“Fine,” he said.
I waited. I waited some more. Just when I was almost ready to jump in and say something to fill the silence—
"I don't know what to do with you," he said.
It came out quiet. Not angry, not frustrated, just true.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly that." He turned the glass in his hand. "I've tried to—" He stopped. Started differently. "You're in my head. Constantly. In a way that is"—a pause—"not useful."
I looked at him.
"It pisses me off," he said. "It has always pissed me off. Since the beginning."
"The beginning of what?"
"The beginning."
I stared at him. "Like, of this season?"
Cross looked at me.
"Nathan. This season, right? Like, the first game this—"
"Your first game," Cross said behind clenched teeth. "With the Wardens."
Wait, what?
My first game with the Wardens was not this season. My first game with the Wardens was two years ago. My rookie year. I had been twenty-one years old, and I had been so wired I'd had four energy drinks before warm-ups. I had scored on my second shiftand the Morr Roar had come down from the upper bowl for the first time and I had thought:this is it, this is the thing, this is what I was made for.
Cross had been at the bench two years ago, on my first night as a Warden, and he had apparently—
"Two years," I whispered, mostly to myself.
"Yes."
"For two years you’ve—"
"I'm aware," he said through clenched teeth.
Why didn't you ever—" I stopped. Tried again. "You've been thinking about this since my first game. Why didn't you ever—"
"You were twenty-one," Cross said. "You are twenty-three now."
"Okay," I said. "And?"
"I'm thirty-five."
"I know how old you are."
"You date models," Cross said. "And influencers. And. . . stylists. And—" He stopped. "You don't date—" He moved his hand. The gesture covering all of him.
"Team doctors?"
"People like me," Cross said. "You don't date people like me."
I stared at him for a long moment.
