“Wade,” Briggs said, elbowing me. “Are you hearing the knowledge I’m generously offering this table?”
“I’m hearing sound.”
“I said if goalies weren’t elite thinkers, they wouldn’t make masks this intimidating.”
Rider glanced at the mask-shaped keychain hanging from Briggs’s keys on the table. “Your actual mask has a cartoon skeleton eating nachos on it.”
“It’s psychological warfare.”
“It’s a cry for help.”
A football player laughed from the next table. “Lawson, you gave up four goals last game.”
“It was one bad game.”
“It was two days ago in Boston.”
“Time is a social construct, and I reject your obsession with linear shame.”
I took a drink so I didn’t have to laugh.
That was when Aura approached.
The table felt her before anyone said anything. Not because the guys were scared of her, exactly, though a few were smart enough to be. Everyone knew there was a line running through the room, and every time Aura got near me, people started watching their feet like eye contact might get them subpoenaed.
She stopped at the end of our table with her order pad already in hand.
Professional. Composed. Beautiful enough to make my jaw hurt.
“What can I get you?” she asked, her eyes moving over Briggs first, then Rider, then the rest of the group without hesitation.
Not me.
I accepted it because the point of tonight was to try for peace and hope it opened a door for us to talk instead of destroy each other.
Briggs brightened immediately. “Aura Clarke, please tell me the kitchen has forgiven me for the mozzarella-stick incident.”
“The kitchen has not forgiven you, the fryer has filed a formal complaint, and Hannah said if you ask for extra marinara again, she’s charging you emotional damages.”
Briggs pressed a hand to his chest. “That woman understands my needs and rejects them anyway.”
“Growth opportunity,” Aura said.
Rider leaned back in his chair. “Burger. No onions. Fries.”
Aura wrote it down without looking at him. “Still terrified of flavor. Tragic, but noted.”
“I respect my breath.”
“You lack taste.”
A few guys laughed, and for one brief, dangerous second, everything almost felt normal. Aura slid into the banter like she had never left it, like she hadn’t disappeared from everyone for the last three days.
Then one of the basketball players leaned forward from the far end of the tables we had gradually pushed together.
I didn’t know him well. Tall, shaved head, sharp jaw, warm-up jacket half-zipped over a Kimball Falls Basketball shirt. Maddox Vincent. I had seen him around campus with the other basketball guys, always smiling too smoothly and talking like every room should feel grateful he had entered it.
He looked at Aura with recognition that did not belong on his face.
