34 #2
She makes a sound at that one, right at the back of her throat, and her hand comes off my wrist and around the back of my neck and pulls, and her face goes into my shoulder. She arches. “Don’t… fucking… stop…”
I keep doing exactly what I’m doing. My fingers are burning, and she cries out into the room, and when her body goes slack, she’s shaking, and I ease my hand out.
She closes her eyes, catching her breath. “Water?”
I grab the bottle off my desk and pass it to her, and she chugs it. I take the empty bottle, and she falls back onto the bed.
“Don’t you have practice?”
I don’t care. I lean over and kiss her. I know what time it is, and I know how long it takes to get across campus and into my gear.
“Nash.”
“Yeah.”
“Practice.”
I kiss her again. She’s half laughing into my mouth. “You’re going to be late.”
“Probably.”
She pulls back an inch and looks at me. “You would rather be late to hockey.”
I look up at her. She isn’t laughing now. I can see her working it out behind her eyes. Then she gets off me, pulls me to my feet, and smacks my ass.
I get dressed and grab my bag. She lies on her stomach in the middle of my mattress with the blanket around her waist and my hoodie twisted around her, watching me, and on my way past, I put a hand on her jaw and kiss her again.
I have to come back for my skates, and she’s still watching.
I kiss her one more time on the way out.
“I’ll see you later,” she says.
I go.
I make it with four minutes to spare, which is less than I’ve ever cut it, and I’m on the ice at six-thirty with the taste of her still in my mouth.
They only light the rink side in the morning, so the seats go black all the way up and the ice comes out of the dark at you, and somebody’s got a speaker going on the bench until Berwyn walks out.
Whistle. Flow, edges. Then he blows it again and says, “Board,” and it’s the D-zone stuff off the exhibition film like the faceoff loss, strong-side rotation, where the second guy goes.
It’s the least fun hockey there is and about seventy percent of the season.
Some mornings your feet just work better than others, and this is one of them.
My first stride out of the turn is there.
My hands are quiet. I’m seeing things a half second early instead of a half second late.
I win nine of the first twelve draws, and the two I lose to Greeley, I lose clean off the wall on his strong side, where his hands have always been faster than mine.
Koda’s playing mean. He’s been like it since he stepped on the ice, and in the neutral zone, he takes a puck straight off Waleska’s stick, and Rafe is about to lose his mind.
Forty minutes in, one of the walk-on D catches me in the corner with a hip, late and harder than anybody goes at seven in the morning.
My shoulder hits the glass so hard the whole pane shakes in its frame.
It comes up out of my chest without my head involved at all, the way it always does, and I stand in the corner with my hands on my stick for about half a second, holding it.
Then I pick the puck off the wall and move it up to Mathers.
“Sorry, Kennebeck,” the kid says, like I’m going to kill him.
“It’s a drill,” I call back. “Do it again.”
Berwyn saw it. He doesn’t say a word.
Then Greeley’s group goes, and Greeley is unbelievable this morning.
He wins his draw, his line gets it out clean, and two reps later, there’s a puck dying along the wall with three bodies on it.
He comes in low, digs it out with his feet, spins off the boards, and puts it through two sticks onto Wyatt’s tape in the slot.
Wyatt buries it. Berwyn’s whistle goes, and he points his glove into the corner. “That. Right there. Again.”
They do it again, and it works again. I stand at the hash marks with my glove resting on the knob of my stick and watch him be that good, and my jaw aches. When we rotate, he comes off the wall past me on the way back to his side, and I tap his shins with my stick, because that’s what you do.
“Good pass.”
“Thanks,” Greeley says, and we both go to our spots.
The video’s still on his phone, and wherever the fuck else he keeps it.
Back at Corvin, Rafe’s phone goes off while he’s got one leg in his jeans. He looks at the screen, and his whole face resets. He doesn’t sigh or make a thing of it. He sits down on the end of his bed and answers it.
“Hi.” His voice is flatter and more polite at the same time, and every yeah comes out like it’s being graded. “No, it’s Thursday. We leave Thursday.”
He listens.
“That’s fine.”
He listens for longer. “No, I know. I said it’s fine.” He’s got his elbow on his knee and his hand over his eyes. “It’s two games. It’s not—no. Don’t worry about it. Okay. Yeah, you too. Bye.”
He hangs up and throws the phone down the bed. I’m at my desk with my back to him, putting my laptop in my bag, and I don’t ask him anything. We’ve lived together since August, and the deal is pretty clear.
“They coming Friday?” I ask, because he told me three weeks ago that Fairborn is an hour from where they live.
“No.” He pulls his jeans the rest of the way on. “He’s in London. And my mom has a thing.”
I pull my sweatshirt over my head. “You want me to call them?”
“Fuck you,” he says, and almost laughs, and goes into the bathroom.
My mom calls while I’m crossing the quad. I look at it for four rings. Dad, I can decline. Dad, I’ve declined twice already and turned the phone off.
I pick up. “Hey.”
“Hi, baby.” There’s background noise, a car door. “Are you walking? You sound like you’re walking.”
“I’m going to class.”
“Good. What’d you eat for breakfast?”
“Eggs. Oatmeal. Mom.”
“I’m just asking.” I can hear her doing something with her keys. “Your dad said the game was really something. He said you had a big hit.”
“It was an exhibition.”
“He said the coach put you out at the end.”
“Yeah.”
We do this for another minute, school and hockey and whether I need anything, and the whole time, there’s a thing sitting at the end of every sentence, waiting to come out.
“Dad said you two had an argument.”
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t tell me what about.”
I keep walking. There’s a kid on a skateboard coming at me, and I go around him.
“He said you told him not to call you.”
“Yeah.”
She doesn’t say anything for a second. “He feels terrible, Nash.”
I knew I shouldn’t have answered this fucking call. “I have to go.”
“Nash.”
“What do you want me to say, Mom?”
“I just don’t want you making some big decision when you’re angry,” she says. “That’s all. Because you get angry, and then you—”
“I’m not coming home for winter break.”
The car door noise stops. The keys stop. It goes so quiet that I check the screen to see if she’s still there.
“Nash.”
“We play until the nineteenth anyway. I’ll stay here.”
“Honey. It’s Christmas.”
“I know what it is. It’s not some big life decision. It’s one Christmas. I don’t want to see him.” My voice doesn’t come out like I want it to. “I’m at class.”
“Nash—”
I hang up.
I walk the rest of the way to the science building with the phone in my fist and my ears ringing. I sit down in the third row of a lecture I’m already two chapters behind in. I don’t look at my phone again. I don’t go find something to break. I sit there and don’t learn anything for fifty minutes.
Class lets out, and my phone buzzes. I don’t want to look at it, and I look at it anyway. Kylie. It’s a picture of her eating a banana, and every muscle in my body tightens.
Kylie: Bananas for you.
I stare at the picture. The banana is peeled halfway, and her lips are wrapped around a good third of it. I’m still furious, and now I’m horny.
Another text comes through. A picture of an orange.
Kylie: That’s an orange.
I heart them both and start typing.
Me: Lucky banana.
I put my phone away and head to my next class, and it buzzes again before I’ve made it down the stairs.
Kylie: Could be you.
I stop in the middle of the stairwell.
Me: Tonight.
She sends a laughing emoji.
Me: 9.
Kylie: Bossy boyfriend.