No, I think. No, don’t do that. Don’t glorify it. He’s young and he reacts on instinct. It was insanely stupid but the stakes aren’t as high for him - his career will be fine and he’ll still get scouted.
I’ll still be here.
With whatever’s left of my reputation after the rumors have made their way around the locker room.
A knock at the door.
I cross the apartment and open the door.
Mateo is standing there in his jacket with a bruise coming up on his cheekbone and an open expression.
“I need to tell you something. And then I’ll go if you want me to.”
“Okay.”
“I went to Calloway,” he says. “Before I came here. I told him that I’d been pursuing you since January. That you’d tried to maintain a professional boundary and I hadn’t made that easy. That whatever the team thinks they saw - whatever Mercer was implying - it wasn’t you. It was me. I made it difficult, and you handled it professionally, and if anyone’s position here should be in question, it’s mine, not yours. I’ll tell the guys, too.”
I stare at him. “But I was involved. It wasn’t only you.”
“I know. But you tried to stop it and I didn’t make that easy. That part is true.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to. I didn’t understand fully until today. And I’m sorry.”
I think about Erik on the phone. Low and careful and protecting himself.
And Mateo walking into Calloway’s office and doing the opposite.
Something cracks open in my chest.
“Come in,” I say.
He comes in.
Erik never walked toward anything that cost him. Mateo walked into his coach’s office and took the blame.
We sit down, me sitting across from him.
“I need to tell you something. About Sweden. About why I came here. All of it.”
He nods.
I take a breath.
“Actually, do you fancy going to the driving range?” I say suddenly, which is not what I’d planned to say. “I’m terrible at golf but I have this sudden urge to hit stuff.”
MATEO
The driving range is twenty minutes from campus and empty on a weekday evening, which is perfect.
Elida has never been here before - I can tell from the way she looks around at the bays and the artificial turf.
“It’s not glamorous,” I say.
“No,” she agrees. “It really isn’t.”
We get a bay near the end and I step back and watch her tackle the ball with the focused intensity she brings to skating.
