Page 77 of Skate the Line

First up, Sunny.

Next up,Kane.

Twenty-Seven

SUNNY

My phone vibratesin my pocket. I keep a hold of Scottie’s eye while she finishes her story about how she got into photography before pulling it out.

Rhodes: Meet me in the hallway.

I glance over at Ellie, who is busy making a bracelet with the beads I had her paint a week prior. I bend down and move her braid over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

She tilts her delicate chin in my direction, stares into my eyes for a few seconds, and then relaxes with a nod.

Scottie shoots me a soft smile before getting on the floor with Ellie and making a bracelet too.

She’s kind.

I like her.

It takes less than a minute to reach the familiar hallway.

The last time I met Rhodes down here, he scolded me for wearing his jersey.

He can’t do that today, so there’s that.

“Let her through,” I hear.

The security guard dips his chin toward me and quickly leaves. Rhodes, with his damp, unruly hair, stands in the middle of the hallway, seeming more stern than anything. I meet him halfway and pretend like my heart isn’t skipping beats with every step.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

Rhodes’s heavy brow furrows. His gaze skips past my face and lands on my chest. “Did you wear that to irritate me?”

I drop my head and look down.“The jersey?”

This again?

Rhodes steps closer, and it takes everything in me not to back away. “Yeah, Sunny. Thejersey.Kane’s jersey.”

Confusion fills me. “Well, considering you were angry when I wore yours…”

He scoffs. “I got over that when you explained yourself, which is why I bought you the same one yesterday, only inyoursize.”

A breath that sounds more like a laugh slips from my mouth.

Rhodes jerks backward from my reaction.

I stare up at his tall frame, even taller with his skates on. “Rhodes, this was the jersey in the bag. You must have made a mistake and?—”

He pulls his glove off angrily, and I quit talking. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs loudly. There’s a faint red mark on his jaw, and I think it’s from where the other player hit him. To my surprise, he didn't hit him back.

“Chertovski, Kane,” he grumbles.

There’s that foreign language again.

“What?”

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