“Reeve.”
“Good game.”
“We lost.”
“You played good.”
Stanley sits down on my other side and the bench shifts under his weight. His hair is wet from the shower. He has a towel slung around his shoulders. He smells like the cucumber-mint body wash he uses.
“Goldie.”
“No.”
“I’m just gonna say one thing.”
“Nope.”
“One thing.”
I stare at him.
He leans in. He drops his voice down. “I saw you give Melly that puck.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“I think everyone saw that,” Benson says.
I swing my arm to Benson, gesturing that he’s right. “Yeah.”
“I’m just saying, baby Blue. You gave her a puck. After you made her think you don’t a fuck. A bit ironic, don’t ya think?”
I hit him in the back of my head with my glove.
Stanley swats it away and says, “It’s a token of love.”
Benson, on my other side, makes a small, choked noise into the towel he is using to dry his hair. I blink and don’t look at either of them.
“You might be giving her the wrong idea.”
Walker, across the locker room, undoing his last skate, laughs out loud at the ceiling.
Benson says, “Stan, that’s enough, man.”
Stanley smiles, “I’m done. I am done. That’s all.” He lies flat down on the bench with his hands laced behind his head and his towel still draped over his shoulders and proceeds to stare at the ceiling tiles like a man at peace with the work he has done in this world.
The guys continue in the locker room talking about weekend plans.
Drew nods. “Hawthorne House this weekend?”
Benson shakes his head. “Nah, man. Not this weekend.”
He nods, moving back to his conversation with Walsh, Sam, and Theo.
Then Benson says to me quietly, “Blue.”
I look up.
He whispers, “The girls had a study group last night.”
