"OH MY GOD, YOU KNOW HIS EXACT AGE."
"Keep your voice down—"
"PICKLE KNOWS THE DOCUMENTARY GUY'S EXACT AGE, WHICH MEANS PICKLE HAS BEEN THINKING ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY GUY ENOUGH TO LEARN HIS EXACT AGE—"
I shoved him. He staggered back, laughing, and I shoved him again for good measure.
"It's not a big deal," I said, too loudly. "People learn ages. It's called conversation. Adults do it."
"Adults also don't turn the color of a tomato when someone mentions their crush's name."
"I'm not—" I touched my face. It was, in fact, very warm. "Shut up."
Jake dropped onto the bench beside me, still grinning, and for a second I thought that was it—interrogation over, back to regularly scheduled chaos.
Then his grin faded.
Not all the way. Just enough that I noticed.
"Hey." His voice dropped. Lower. Quieter. The voice he used when he was about to say something that mattered. "Just—be careful, yeah?"
I looked at him.
"He's gonna leave eventually," Jake said. "That's his job. He shows up, films the small-town hockey story, and then he goes back to wherever guys like him go back to. Chicago, probably. Somewhere with better coffee and fewer moose."
The tape felt too tight in my hands. I loosened my grip.
"I know that."
"Do you?" Jake's eyes searched my face. "Because I've seen you get attached to things, Pickle. You get attached fast, and you get attached hard, and then when the thing goes away—"
"I know."
He waited, but I didn't have anything else to say. His warning settled into my chest like cold water.
He's gonna leave eventually.
I knew that. Of course, I knew that. Adrian had told me himself—three days, maybe five. Plus two more days. Temporary. Everything about him was temporary.
Still, last night in that car, with the windows fogged and his hand on my neck, it hadn't felt temporary.
It had felt like the start of something.
"I'm fine," I said. Smiled. Made it look real. "Seriously, Jake. It's nothing. Just—warm-up high. Early-season energy. You know how I get."
"Okay," he said. He didn't sound convinced.
Coach's voice echoed from the hallway—five minutes to puck drop.
I finished taping my stick. The wrapping was uneven, slightly crooked, but I didn't fix it. Fixing it would mean admitting something was wrong.
Nothing was wrong.
Adrian was temporary. I was temporary. Everything was temporary, if you thought about it hard enough, and I was very good at not thinking about things.
I stood, grabbed my helmet, and headed for the tunnel.
Behind me, Jake said nothing.
