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“Well first of all, you have excellent taste in friends. And two, you need to come to my first real game and root for me.”
He licks his lips and stares at the ground as we walk. I watch his throat work and think I might have asked for too much right out of the gate. I still want him there, so I don’t take it back. I’ll play better if I’m trying to impress him.
Quinn glances at me sideways, as if he’s checking whether I’m serious, then tries for the same tone I used and only half gets there. “Do I have to understand it, or can I just sit there and clap when everyone else does?”
I beam at him. He’s so fucking cute.
“Clapping is a good start,” I say. “Yelling my name would be the next level. Learning the rules is graduate level. We can workshop it.”
TWENTY
QUINN
We are on our second basket of chips and salsa, and I don’t think I’ve smiled this much in years. Not that I don’t smile, I just don’t normally smile so much my cheeks hurt. I’ve even laughed a few times. And the growing crowd isn’t bothering me one bit.
I feel like a completely different person around Daniel.
He talks with his hands. And steals the last chip and looks guilty about it for about half a second before offering it to me. He says torta wrong on purpose and laughs when I correct him. It really should be annoying. But it isn’t.
Our legs keep touching under the table. I don’t move mine away, I sorta like the contact. It makes me feel warm. And I really like the warm feeling.
“Okay,” he says. “If you are really going to come to my game, you need a crash course on some of the stuff.”
“I can read a scoreboard.”
He chuckles. “The scoreboard is the easy part.” He leans in, elbows on the table, and I can’t help but stare into his eyes. My stomach dips the same way it did on my bed. I take a long drink of my soda for something to do. “I’ll make you a cheat card. It will be pocket sized. I’ll include offsides, icing, power plays…” He leans back a little as the waitress brings a fresh basket of chips, snagging one up and scooping out a spoonful of salsa onto it. “You can ignore the fights. Those aren’t really part of the game…I mean…they are, but they are just for distraction really.”
“You get in them?” A little concern filters in, and I wait for his response. I’m not sure I could watch someone hit him.
He shrugs. “Sometimes, if someone pisses me off enough.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll resist if you don’t like fighting,” he says.
And the smile pulls at my lips again. My face is starting to ache, but I don’t want any of this to stop.
“You’d do that?”
“Of course, you’re my friend, I wouldn’t want to have you upset at your first game. I’ll ease you into the fighting.”
I huff out a laugh.
A table near us explodes in loud talking next to us, and I wait for the usual tightness in my chest to come. It stays small and manageable. Daniel doesn’t even notice, he’s still talking. I watch his mouth form words and remember how it felt to wake up in his arms. Is that something friends do? I’ve never done that with Lincoln or Christine.
Daniel clears his throat, and it pulls me out of my thoughts. I focus back at him, and his face has gone serious.
“Quinn…I think we should add another rule for the tutoring.”
He says tutoring in a way that means his half, not mine. My stomach sinks. He’s going to stop it.
“We should probably limit it to once or twice a week. Just to keep it fair and an even exchange…”
I’m nodding before he even stops talking because I’m so relieved he’s not canceling on me that I don’t even think it through. “Yeah. Of course. That sounds fair.”
“Thank God. I didn’t want to upset you.” He looks as relieved as I feel, and part of me wonders if it is because he doesn’t actually want to teach me. But I’m not going to bring it up. If he doesn’t say it then I can pretend that’s not the case.
I pick up a chip and eat it.
