Page 14 of Offside

“You know, Griffin talks about you a lot,” Maren said. She wasn’t watching me, just washing a plate, her voice even. “At these family dinners Well, the ones you aren’t at. Since he got back.”

“Good things, I hope.”

“He said you’re the reason the locker room doesn’t feel like a pressure cooker.” She handed me the plate. “He said it like you don’t know you’re doing it.”

I dried the plate, thinking over how to respond. It was a hell of a complement. “I’m doing the job.” Which was true.

“That’s what he said you’d say.” She smiled.

I watched her. She was focused on the sink, not fishing for a reaction, like it was accurate and didn’t need any help from me to confirm it. I had the inconvenient thought I could listen to her talk for a long time and not get tired of it.

“He’s proud of you,” she said. “The captaincy. He says the organization figured out what he already knew.”

“I don’t know how true that is. But I’ll try not to let him down…I’ll try not to let anyone down.”

“I don’t think anyone’s worried about that.”

I didn’t have a response, so I dried the bowl she handed me and didn’t try to find one. Our fingers brushed in the transfer. Her hand warm from the water against my knuckles, and she turned back to the sink and I set down the dish towel and neither of us said anything about it.

The coffee maker beeped. Maren reached past me to flip it to the keep-warm mode and the kitchen got briefly smaller. She was close enough I could smell whatever she was wearing, something light, faintly citrus, and she didn’t move away immediately, just stood there with her hand on the coffee maker and her eyes somewhere on me, unfocused.

I knew exactly how far away she was. Six inches. It was taking everything I had not to close it.

She raised her head.

It was a small movement, her chin lifting, and what passed across her face in the moment before she got her expression back into order was enough. The want there and the awareness of it and the fact she knew I could see it and wasn’t quite managing to hide it. I had the clear thought that if I moved just barely to my left this would stop being a hypothetical. I wanted to. That was the simple, inconvenient fact. I wanted to eliminate any distance between us and I was standing there not doing it, and the not doing it required more effort than anything I’d done on ice all week.

“Lindy—” Griffin’s voice came from the garage, rising to get my attention. “Can you come look at this?”

Maren turned back to the coffee maker. I took one breath, deliberate, and stepped back.

“Coming,” I called.

I didn’t look at her on my way out of the kitchen. I didn’t trust what my face was doing. Or my body.

Tom was crouched in front of a water heater that appeared to be at least fifteen years old, studying a fitting with focused concern.

“See this,” he said, pointing. “That normal?”

I crouched next to him and checked the fitting. It was a fitting. It was attached to the water heater. I had nothing further. “Looks okay to me,” I said.

“That’s what I said,” Griffin offered.

“You said fine,” Tom said. “He said okay. That’s not the same.”

“I think you’re fine, Tom,” I said.

Tom studied the fitting for another moment. Then he stood, satisfied. “Good. That’s what I thought.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Another beer?”

“Sure.”

Griffin caught my eye over his father’s head and mouthed thank you. I shrugged. It was the easiest thing I’d done all week and I wasn’t sure what I’d actually done.

When we came back through the kitchen, Maren was pouring a coffee and didn’t look up.

I drove home with the windows down, the desert air moving through the truck. The sky had gone fully purple at the edges, wide and vivid and after living here for a bit, it was something Phoenix skies did, like the city was showing off just because it could.

I thought about green chile sauce and a water heater and Tom’s absolute certainty that okay and fine were meaningfully different.