A smile flickered across his face. “Good. Meet me at my car in five minutes. Try not to look too happy.”
I forced myself to walk casually back to where Tank was loading equipment onto the bus, even though every instinct wanted to sprint to Nils’s car immediately. “Hey, I’m gonna catch a ride back with Coach Anders. He wants to go over some stuff on the ride home.”
Technically, not a lie.
Tank groaned. “For real?”
I shrugged. “I don’t mind. I’m learning things from him every day.”
Also not a lie. I was getting way too good at this.
“You sure? We were gonna play cards.”
“It’s fine. I’ll see you back at campus.”
Tank studied me for a moment, and I wondered if he suspected something. He knew me better than anyone, so if anyone was to pick up on something being off, it would be him. But finally, he shrugged. “Your loss. Webb brought his poker chips.”
I grabbed my gear and headed toward the far end of the parking lot where Nils had parked. He was already in the driver’s seat, the engine running. I threw my bag in the back and slid into the passenger seat, immediately hit by the warmth and the faint scent of his cologne.
“So where are we actually going?” I asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“North.” He glanced at me with that subtle smile that always made my stomach flip. “I have a plan.”
Twenty minutes later, we were on I-87 heading away from Albany, the city quickly behind us. I’d relaxed completely into the passenger seat, my usual post-game adrenaline morphing into something warmer and more content. The simple pleasure of being alone with Nils, no teammates or coaches around, no need to monitor our words or maintain careful distance, was intoxicating.
“There’s a bag in the back with warmer clothes,” he said. “It’s going to be cold where we’re going, so I brought some extra you can borrow.”
Now I was really curious. I twisted around to find a duffel bag and pulled it into my lap. Inside were thick sweaters, winter gloves, thermal underwear, and what looked like snow pants. Everything looked new, tags removed but creases still showing from being folded in the store.
“Did you buy all this?”
A slight flush colored his cheeks. “I wanted to make sure you’d be warm enough, and I only brought one set of everything with me from Sweden.”
I held up one of the sweaters, a thick wool cable-knit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. “Nils, this is too much?—”
“It’s practical. You’ll need it where we’re going.”
“Which is where, exactly? Are we going skiing? Ice fishing? You’re not taking me on some Swedish wilderness survival exercise, are you?”
He laughed, that genuine sound I’d been hearing more often lately. “No wilderness survival. Though that might be fun for another time.”
Another time.The casual assumption that we’d have other adventures, other stolen moments like this, made warmth spread through my chest.
“I’ll give you a hint,” he said. “It’s something we talked about once. Something you’ve never experienced.”
I thought back through our conversations, trying to remember what I might have mentioned wanting to do. Then it hit me: that night on the bus after our first away game, talking about the stars. How I’d never really seen them, not the way he described them in Sweden. “Are we going stargazing?”
His smile widened. “Yup.”
“In November? It’s freezing!”
“Hence the warm clothes. But the cold air makes for better visibility. Less atmospheric distortion.”
“Nerd,” I said fondly.
“And proud of it.”
We stopped in a town called Lake George for supplies. It was probably bustling in the summer, but it was now deserted, almost desolate. Darkness was falling rapidly, and the small grocery store was empty at this hour, just us and a bored-looking cashier who barely glanced up from his phone. Nils moved through the aisles with purpose, filling a basket with what seemed like enough food for a week.
