Gabby stared at him for a moment, hands still hovering in midair like she was trying to touch the nighttime. Then she turned around, and she went.
RYAN
Ryan stood frozen on the concrete for a long time after Gabby was gone. His anger was like a layer of foam insulation wrapped around him: something with physical density, like he might be able to reach out and grab a fistful of it. Like it was so thick and suffocating he could barely breathe.
His phone dinged inside his pocket, snapping him out of it enough to realize he was still standing in the middle of the parking lot like a clown.Can’t wait to hear all about your game,Chelsea had texted.Call when you’re done if you get a chance.
He was done, all right. Ryan looked out across the parking lot; he could see his teammates piling into variouspeople’s SUVs, headed for TGI Fridays and then somebody’s basement or backyard or over-the-garage family room, for a night of cheerful drunken celebrating. They’d won, after all. Everything was great.
“McCullough!” Remy shouted, hanging out the passenger-side window of a shiny red Jeep. “You coming or what?”
Ryan shook his raging head, waved them off, and turned toward the front of the building. Jammed his hands into his pockets and started to walk.
It was snowing now, fat flakes slipping down the back of his collar and a sharp wind that bit at the tips of his ears. Ryan kind of liked the sting. His head throbbed, but not nearly as bad as it had the other times he’d hit it. He probably didn’t even have a concussion. She’d probably fucked him into next year for nothing. For a knot on the head.
He kept walking. Colson was peak suburbs, not particularly pedestrian-friendly; Ryan walked mostly on the grassy shoulder, left footprints in the snow in people’s front yards. He wasn’t even sure where he was going until he rounded the corner into Chelsea’s neighborhood, a cluster of small, well-maintained Tudors not far from the middle school. All the streets were named after poets back here, he knew, although none of the names were particularly familiar to him. Dumb jock that he was.
Chelsea’s dad answered the door, a tall, skinny dude with a goatee who had spent the last couple of weeks looking atRyan with an expression of grim resignation. “Chelsea,” he called, eyes on Ryan like,I know what you’re about, kid, “you have a visitor.”
Chelsea appeared in the front hall a moment later in a pair of soft-looking gray sweatpants and a swim team T-shirt with the collar ripped out, mouth rubbed clean of the red lipstick she usually wore. “Hey,” she said, smiling in a way that looked surprised but—Ryan hoped—pleased. “What are you doing here?”
“Um,” he said, feeling weirdly shy all of a sudden. He didn’t usually get shy around girls, especially girls he was already hooking up with, and it was a new sensation. She was wearing her glasses, which she didn’t always. Ryan liked her glasses alot. “Hi.”
Chelsea considered him with barely veiled amusement. “Hi,” she said.
“Um, how’re you feeling?” he asked, realizing abruptly what a dope he probably looked like. “I didn’t bring you flowers or anything. I probably should have brought you flowers or soup or something like that.”
“My mom made soup,” Chelsea told him, still hiding a smile and not even very well. “Anyway, I feel a lot better.” She gestured down at herself. “Ilooklike crap, clearly, but.”
“You look beautiful,” Ryan blurted, and this time Chelsea smiled for real.
“Well,” she said. “Thanks.” She leaned against the wallin the foyer then, looking at him a little more closely. “Are you okay?” she asked, dark eyebrows knitting a bit. “How was your game?”
“It was fine.” Ryan shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about hockey, or his head, or Gabby. He especially did not want to talk about Gabby. “Do you want to go for a walk with me?”
That surprised her. “I mean, I don’t think I feelthatgood,” she pointed out. “It’s actively snowing.”
“Oh, sure.” Ryan nodded, feeling like an idiot. “Right.”
Chelsea smiled again. “What if we drove?” she asked. “Did you drive here?”
Ryan shook his head. “Walked.”
“Fromschool?” Now she looked sort of concerned. “Ryan, are you sure you’re okay?”
Ugh, he was playing this wrong; he didn’t want to worry her. He didn’t want to worry anyone. He mustered his most charming grin. “I’m good. I just missed you once the game was over. And as you might recall, I have no car.”
To his relief, Chelsea smiled again. “I do recall that,” she said, looking placated; she reached out and squeezed his hand. “Let me just make sure it’s okay with my parents. They might give me a hard time about the weather.”
The snow had mostly stopped, actually, so her parents agreed that she could drive Ryan home as long as she didn’t take any detours. “Straight there and back,” her dad said,eyes on Ryan again as he shut the storm door behind them. “Home by usual time.”
“Definitely,” Chelsea promised. “Usual time.”
Chelsea’s car was always full of garbage, which Ryan found sort of improbably charming—like she was so hyper-efficient in the rest of her life that the overflow all ended up here, in the form of empty Starbucks cups and CVS receipts and her second-favorite pair of sneakers. He barely knew her yet, Ryan understood that intellectually. But hefeltlike he did.
“So,” Chelsea said as she pulled out of the driveway. “You wanna tell me why you’re being such a huge freak right now, or not so much?”
Ryan huffed out a noisy sigh. “I’m not being a huge freak,” he protested. “Whatever, I’m being a regular-sized freak atmost.”
