I sent footage that could hurt you. I didn't tell you first. I'm sorry.
Fourteen words. Maybe more, if he had questions. That was a given. Pickle always had questions.
He'd want to know what footage. He'd want to know when. He'd want to know why I hadn't said something sooner, and that question would be the hardest because the truth was ugly and a blow to my ego: I'd been scared.
I crossed to the chair by the window—the one I'd been avoiding all morning—and finally sat down.
Not calm. My thoughts continued to circle.
Thirty-seven minutes.
Somewhere east of Thunder Bay, a bus was carrying Pickle home.
He'd arrive glowing. He'd see me, and his face would light up, going soft at the edges.
He still thought I was someone worth the glow.
I had thirty-seven minutes to figure out how to tell him otherwise.
And then: whatever came next.
Chapter thirteen
Pickle
My leg wouldn't stop.
I'd been bouncing it for the last thirty kilometers—I knew because I'd started counting signs when Desrosiers threatened to duct-tape me to my seat.
"I'm going to kill you," he said, not looking up from his phone. "I'm going to kill you, and no one on this bus will testify against me."
"That's fair. I accept your terms." I started drumming my fingers on the armrest. "It's not all my fault. I'm having feelings, and I don't know what to do with them, so they're coming out through my limbs. It's a medical condition. Very serious."
"There will be a funeral."
Jake leaned over the seat in front of me, chin propped on the headrest. "You're doing the Adrian thing. Your face has been doing the Adrian thing since we crossed the border."
I opened my mouth to deny it, but couldn't say the words.
"Seven points," I said instead. "Four games. Plus-eight. Best road trip of my career. I'm allowed to have a face about that."
"Sure." Jake grinned. "That's definitely what the face is about."
Jake wasn't wrong. My brain had been running a split-screen highlight reel for the last two hundred kilometers: bar-down goal in Toledo on one side and Adrian's mouth on the other. The breakaway feed to Heath, and then Adrian's hands tugging on my hair.
Through the window, the Sleeping Giant emerged from the tree line. Almost home.
My leg bounced harder.
Someone was waiting for me who'd saidI'll be here when you get back.
I'd never had that before. Someone was thinking about my arrival. Planning for it. Wanting it.
You're allowed to have this, I told myself.
The bus took the exit toward the arena. Familiar streets blurred past. Home.
The word landed differently now. Heavier. Warmer.
