Chapter 11 #3
The glass had warmed in my palm, and the room buzzed around us—a modern bar playing at the past, voices and a burst of laughter from the team table. I exhaled.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m seeing someone. Kind of.”
Yeah, see, it’s complicated. I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. But I don’t want it to stop.
I didn’t say that part. Still—a half-truth.
Said to a stranger in a bar in St. Paul, four hours from where my parents still lived under big skies and bad weather, and probably would’ve made the game if not for my dad’s shifts.
“Thanksgiving instead,” Mom had said on the phone.
“We’ll come to Seattle. We’ll make a thing of it. ”
I’d said, “Sure, yes, that’d be great,” and hadn’t mentioned there might be someone in my life worth meeting. Partly because they’d expect a woman, partly because—
Because.
Rama smiled. “Good for you,” she said, easy. “And good for them, whoever they are.”
No pronouns. My chest felt strangely tight. “Thanks. I’m working on it.”
She studied me for a second, then lifted her glass in a small toast. “Hope it goes the way you want.”
Dangerous when I couldn’t let myself stray too far down that road. I touched my water to her glass anyway. “Me too.”
When I made it back to the table, Wes looked up with a grin. “So?”
“So what?” I asked.
Marco lifted his chin at me. “Was she into it?”
“She was,” I said, sliding back into the banquette. “Then we got talking and she developed standards.”
That got a laugh and, more importantly, moved us along.
Conversation swerved to families back home and the games ahead.
Somebody ordered fries, and soon half the table was arguing over whether a shootout win should count as a real win.
I stayed for another twenty minutes, then headed back to the hotel with Cole, who was on duty for a virtual bedtime story, made easier by how their toddler was a night owl and Seattle lagged two hours behind.
“Hey,” he said just as we were about to part ways, his room just two doors down from mine. “You doing okay, Matt?”
I was about to offer instant, automatic reassurance, some easy bullshit about a couple rough nights of sleep, no big deal.
But the way he watched me seemed… well. Concerned.
Genuinely so. Back in Seattle, I had a tendency to spend my spare time with Reid, but Cole was one of the few teammates I’d had over for dinner, and I’d been to his place a handful of times.
He was easily my closest friend on the team.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Mostly. Just figuring out some stuff.”
“Let me know if I can help,” he said, and it didn’t sound like a line.
“Maybe read me a bedtime story sometime,” I told him, and he laughed.
“Sure thing, man. I do all the voices, too.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
We said good night. My room was too warm when I walked in, suitcase half-open by the dresser and city lights smeared across the window. I took off my shoes, unbuttoned a shirt that Stellan would classify as decent but boring, and let the quiet settle around my shoulders.
Then I pulled out my phone to a reply from Stellan that had arrived in the meantime, a reaction to my Team is dragging me to a bar, send help.
Blink twice if there’s decorative rosemary in your water, he’d written, and a laugh caught low in my throat.
No rosemary, I typed back. But overpriced olives and truffle fries.
Three little dots came up almost immediately. My thoughts and prayers are with you. How will you recover?!
I dropped onto the end of the bed and toed off my socks. Piano playlist. Possibly some deep-breathing exercises.
Wholesome. Or! Soda from your fancy hotel minibar. Sugar, Matt! Go wild!!!
I grinned at the screen. Apparently, I was an idiot. Truth was, though, that a handful of texts from Stellan had done more for me than the whole evening with the team.
My fingers hovered on the keys. What I wanted to ask was when the next Suit Up Wednesday started, whether he’d be there early, whether he’d smile if I walked in.
Too much.
Or maybe not.
When do you start setting up? I wrote. For SUW.
The reply came fast. Late afternoon. Why?
I leaned back on one hand and took in the hotel room with its gray carpet and blurry photo art that wanted to be edgy and only landed somewhere mildly interesting. Twelve days, I’d told myself. Time to get my head straight.
Bullshit.
Thought I might stop by I typed, then hesitated because… his world. Other people around. More chances to blur lines I had no business blurring.
Too bad I didn’t care. I sent it.
A few seconds slipped by. Then: The kids would lose their shit.
Something under my ribs settled, quick and quiet as a breath. Yeah, I wrote back. Want to see it. Your thing.
The pause stretched—a couple of minutes, if that. It felt longer, though, long enough that I went to brush my teeth and returned to my phone lighting up on the white, pristine bedspread.
I’d like that, his message said, and I took a slow, deep breath before I replied.
Just send me the time and address.
Wednesday, then.