Jaysen: People are saying you clinched your draft spot today Don’t get too comfortable Terzo
Still got 7 months to battle it out All i gotta do is get a gordie howe hat trick tomorrow and it’s back on Kinda jealous of clarkson though
I fall onto my bed and send back:
Mickey: He wasn’t too happy about it so it’s not
as great as it seemed apparently
Jaysen: I’m more jealous of the way it ended
I squint at my phone. I don’t get it. It ended with him kicking my ass. Isn’t that what we were already talking about?
Mickey: You’ve had plenty of chances
He reads it immediately, like he hadn’t even closed out of the chat, and starts typing. I can feel my heart beating hard, watching those three dots. It’s weird. Like when I had a girlfriend for five seconds junior year, the nerves I’d get waiting for her to text me.
We’re talking about fighting each other, but he messaged me first. It feels nice.
I am literally a disaster bisexual.
The dots disappear, but no message comes through. He starts typing again before my heart has a chance to drop, then stops before I can get my hopes back up. He does it two more times before I lock the screen and hold my phone to my chest, staring up at the ceiling. When it finally vibrates, I grit my teeth and force myself not to open it right away. I don’t want him to think I was sitting here waiting for his response.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
Self-control. Don’t open it. Don’t be suspiciously eager to read his messages. Repress all emotions.
I can’t. I don’t even last a minute.
Jaysen: You wouldn’t say that if we were on the same page here.
My thumbs hover over the screen, but I don’t type anything. Not yet.
He liked seeing me get led off the ice for the rest of the game? Seeing me get suspended, knowing he’s got an entire game tomorrow where he can show off and people can’t credit me for his success?
But that wouldn’t make him jealous of Clarkson. Maybe it was the way he laid me out on the ice like I was the most pathetic thing he’d ever come in contact with.
Maybe it was just the way he laid me out on the ice.
Oh.
My hands shake as I type.
Mickey: I think we might be
Jaysen: Prove it
I tap my phone against my forehead. Am I really gonna do this right now? It could ruin everything.
But I deserve a life outside of hockey, right? Not even just deserve—I need a life outside hockey.
I take a deep breath and force it out through my teeth.
Mickey: Meet me at the rink
* * *
I’M SHOVING MY feet into my skates when Cauler shows up. He sits in his stall and starts putting on his own. “What’re we doing?”
I pull my laces tight. “Practicing one-timers.”
He snorts. “It’s not gonna help in the draft, you know. They know what they’re getting from us at this point.”
I glare at him as I push on my gloves. “What happened to seven months to battle it out?”
One of his eyebrows twitches up, and I want to jump him right now. But my nerves are tingling and my heart is barely keeping up with the adrenaline and I’m not ready yet. I grab my stick from the twig rack and head out before I can act on impulse. His footsteps trail after me. I push the stack of pucks off the boards and corral them into one of the face-off circles. I go to the opposite point, and Cauler’s standing with the pucks when I look back.
He’s watching me curiously, dressed in black joggers and a hoodie, glasses on. My mouth waters at the sight of him. He tilts his head and waits for me to nod before sending me pass after pass.
I whiff on most of them. Slap shots just aren’t my thing. The ones I do get a stick on are high or wide or barely have the strength behind them to reach the net.
To my credit, I am extremely distracted.
Cauler’s sending his passes weaker and weaker, drawing me closer to him. My heart races and I can hardly breathe and finally … I’m barely a step away. I look up at him, breathless and electric, and he looks down at me with his head cocked to the side.
“Those were some of the worst passes I’ve ever seen from you,” I try. My voice shakes.
“What are we doing here, Terzo?”
I lick my lips. Shift my weight from skate to skate. “I don’t know. I just…” I feel comfortable here? Don’t have to worry about Dorian and Barbie barging in? I look down at the space between us. I swear my breathing echoes through the entire empty arena.
He steps closer, letting his stick drop to the ice. He pulls his right hand out of his glove and reaches up, trailing his fingers across my cheekbone and pushing them back into my hair. Each second lasts longer than the final moments of a tight game. I can smell the cinnamon on his breath, the sweat from inside his gloves.