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“You have one head.”

She picks up the socks. She looks at the logo on the ankle. She looks at me with her eyebrows up.

“They branded your socks.”

And I kiss her because she’s making fun of me and I missed it. I missed her face doing that thing it does right before she says something mean. I missed her.

She drops the socks.

It isn’t like before I left. It isn’t grabbing or holding on. It’s just happy. It’s just her, laughing into my mouth when I knock the fan off the windowsill with my elbow, and me swearing, and her saying you’re a professional athlete and laughing harder. It’s her pulling the Sentinels shirt off over my head and throwing it on the pile with the others. It’s her hands, her mouth, and the sound she makes, which I spent a week in a hotel room missing.

Afterward, the fan’s on the floor, still running, blowing at the baseboard. She’s lying on my chest with her chin on her hands.

“So,” she says.

“So.”

“Tell me what happens now.”

I tell her. The summer program. Their strength coach, who’s going to call me every Monday. The nutrition plan, which I’m going to ignore. Rookie camp, the middle of September. Then main camp with the actual team. And then they decide.

“Probably the AHL,” I say. “Their affiliate. Maybe the whole year. Maybe they call me up. Maybe not.”

“But either way, you move.”

“Either way, I move. September.”

She nods, against my chest.

“Okay,” she says.

And she’s quiet for a second. And I think that’s it.

Then she says, “I looked at flights.”

I look down at her.

“Why?”

“So I can come see you.” She says it simply. “To the AHL city. I figured that’s where you’ll mostly be. They have a decent airport. It’s cheaper on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but your games are mostly weekends, so I’d have to fly Thursday, which is more.”

I don’t say anything.

“I think every six weeks is doable,” she says.

And I go still.

“Every six weeks,” I say.

“Maybe five. If I can sell more.” She props herself up on her elbows, getting into it, the way she does when she’s explaining something about sell-through. “I did the math. If I put away fifteen percent of what I made in June, and the guide does even half of what it did this week, I can do a long weekend every five or six weeks. Thursday to Sunday. When you have home games.”

I stare at her.

“What are you talking about?”

She thinks I mean the money.

“I can afford it,” she says. “I promise. I’m not—I wouldn’t ask you to pay for it. I figured it all out.”