Chapter 42
Sasha
Aaron scores with four minutes left in the third and the arena loses its mind, and I’m the loudest person in it.
I’m on my feet before the puck crosses the line.
Both fists in the air. Screaming something that’s probably not English.
The guy next to me flinches — he’s been giving me side-eye since the first period when I yelled hit him back at a Riverhawks defenseman who couldn’t hear me and wouldn’t have listened if he could.
Aaron peels off the boards, gloves up, helmet tilted. His linemates crash into him. The bench is standing. The horn blasts and I feel it in my ribs and I don’t sit down.
Two rows down, a group of girls in Riverhawks jerseys are on their feet too, screaming his name.
One of them has KELLY painted on her cheek.
They’ve been like this all game — tracking him every shift, grabbing each other’s arms every time he touches the puck.
I get it. I’ve been watching the same man all night.
The difference is I know what he looks like after a game.
Flushed, loose, the tension gone from his shoulders.
I know the way he runs hot for an hour after, how his skin stays warm and his hair stays damp and he doesn’t bother zipping his jacket.
I know what those legs look like out of the hockey pants, and I know what he sounds like when he’s not performing for an arena.
These girls can scream his name all they want. I’m the one taking him home tonight.
A year ago I was on the other side of this — lining up against him, watching him read my plays before I made them, wanting him and hating how much I liked watching him win.
Now I’m in section 114 in a Titans hoodie, losing my voice for a goal I had nothing to do with, and I wouldn’t trade this seat for a hat trick of my own.
The final buzzer goes. Albany wins 4–2. Aaron’s got a goal and two assists and I watched every single shift like I was studying tape. Old habits. Except now when I study him I’m not pretending I’m looking for weaknesses.
I’m looking because he’s mine, and he’s beautiful on ice, and I don’t have to hide a goddamn thing about the way I feel when I watch him play.
I take the stairs two at a time to the player exit.
The truck is idling at the curb. A beat-up old blue pickup truck with a scratch down the passenger side and a bed that’s seen better decades. One of my new teammates let me borrow it when I told him I needed to get out of the city this weekend.
The player door opens and Aaron comes out into the cold, duffle over his shoulder, hair still damp, jacket unzipped. He stops when he sees the truck.
I’m leaning against the driver’s door with my arms crossed. Grinning. I can’t help it. He scored tonight and he’s coming with me and he doesn’t know where we’re going and I’ve been keeping this secret for three weeks and it’s been killing me.
“Get in,” I say.
He looks at the truck. Looks at me. Back at the truck.
“Sasha.”
“Get in the truck, Aaron Kelly.”
“Whose truck is this?”
I grab his duffle off his shoulder and toss it into the bed. It lands with a thud next to my bag. “One of the guys on the Titans. He owed me a favor.”
Aaron walks around to the passenger side, opens the door, studies the interior like he’s inspecting it for structural damage. The seat has a tear in the vinyl patched with duct tape. There’s a pine air freshener hanging from the mirror that gave up on life months ago.
He climbs in. Pulls the door shut. Turns to me.
“Please tell me the truck isn’t the surprise.”
“The truck is not the surprise.” I put it in drive and pull out. “But you might find yourself wanting one like it soon.”
“Why would I want a truck?”
“That’s the only hint I’m giving you.”
He narrows his eyes. I keep my face neutral, which takes effort because I want to tell him everything. I want to tell him right now, in this parking lot, before we even get on the highway. But I’ve been picturing his face when he sees it, and I’m not giving that up for impatience.
“How far is this surprise?” he says.
“Ninety minutes. Maybe less.”
“Ninety minutes in this?”
“The guy keeps it running. Engine is solid.”
“The seat is held together with tape.”
“You’re spoiled. Too many luxury car commercials.”
He laughs. Tips his head back against the seat. His neck is long and still flushed from the game and I want to put my mouth on the pulse point below his jaw, but I’m driving and there’s a plan.
“You were good tonight,” I say.
“I know.”
I look over. He’s smiling. Not the polite Aaron Kelly smile he gives reporters — the real one. Crooked. A little smug. “A goal and two assists.”
“I saw.” I turn onto the highway ramp. “I saw all of it. The second assist — the backhand pass through traffic — that was filthy.”
“It was a little filthy.”
“Your winger didn’t deserve that pass.”
“He finished it.”
“He got lucky. You made that goal,” I declare.
His smile gets wider. His hand finds my thigh, rests there. Warm through my jeans. “You know what’s still weird?”
