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Rafe comes in for his charger and looks at me sitting cross-legged on Nash’s bed in Nash’s hoodie with my socks on his pillow. “Are you sleeping here again?”

“I’m his girlfriend now.”

Rafe looks at Nash. “Jesus Christ.”

Nash grins.

Rafe takes his charger and leaves. Nash zips the big bag and stands it up by the door with his stick beside it.

“What time do you leave?” I ask.

“Noon.” He comes over, takes the laptop out of my lap, and puts it on his desk, still open. “I’ll be back Sunday.”

“I know.”

He looks at me for a second. Then he gets a hand around the back of my knee and pulls, and I go down the bed flat on my back, and that’s the end of the conversation. He leans over me and kisses me. He takes off my leggings, and I take off his shirt. My hands go on his back, his chest, down his stomach, my palm dragging over his side when I pull him down closer. I want all of him.

“You know you can’t do this,” I tell him somewhere in the middle, with my mouth at his ear.

“Do what?”

“Get a girlfriend and then immediately abandon her.”

“It’s for hockey.”

“I’ve heard the excuses.”

He laughs into my neck, and I smile. Then his hand goes under my back and lifts me up into him, and I stop being funny.

He fucks me hard, the way he always does. We change positions a few times, and each time, he finds my mouth, and I find his abs, his chest, his back. I get to have all of him now, so I’m going to linger in it. Then he rubs my clit and starts whispering in my ear. You better fucking come with me. Kylie, your pussy. I need this all the fucking time. The only dirty words I can manage are four days, and you’re leaving.

He thrusts into me harder, and he gets me to come first. Then he follows right after.

Afterward, we go to sleep, because he needs to be up at six and then on a bus for six hours. He turns the lamp off, and I arrange myself along his side in the dark.

“You better call me,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“Not text. Call.”

He holds me. “I’ll call you.”

“FaceTime.”

“Kylie.”

“What?”

“I’ll FaceTime you.”

I put my cold foot on his leg. “You better.”

He runs his hands up my naked body. I run a hand down his, and then I put my face on his chest and listen to his heart rate settle.

The bus is in the lot behind the athletic building at quarter to twelve, and I walk over with him, because my class isn’t until one.

This is a whole operation. A truck left this morning with the gear on it, and somehow there’s still a mountain of bags going into the bottom of the bus. All of them are in suits, which is a thing I did not know about, and honestly, it’s doing something to me. Rafe has sunglasses on in October. Koda’s hood is up over his suit jacket, and he’s arguing with somebody about a seat. The guy I think is the coach stands at the bus door with a folder, counting people.