I looked at him. He was leaning forward, focused entirely on me. No phone. No glancing around. Listening.
"You do that thing," I said. "The listening thing. Most people wait for you to stop talking so they can say their thing. You actually listen."
Something flickered behind his eyes. "Occupational hazard. Documentaries are mostly listening."
"Is that all it is?"
The jukebox switched to something slow and synthy.
"No," he said. "That's not all it is."
Adrian's hand moved across the table. Slow. Deliberate. His fingers stopped a centimeter from mine.
Neither of us closed the gap.
Neither of us pulled away.
The bar noise faded to static. I saw nothing except that centimeter of space and how much I wanted to erase it.
"PICKLE." Jake's voice cut through. "We need a tiebreaker on the playlist."
Adrian's hand moved back. Casual. Like it hadn't just rewired my entire nervous system.
"Duty calls," I said.
"Go. Save them from themselves."
At the jukebox, Jake explained the crisis: Evan wanted The Cure, and he wanted Bon Jovi.
I picked something else entirely to annoy them both.
I felt Adrian's gaze on my back the whole time.
The night wound down slowly, then picked up speed.
Hog left first. Heath went with him. Desrosiers and Kowalczyk disappeared. Juno hugged everyone twice. Jake made a production of leaving—hugging me, Adrian, the bartender, and a chair for reasons he refused to explain.
And then it was just us.
I slid back into the booth next to Adrian.
"You're still here," I said.
"So are you."
"I live close. What's your excuse?"
"I'm not ready to go back to the hotel. It's quiet there. I've had enough quiet lately."
The bartender turned off a light. We ignored her.
"Tonight was good," Adrian said. "You're different here from how you are on the ice. Softer. Less like you're performing."
I drummed my fingers on the table. "I don't perform. It's just me."
Another light went off. The booth got darker.
"What do you see?" I asked. "When you watch me."
