She processes that for a second, then shrugs. “I mean, you’ve got options. You always did.”
“That’s what you said when I switched to goalie.”
She grins, flashes perfect teeth. “Best decision you ever made. You were a dogshit winger.”
I let her have that one. I look at the window, watch the rain start to slant sideways. A dude with an umbrella the size of a parachute tries to open the café door but gets jammed, and everyone in line groans in unison.
For a second I wish we were outside, stuck in the noise, so I wouldn’t have to say what comes next.
But Nia’s too good. She’s already circled the conversation, found the wound, and is waiting for me to show it.
I set the coffee down. My fingers leave a faint crescent of sweat on the glazed ceramic. “I’m going to say something and I need you to not… I don’t know. Not freak.”
She blinks, just once. “Okay.”
I stare at my hands, the black smudge of ink on my knuckle from taping my stick this morning, the nick on my thumb from the knife at breakfast. I focus on the pain, let it anchor me.
“There’s someone on the team,” I say. My voice is too quiet. I force it up a notch. “A guy. I mean, there’s a guy on the team, and I can’t stop thinking about him.”
Her face does a thing, closes off, then opens again, then freezes somewhere in between.
She’s not shocked, not really, but her eyes flick to the window, then back to me, then to her own hands, like she’s re-calibrating the conversation.
I think she’s going to say something clinical, something like, “That’s normal, you know. Intense environments create strong bonds,” but what she says is, “Do you want to fuck him?”
It’s so blunt I nearly laugh. Instead, I look up, meet her gaze dead-on. “Yeah,” I say, voice rough. “But I also want to know if he dreams about me. Or if he ever wonders if we could… I don’t know.”
She lets that hang. The café hums with other people’s lives, but right here, right now, it’s just the two of us.
“How long?” she says, after a while.
“I don’t know.” I pick at the napkin, tear off a corner. “Maybe since the shooting. Maybe since forever.”
She nods. There’s a sadness to it, but not the kind I expected.
“I always thought…” She trails off, then finds the thread. “I always thought you’d leave me for a law student, or maybe a girl with a trust fund. Not for a defenseman with impulse control issues.”
I smile, because she made it easy for me, like she always does.
“He’s a forward, actually,” I say.
She laughs, loud enough that the girl at the next table glances over.
For a second, I think that’s it. That we’ll do what we always do, make it a joke, move on. But then she sets her coffee down, both hands flat on the table, and looks at me like she’s about to set a bone.
“I appreciate you telling me, D.” Her eyes are glassy, but her voice is iron. “But if you’re looking for permission, you don’t need it. I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t know what.”
I nod. The relief is physical. My spine uncoils, my lungs work again.
"Is it Ash?" she says, because of course she's already guessed.
I don't answer. She reads that loud and clear, and lets it go.
She looks at the rain, then at me. “Are you going to tell him?”
I think about it. Really think. “I don’t know if he even wants that.”
She shrugs. “You won’t know until you do.”
