”
“You wanted this before me.”
“I did.”
“I’m saying that for myself, not you.” She goes quiet. “I’m so proud of you.”
I look down at the floor. “Thanks, G.”
When she gets to Hawthorne that afternoon, she doesn’t knock.
I hear the front door and then her shoes on the hardwood, fast enough that I know it’s her before she appears in the kitchen.
She’s wearing one of my sweatshirts. Her hair is pulled into a bad ponytail.
Her eyes are a little red. She stops when she sees me.
Then she crosses the room so quickly that I barely get my drink onto the counter before she reaches me.
I catch her around the waist. Her arms go around my neck.
“You got in.”
I laugh against her hair. “Yeah.”
She pulls back and takes my face between both hands. “I’m serious. I am so proud of you.” She kisses me. “You’re staying,” she says quietly, “with me.”
I put my hands around her waist. “Yeah.”