“Can I get your number?”
She hesitates and turns away for a second, biting her lip. “Next time. I’ll see you around, Zach.”
Then she’s gone. Into the crowd, out the front door, and I realize suddenly that I don’t know her name.
She knows mine, but I don’t know hers. She watches me from the stands and I didn’t know she existed until twenty minutes ago. Rodriguez finds me five minutes later in the hallway, he’s talking about something that I’m not even listening to because I’m still on that patio replaying the gasp she let out when I bit her lip. All I can think about is how I’m going to even begin finding out who she is.
2
MACKIE
I wakeup and the first thing I think about is his mouth.
This is a problem, because his mouth was on mine last night and he knew exactly what he was doing when he kissed me back. Which means the Puckaneers’ quiet, keeps-his-head-down, hardest-worker-on-the-roster backup goalie might secretly be a playboy who genuinely doesn’t care who I am and not the shy, sweet, guy I thought he was. That bothers me more than it should and I kind of don’t want to think about him secretly leaving a string of girls in his wake. I kind of just want to lie here and replay the part where he bit my lip and my knees stopped working for a second.
I’ve been watching Zach Almardon since he got called up to the Puckaneers almost two years ago. I noticed him on the bench, not because he was loud or flashy, but because he was the complete opposite of both of those things. He sat at the end watching everything, never complaining, and stayed on the ice after every practice longer than anyone else. I started to look for him specifically. His head tracking the puck during games even though Luca’s in net.The way his whole body goes tense when the play gets dangerous, leaning forward on the bench like he’s playing the game in his head. I’ve pulled up his AHL tape on my laptop at night and watched how he moves in the crease, with small precise lateral shifts that are completely different from Luca’s big athletic sprawls. I’d lie in bed afterward thinking about what his voice might sound like up close.
Now I know. It’s quiet and careful and he means every word that comes out of it and last night he saidshe’s done talking to you, manto some creep without raising his voice and then stood on a patio and told me he can’t sleep without noise because his brain runs his mistakes on a loop. Then he kissed me like the world was ending and oh my God I am in so much trouble.
I grab my phone off the nightstand hoping he somehow figured out my number, which is delusional because I purposely didn’t give it to him.
Kara
you were quiet last night
you’re never quiet
what did you do
I FaceTime her immediately because this is not a text conversation, this is a face conversation, and she picks up on the second ring still in bed with her hair in a knot on top of her head, squinting at the screen.
“What did you do,” she says and from the halfway exasperated but halfway curious tone of her voice I know she’s already decided I’m an idiot and now she’s just waiting for the details.
“I kissed someone.”
“Who.”
“A guy. At the party.”
“Mackie. Who.”
I press my face into my pillow and say it into the fabric so it comes out muffled and hopefully inaudible.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that because you said it into a pillow like a child.”
I lift my face. “Almardon.”
For a moment I think the call glitched because she’s frozen on the screen. Nope, I’ve just shocked her into complete speechlessness and I know this silence. I’ve done something so spectacularly stupid that she needs a second to find words that won’t make me hang up.
“The goalie,” she says finally.
“Thebackupgoalie.” As if the distinction matters. It doesn’t matter. If anything, it makes it worse because backup means expendable, which means this guy’s career could be over with a few conversations and the team wouldn’t even be losing their starter.
“On your dad’s team.”
“Yes.”
“Your dad. Jack Anderson. The man who lives in your house and has spent your entire life telling you that you’re not allowed to date hockey players.”
