Camden chuckles. “Oh, please. He could have three former Playboy bunnies as assistants, and he would run the other way. He’s a smitten kitten, and we all know it.”
Coach sounds bored when he says, “Sit down, Viktor, or I’ll make Knight captain instead of you.”
“Keep standing!” Knight calls. “Tristan! Put him in a leg lock.”
Viktor remains unfazed. “Are you sure? After all, I know all about how you met your wife.”
Coach stands and rests his arms on the seatback for better leverage. “For the record, I met my precious Vivian in the front office while she was dressed like a mermaid. There was some side boob involved. And I liked it. Oh, and if we’re spilling secrets, the reason Viktor couldn’t sit a few years ago was that my dog bit him in the ass.”
Viktor wilts into his seat. I poke him with one finger. “Karma. I love that bitch.”
Sergio mutters, “Why didn’t I know any of this?”
“Because you’re not your father,” Renee pipes up.
“He’s retired!”
“Right.” I canhearRenee’s eye roll. “Keep telling yourself that. And by the way, Tristan? He knows about you and Minerva, too.”
“The fuck?” I croak. “How?”
“I just texted him.”
I flop sideways against the wall of the plane. Great. Just fucking great. My family knows a thing or two about killing hogs, but that doesn’t mean I want to go toe to toe with a guy who is maybe, definitely, associated with the mafia. Or something equally shady.
“I hope it was worth it,” Viktor says with a little salute that makes me want to break his fingers. “Nice knowing you.”
Well, I guess if I had to go, I might as well die for lo—
Like. For acrushon a wonderful woman whom I’ve just started sleeping with.
* * *
It’s late when I finally walk through the door, but the house is a littletoolively. Kepler has the zoomies and is running figure eights through the kitchen and living room. Minerva is onthe floor with new notes and new books and a slightly crazed expression on her face. Her head is down while she reads, and her hands are pressed to either side of her head while she mouths the words. I don’t think she heard me come in.
“Hey, Min.” I dump my stuff and sit down next to her.
This is what I pictured at the end of every road game—walking into this chaos, this warmth, her.
“Oh!” She jumps and blinks vacantly, as if she’s just emerged from a coma and has no idea where she is or how she got here. “Where did you come from?”
“The airport,” I tease. “I just walked in.”
Kepler does another lap through the room. When he gets to me, he hops into my lap, puts his paws on my collarbone, stretches to his full height, and boops his nose against mine. Then he’s off again, burning more energy than I would have thought his tiny body could possibly contain.
“That was so cute.” Minerva pouts. “I wish I had my phone out.”
I wrap one arm around her and pull her close. “You’recute. I missed you, Min. What’s tonight’s rabbit hole?”
There it is. Too honest. Too raw. But I don’t take it back.
She snuggles into me like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like my body is a place she’s allowed to rest. She doesn’t even notice she’s doing it. “The Black Plague’s impact on early prosthetics.”
“Of course. Have you learned anything interesting?”
“Duh. So, as you can probably imagine, the Black Death hadmassiveimpacts on European society, but it also kind of… jump-started the beginnings of modern medicine? Any mass-disabling event is going to require social adjustments, but the rise of the Black Death was both abrupt and protracted, and it came in waves. So instead of making a single giant change, or going into a single isolated season of lockdown, people had tokeepmaking adjustments. And a lot of people left cities to live in remote areas, which meant that there was this mass migration toward farmland and rural life…”
I scoot in behind her, knees bracketing hers, chest to her back.
