My head rotates quickly to Emma. I’m not sure what I expect, but it’s not her responding with a shrug then, “I guess that one’s better, douchenozzle.”
Okay. That’s it. That’s the fucking funniest thing I’ve ever heard. So I laugh. And laugh. Loudly. “Douchenozzle.” I slap Cody on the back, but I can’t stop laughing.
“Funny,” Cody says giving Emma a dirty look. “Consider yourself the winner of that round.”
“Oh, I won the battle, but you’re supposedly going to win the war?” She arches her pretty brow.
“Something like that.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.” She holds out her palm. “ID?”
I hand her mine and watch her write down my information. When I get the key, she says, “You’ve got 3B again.”
“Thanks.”
“Um…,” she says, sounding hesitant.
“Yeah?” I look down at her and smile, because there’s just something about her that makes me happy.
Pointing at Cody’s shirt, she asks, “Do you guys play hockey?”
I look over at my friend. He’s wearing one of our standard issue hockey team tees. “We do,” Cody says proudly. “I’m the best forward the school’s ever seen.”
I chuckle because the guy is damn good but, the best? Nah. When she looks at me, I shrug. “I’m a defenseman.”
“Are you a good player too?”
Cody snickers, but I ignore that. “I’m okay.”
“Where’ve you been hiding, sweetheart?” Cody leans on the desk and runs his hands through his long hair. “Everybodyknows about the hockey team.” He points at me. “And that guy right there? He’s destined to play in the NHL.”
“NHL?” she asks, furrowing her brow. “What’s that?”
Cody’s expression is priceless, like someone just told him there wasn’t a Santa Claus. “Uh, seriously?” Cody’s voice gets loud and a little squeaky like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You don’t know what the NHL is?”
Emma doesn’t respond. She just waits for the answer to her question. So I say, “It stands for the National Hockey League.”
“Oh, um. Right.” Emma’s face has turned a deep shade of pink.
She’s embarrassed. I didn’t mean to make her that way. I need to say something. “Don’t listen to that jackass.” I slug Cody in the arm. “Hockey is all he ever thinks about.”
“But not you?” Emma asks me.
That’s a good question. “I think about it, but it’s not my entire world.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cody has turned to me and the glare he’s giving me says it all.
“It’s not. I’ve got to think about a future that doesn’t include hockey.” I mean all that. “I can’t count on making the pros.” Better question––do I really want to?
“I call bullshit,” my only true friend at this university spits. “If you put your mind to it, you’d make it. Your dad—”
I’m not talking about my father right now. “Was a great player, yes.” Believe me, he never lets anyone forget that. That and how disappointed he’ll be if I don’t make the pros. But, in order to get this conversation to end, I add, “I’m doing my best, but I’ll never be as good as he was.”
Before Cody can say anything more about me and hockey, I wave at Emma, then take big strides away from the desk toward the study room. Once there, I insert the key into the lock.
“Her?” he says from behind me.
“What?”
