Our door was cracked the standard two inches.
I pushed it open the security door, desperate for the quiet of our room, for the smell of mint tea and the click of Austen’s keyboard.I needed to answer the note he’d left yesterday.I needed to explain why I’d ghosted him for forty-eight hours.
I’m done doing this wrong, he’d written.
Me too.
But when I stepped inside, the room was dark.
The blinds were drawn tight against the afternoon gray.Austen was in bed, face turned to the wall, blanket pulled up to his ears.
I froze.It was 4:30 p.m.Austen didn’t nap.
I stepped closer, quiet on the rug.The oat bar I’d left on his desk yesterday was gone, but the wrapper wasn’t in the trash.He’d cleared his desk completely—laptop, papers, highlighters all put away.
It looked sterile.
On the nightstand, under the lamp, the puck sat upside down.
The message was clear:Closed.
“Austen?”I whispered.
He didn’t move.His breathing was too even, too controlled.He was awake.He didn’t want to talk to me.
I stood there, hand hovering over his shoulder, wanting to shake him, to beg him to wake up and tell me the probability of us surviving my dad’s arrival.If I forced him to talk to me, with my dad prowling campus and my shoulder on fire, I’d bring the chaos right to his bed.
I pulled my hand back.
I went to my desk, sat down, and didn’t turn on the lamp.I sat in the dark, listening to the radiator hiss, waiting for my phone to buzz.
It took ten minutes.
Buzz.
I pulled it out of my pocket.It wasn’t Ryan.It wasn’t Javier.
Dad:I’m outside.Bring your playbook.
I stared at the screen until the backlight timed out, plunging the room back into gray.
I looked at Austen’s back one last time.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the silence.
I grabbed my playbook and walked out the door.
Chapter 32
The Handshake Line
Luke
The rink lights dropped to half-dark for introductions, and the student section roared hard enough to vibrate the aluminum bleachers.
I stood in the tunnel, the concrete cold seeping through my skates.My dad was out there.Section 104, probably critiquing my posture during the anthem.Gulliver Vane was with him.
The roster in my pocket felt like a lead weight.
