He smiles. Shrugs in his Jake way. “Go skate, Eriksson. Go show them what you are.”
“Take care of yourself,” I say.
“Always do,” he says.
I turn back to the ice and my eyes seek out Mateo involuntarily. He glances up at me and our eyes meet.
I look away first and gather my things.
I have a qualifier to prepare for.
I have a whole life waiting to be reclaimed on the other side of an ocean.
So why, I think, furious at myself,why am I still this aware of him?
MATEO
She joins us at Tierney’s because it’s her last time with us.
I can see the respect in how the guys treat her now. Ward pulls out a chair for her without being asked. Barrett, who spent the first three weeks of January making her life difficult, brings her a drink she didn’t ask for and says something that makes her laugh.
Even Mercer.
I watch him walk up to her near the end of the first hour. He stands in front of her with his hands in his pockets, looking a little awkward.
I can’t hear what he says.
Whatever it is, she listens, and then she says something back, and he smiles and nods once, and that’s it, he walks away. Ithink she might be moved by it and is managing it with her usual precision.
Chen appears beside me. “You going to talk to her?”
“Probably.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes, Chen. Tonight.”
“Because she leaves in-”
“I know when she leaves.”
He picks up his drink. “Just checking.”
Every time someone stops her, there’s something in the exchange that tells me how far this room has come since January.
And then she’s beside me.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
We stand at the bar for a moment, side by side. It feels both normal and weirdly charged at the same time.
“Can we talk?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s get some air.”
“No, I mean properly. Not here.”
