“Whatever. See you Tuesday for practice?”
“Tuesday.”
We waved them off and had only just turned towards the building, patting our pockets for the keys, when a familiar black pickup rolled into one of the visitor parking spots.
“Looks like he came around,” I said.
Perry drew in a shaky breath and nodded.
“I can make him go away,” I promised. “Just say the word.”
“Wait and see.”
Why was I not surprised that was his response?
CHAPTER 14
PERRY
Wasit crazy of me to wish Channing hadn’t picked tonight to show up? My face still hurt. I was tired. I wanted a night alone with my boyfriend, a good, long sleep, then time to really talk this through in plain English, no subtext, before we faced him again.
Too bad for me, I guess.
We waited for Channing to get out of his truck and come over.
I took a step back when all the doors of his truck opened, and Carol and Michael joined him on the pavement. Carol’s hair was back in it’s braid, but Michael and Channing had released theirs from the restricting elastics.
“Glad we caught you,” Channing said.
“Why?”
“Can we come up and talk?”
“No, I don’t—it’s too many people. Too late.” It was an old, panic response, probably brought on by having recently been punched in the face, but I couldn’t make myself take it back.
“Okay.” Channing—Alan—held up a hand. “That’s fair. But we wanted to talk to you both before we had to leave town andsince I don’t know what your jobs are, I wasn’t sure we would be able to catch you in the morning.”
“I’m a barista. He’s a mechanical engineer,” Evan said.
“Ev.”
“Well, you are.”
“I’m a draftsman. I draw the things the engineers… engineer. Anyway, why? What do you want?”
“It probably didn’t escape your notice that we’re short two team members now,” Alan said.
“You don’t say.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
Alan pressed his lips together to stop a smile. “Yes, well.” He turned to Evan. “I couldn’t help but notice that you delivered a very nearly perfect game. Very high nineties, at least.”
“We don’t keep those kinds of stats,” Evan said. He puffed up a bit. “But yeah. I had a good day.”
I snorted. By good, he meant phenomenal. Alan wasn’t wrong about his stats. We didn’t officially keep them but I had a rough approximation for all my guys in my head and Evan had done really well today. All weekend, in fact.
“You curl at a world standard, Evan. You must know that.”
Evan shifted from foot to foot but said nothing.
