“Same thing.”
Rider’s eyes moved toward my phone. “She knows.”
“She suspects.”
“Easton,” Cade said.
I shoved the phone into my bag. “She doesn’t need to know anything tonight.”
“She’s your mom. She already knows something.”
“Then she can know from the stands while I win the game.”
Cade studied me. “That’s a lot to carry.”
I laughed, and it came out sharper than I meant. “Which part?”
Nobody answered, and that pissed me off more than if they had.
“The C?” I asked, tapping one gloved finger against my chest. “The scouts? North Cut? My mom working herself into the ground? Skylar needing money for clothes she won’t ask for because she thinks bills have feelings? Vivi needing every plan mapped out so the world doesn’t get too loud? Aura looking at me like I’m the villain because I finally got tired of being the idiot who loved her first?”
The words escaped before I could stop them, and the room held every one.
Then Briggs said, softly enough that he hardly sounded like himself, “Nobody thinks you’re an idiot for loving her.”
I looked at him.
He lifted one shoulder, his pads making the movement awkward. “I think you’re an idiot for several reasons, but that isn’t one of them.”
Rider leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “You loved her. She panicked. You got hurt. You hurt her back. That’s ugly, but it isn’t complicated.”
“It feels complicated.”
“It’s simple and painful,” Cade said. “People confuse those all the time.”
I sank onto the bench, my stick between my knees. “I can’t do this with her right now.”
“Then don’t,” Ryan said from the doorway.
Every head turned.
Ryan stood just outside the locker room in his Flint Frost quarter-zip with a visitor pass clipped to it, his arms crossed and his face set in the same unimpressed lines he had carried since the day he learned how not to need anyone. Coach must have let him through, which meant Coach had either lost his mind or decided I needed another witness.
Briggs pointed. “Retired cryptid sighting.”
Ryan ignored him. “I came to wish Cade luck and tell Briggs not to disgrace the position of goalie.”
Briggs placed a hand over his chest protector. “Too late. The disgrace is structural.”
Ryan’s eyes moved toward me. “You look like shit.”
I stood. “Good talk.”
“Sit down, Captain Emotional Support Disaster.”
Cade looked almost amused. “He has a point.”
Ryan stepped inside just far enough to let the door swing shut behind him. “You don’t do this with Aura right now. I know you’re stressed because she’s here and you’ll have to share neutral ground tonight, but for now, you play the game.”
