Chapter 11 Harper #2
The game hasn’t started yet and I’m still hungry, so I fix myself another hot dog with mustard. I’m just opening my mouth to take a bite when Julian appears at my side. “You’ve got good taste,” he says.
I glance up, half expecting to catch some trace of humor in his expression—some indication that he’s teasing, but he’s not.
He’s watching me like he means it.
I swallow, a small, confused laugh slipping out. “I’m sorry?”
“The hot dog,” he says, as though that clarifies everything. “Good choice.”
I blink at him, still trying to decide if I’ve missed the joke.
“Have you tried the vendor on Seventy-Eighth?” he continues, like we’ve already moved past the part where this is strange. “Right by the steps of the Met.”
I shake my head slowly.
“They’re the best,” he says, without hesitation, without irony. “There was an issue with his permit last year—he was going to lose the spot. I had it renewed.”
“You—what?”
He shrugs. “It’s a good stand. It should be there.”
And the way he says it so matter of fact elicits a strange reaction.
Because this absurd, glittering suite, the caviar and the people and the quiet gravity that seems to follow him everywhere—this is what I expect from someone like Julian Langley.
I don’t know what to do with that.
“I couldn’t help but notice you sneaking dessert for later,” Julian says, leaning in closer to me.
My face flames red as my hand touches my bag where the incriminating evidence is stowed. “I’m sorry,” I stammer. “It’s not for me but Dylan. They’re his favorite—”
“Relax, Harper,” Julian says with a shake of his head. “I don’t care if you take the whole platter.”
“Gosh, that’s embarrassing,” I mutter. “I guess you’d expect that from a girl raised on the Lower East Side.”
Julian’s eyes sober and he looks at me with censure. “I don’t know about that, but I do know I’d expect that from a girl who loves her brother and wants to bring him his favorite dessert.”
A flow of warmth moves through me at not just his words, but with the expression on his face. He’s being sincere and I’m suddenly no longer embarrassed over my faux pas. I’m comfortable, and that surprises me the most.
“Well, thank you,” I say, inclining my head. “And thank you also for the tickets for Dylan’s class.”
Julian grins. “Well, that was all you. I’m just instituting your ideas to generate hype from the fans.”
The horn blows, signaling the end of warm-ups, and Julian touches my elbow. “Ready to go watch the game?”
“Um,” I say, looking around, wondering where I should sit.
But he doesn’t give me a choice, instead leading me to the front row where we sat last time.
The drive from the arena to Julian’s home is loud and boisterous. The Vipers trounced the Eagles and Julian and Dylan have been picking apart the game highlights.
“Okay, but Tanner’s sequence in the third—” Dylan leans forward between the seats as far as his seat belt will allow, which is farther than I’d like.
“When he drew the penalty and then came out of the box and immediately set up Grizz for the power play goal—that was designed. That wasn’t accidental.”
“It wasn’t accidental,” Julian confirms, and I can hear the genuine pleasure in his voice at being met with someone who actually wants to dissect this. “Tanner reads the ice differently than most wingers. He’s thinking two sequences ahead while everyone else is thinking one.”
“He baited that defenseman,” Dylan says. “The Eagles’ number seven. He baited him into the interference call on purpose.”
“Completely on purpose,” Julian says. “Tanner has been doing that since his second season. He knows exactly how much contact he can absorb before the ref has to make the call. He’s a super smart guy.”
“It should show up in the stats,” Dylan says immediately. “Someone should be tracking that. Drawn penalties per game, per situation, per opponent. You could build a whole model around it.”
A brief pause from the passenger seat.
“How old are you?” Julian asks.
“Seventeen.”
“Right.” Another pause. “Have you ever considered sports analytics as a career?”
I keep my eyes on the road and say nothing.
“I’m not sure what I want to do yet. Harper says I should be a lawyer because I argue for sport. She means it as a complaint, but I take it as a compliment.”
“As you should,” Julian says with a chuckle, and I can’t help but smile.
“She also says I’m exhausting.”
“I’m right here,” I say blandly.
Neither of them acknowledges this and they continue to chatter the entire way to Julian’s townhome.
Dylan is riding the high of it, talking in bursts—about plays and Grizz and Tanner, about things I barely caught but he somehow catalogued in perfect detail.
I smile when I should and respond when it makes sense, but my mind drifts in and out, still caught somewhere between the suite and the way Julian looked at me.
We pull up outside Julian’s building, the night colder now. He opens the door and steps out of the car, before turning around and leaning back in to look at my brother. “It was nice meeting you, Dylan. I enjoyed the game talk on the way home.”
“Thank you, Mr. Langley. This is one of the best nights of my life.”
My eyes mist a little over the unfettered joy I hear from my brother. We can’t afford a lot of fun things, so he’s being genuine when he says this is at the top of his best memories.
“You’re very welcome. And I left you something there in that box beside you.”
I turn around in my seat, surprised that Julian would offer another present, and I watch as Dylan opens a brown box sitting beside him that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Oh, wow,” Dylan exclaims and holds it up for me to see. It’s an entire box of the eclairs they were serving at the game, which look much better than the squished one in my purse. “Thank you!”
“You’re very welcome. Share some with your sister.”
“Yes, sir,” he says.
Julian’s eyes come to mine. “Good night, Harper.”
“Good night, Julian,” I say, my heart racing a tiny bit, not just from the thoughtfulness of the gift but from the way he’s looking at me right now.
As if he did that for me as much as he did for Dylan.
Julian winks, then disappears into his home before I can even thank him.