“What’s the ETA?” she asked.
“Six or eight more hours. Maybe less if traffic cooperates.”
“Thanks.”
She crossed the parking lot to the bus, her jacket unzipped to enjoy the warm air. When she reached the bus, she climbed the steps and disappeared inside.
I went into the building and bought lunch. Back on the bus, I took my seat.
She was already working on her laptop again.
An hour past the rest stop, the bus quieted. The highway was flat and monotonous, and the players around me fell asleep. Haley closed her laptop and slid it into her bag. A few minutes later her head tipped against the window, and she slept too.
I hadn’t let myself look at her since the lobby. I looked now.
She had no pillow. Her head rested against the glass at an angle that would hurt her neck before the next stop. Her hands lay on her lap, relaxed in sleep.
I wanted to be where the window was. I’d rest her head on my arm instead of the glass. Then I’d keep my arm still for as long as she slept.
I didn’t look again for twenty minutes, though it took considerable effort to keep my gaze from the back of her head. When I did, she’d shifted. Her neck rested at an even worse angle. The glass pressed into her temple, and it would leave a mark.
I tugged my hoodie out of my bag and leaned forward, tucking it carefully beneath her head.
She stirred and adjusted, nestling into my sweatshirt.
I faced forward and acted as if I’d done nothing.
Brashe glanced my way and took a slow sip of his water.
The bus continued moving with the highway stretching ahead. Players shifted in their seats, and someone snored three rows back.
Haley slept with her head on my sweatshirt for the next two hours.
I pulled up notes on my phone and read the same sequence four times.
The highway was flat and black, and it meant nothing.
I set the phone face down on my knee and watched the road instead, doing all I could not to look at her again.
We arrived in Boston late afternoon and pulled up to the players’ entrance along one side.
The city felt familiar now. The skyline, the way the light filtered through the trees, and the streets I was starting to know by name.
While the equipment staff unloaded our gear, the players scattered. A few went to the locker room, others to their cars parked in the lot, while some scrolled through their phones to order transportation.
Haley, my sweatshirt draped over her arm, went inside, and I followed. She was going the same way.
While she unlocked and entered her office, I continued to the locker room, absorbing the familiar smell of this building. This was starting to bemybuilding. Sweat and cleaning products and the scent of ice coming through the ventilation.
Most of the players had cleared out.
Brashe was still at his stall when I walked in and tossed a few things in the laundry basket from my bag.
“The defensive unit is starting to come together nicely,” he said.
“Yes.”
“The gap control in yesterday’s game was solid. Better than two weeks ago.”