“What?”
“Hearing you yell for me. In the stands. Like a normal boyfriend at a game.”
“I loved it.” I don’t even hesitate. “Every second. You had a fan section, did you know that? Girls with your name on their faces. Screaming every time you touched the puck.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Liar. You always notice.” I glance at him. “I was louder than all of them.”
“You were louder than the horn.”
“Good. I want everyone in that building to know exactly who’s waiting for you after the game.
” I squeeze the steering wheel. “I spent two years pretending I didn’t want to watch you play.
Now I get to sit in the stands and lose my mind when you score, and I’m never going to be quiet about it. Not once.”
He’s quiet for a second. His thumb traces a slow line on my thigh.
“Four people recognized you in the concourse,” he says.
“Five. A kid asked for a photo near the bathrooms. I said yes. He told me I should switch to Albany so we could play together again.” I grin. “Smart kid.”
He squeezes my thigh. I cover his hand with mine, just for a second, then put it back on the wheel. The highway is mostly empty — two lanes heading northwest, dark trees on either side, the headlights cutting through. November. Cold enough that the heater in this truck is earning its keep.
“So,” Aaron says. “Ninety minutes. We’re heading north.”
“I’m not giving you more hints.”
“I’m just observing,” he tells me playfully, determined to guess right.
“You’re trying to figure it out.”
“I’m a competitive person. You know this about me.”
I do know this about him. I know that he kept a running tally of our points when we were on the same team at Ashford, and that he hated when I was ahead, and that the one time I beat him in a shootout drill he didn’t talk to me for two hours.
I also know I’m going to outscore him this season, and the argument about it is going to be fantastic.
“Speaking of competitive,” I say. “What’s your prediction? Goals, first pro season.”
“Mine or yours?”
“Both.”
He thinks about it. Fingers tapping my thigh. “I’ll hit twenty. You’ll hit twenty-five.”
“Wrong.” I shake my head. “I’ll hit thirty. You’ll hit twenty-two.”
“You’re giving yourself thirty?”
“I play center on a better team. More ice time, better linemates.” I say it like it’s a fact.
“Better linemates,” he repeats. “You haven’t even played a regular season game yet.”
“I’ve played preseason. I’ve seen enough.”
“So humble.”
“Humility is for people who haven’t been scouted since they were fifteen.” I glance at him. His jaw is doing the competitive clench. I love that clench. “Twenty-two is very good for a fifth-round pick, Aaron Kelly.”
“Fifth round because scouts are idiots. Your words.”
“My words. Still true. But thirty is more than twenty-two. Basic math.”
“Okay.” He sits up straighter. “New prediction. I’ll hit twenty-five. You’ll hit twenty-three.”
“Now you’re just being insulting.”
“I’m being realistic. The Titans have three other centers who want your ice time. Albany is building around me.”
He’s not wrong about that. Albany is building around him.
I’ve watched their preseason — Aaron is their guy, the one the plays run through, the one the coaching staff trusts in the last two minutes of a close game.
He’s going to be excellent, and I’m going to watch every game I can get to and yell until my voice gives out.
But I’ll still hit thirty before he hits twenty-five.
“We’ll bet,” I say. “Whoever gets to their number first buys dinner.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
We shake on it, his hand wrapping around mine over the center console, and neither of us lets go right away.
“You know what I still haven’t gotten over?” I say. “Being able to take you out for dinner in the city. A real dinner. Where I can hold your hand across the table and nobody blinks.”
The highway narrows. We turn off onto a smaller road, then a smaller one. The streetlights disappear. The trees close in — bare branches against a dark sky, the headlights finding them and losing them.
Aaron straightens up. “Where are we?”
“Close.”
“Sasha, there’s nothing out here.”
“Patience.”
The road turns to gravel. The truck bounces over it and Aaron grabs the door handle.
The trees are thick on both sides — I can just make out birch trunks, white in the headlights.
A sign at the last turn said Windham. We’re in the Catskills.
Then the driveway curves and the trees open up and the porch lights come on — the motion sensors I had checked last week when I drove up to do the final walkthrough with the realtor.
The cabin is right there. Stone and dark wood. The chimney breaking the roofline. The big front windows catching the glow from the porch lights. Snow dusting the roof and the railing and the Adirondack chairs on the porch.
I stop the truck. Kill the engine.
Aaron is staring through the windshield. He hasn’t said anything. His hand is still on the door handle, frozen there.