“It’s the best I’ve got at midnight.”
She yawns into the phone.
“I should let you sleep,” she says.
“You looked incredible in your dress.”
“I know. I was trying to make you want me.”
“There’s not a day I don’t want you, Mackie.”
She laughs softly and then the line goes quiet before shefinally speaks.
“End of the season,” she says. “We’ll do it together. You have to trust me.”
“I do. I do trust you. Get some sleep, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The call ends and I lie back on the couch in the dark thinking about the end of the season. April at the earliest. May if things go well. June if things go the way everyone in that building tonight is hoping.
Six months of looking Jack Anderson in the eye.
I close my eyes and try to sleep and the last thing my brain shows me before I give up is the image of her at five years old, holding her father’s hand on the ice, and the distance between that little girl and the woman who just hung up the phone is the distance between who I want to be and who I actually am.
18
MACKIE
It’s Sunday night.We’ve been lying on Zach’s bed for an hour doing nothing. He’s reading something on his iPad, and I’m scrolling through social media. Someone posted a poll ranking the hottest goalies in the league. Zach is currently in fifth, which is frankly an insult. I can’t vote without inventing fake email addresses, and I already have six of those, so I’m just seething quietly about it.
“Unfuckingbelievable.” I mutter it under my breath after the site requires a phone number. I’ve already registered under both mine and Kara’s.
“What’s unbelievable?” He leans over to look at my screen, which I angle away from him. He raises his eyebrows like he can’t believe I just did that.
I hold out for three seconds and then turn the phone toward him. “Someone posted a poll. Hottest goalies in the league.”
He looks at the screen and his ranking. “Fifth seems right,” he says, and goes back to his iPad.
“It does NOT seem right. It’s an outrage. You are at minimuma top three. Arguably number one. The fact that a guy from Minnesota is above you is statistically impossible and I’m taking it personally.” I toss my phone across the bed. “Let’s play truth or dare.”
He looks up. “What?”
“Truth or dare. Right now. My rules.”
“What are your rules?”
“Whatever gets asked, both people answer. Two for one.”
“That’s not how truth or dare works.”
“It’s how Mackie truth or dare works. I’ll go first to show good faith.” I sit up straighter. “Ask me.”
He sighs the sigh of a man who has been dating me long enough to know that resistance is futile. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Okay. What’s your?—”
“Biggest phobia. Let’s start easy. Mine is porta potties.”
