“What’s that?”
“It’s like when reporters ask what kind of player you are and you say ‘I’m a team player, I trust all these guys.’”
Logan laughed out loud. “You watched that interview?”
“It wasn’t an optionnotto watch it. It was playing on every TV on campus.“
He sighed. “I meant what I said.”
“No you didn’t! You aren’t a team player, you want to bury the puck.”
“Maybe I’m not the same person I was last year.”
“Uh, maybe you are.” I wasn’t going to admit I’d watched one of his preseason games. It just happened to be on one night when I had the flu from hell. It was stranger than fiction to hear the commentators saying his name.
His laugh came back softer. “People can change, Crys. Uh, Crystal. Sorry. I didn’t?—”
“My brother calls me Crys.”
There was another rustle of fabric against the speaker. “Do you like your brother?”
Was he joking? I waited for a chuckle but it didn’t come. The question made me pause. Had I ever considered whether Ilikedmy siblings? “I think so.”
“You think?”
I launched into an explanation of how my brother always messed with me growing up. There were plenty of times I hadn’t liked him, and he was still able to get under my skin with barely a look, but all of that was kind of exactly why I liked him. We had all that history together. There was nobody else on earth who knew me like him.
Logan told me about the cousin he grew up with, the closest thing he had to a brother besides his hockey teammates. Howhe still felt like Rob was family, even though they barely talked anymore.
That reminded me of a spat with my sister, which then took me into a diatribe about my dad’s workshop, the place that sparked my love of art. I had just scooched onto the edge of the carpet and flipped onto my stomach, propping my head on my free hand, when Jenna’s feet appeared in front of my nose.
I craned my neck to look up.
Her arms were crossed. “You’ve been on the phone for an hour.”
My brows pinched. “What?” Wait, when had she gotten home? I didn’t even hear the front door open and shut. I held the receiver to my shoulder. “Were you in your room?”
“No, I came in fifteen minutes ago.”
“Then how do you?—”
“Because I tried to phone you from campus. They were giving out free pizza in the quad.”
I considered making some argument about how this was a second phone call, but thought better of it.
I flipped the phone back into place against my ear. “Hey, I have to go. My roommate needs the phone.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. See you tomorrow.”
I scrambled up from the floor. “Wait, give me the details again.”
He rattled off the time and address, and I scrawled them on the notepad.
Logan waited, then asked, “How is everyone?”
“Uh, you mean the team?”
“Yeah. Or whoever. You know, just people at Douglas.”
