Page 89 of Blocked Score

I mean, Idowant to. But I won’t.

“Yeah?” she says from behind the door. It doesn’t sound like I woke her up, either, so excitement laces through me. I step inside.

“Still up?” I ask, shutting the door behind me. My blood thickens seeing her in her bed.

“Yeah. I got caught up watching stupid videos online instead of going to sleep.” She closes her laptop and sets it on the table beside her bed. “Have a nice night out with the boys?”

I point to my shoulder. “We got tattoos.”

Her eyebrows shoot up, and I laugh while telling her the story.Shelaughs atmewhen I tell her how sore my shoulder still is.

“Well, if you come to bed, I promise to be gentle with you,” she says with a coy glimmer in her eyes.

She doesn’t exactly keep her promise, but I sure as hell don’t complain.

44

SCARLETT

Loser’s Luck Tavern is packed for the broadcast of the Black Bears’ semi-final game against Wisconsin.

The whole campus and town have been buzzing the last couple days unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. You could’ve tasted the excitement and anticipation in the air just walking around. It’s so infectious that it didn’t even take a lot of persuading to convince Harper to come out with me.

Too bad the scoreboard doesn’t quite match the level of excitement.

The game’s a grinding 0-0 stalemate as the teams enter the third period.

It doesn’t help that the refereeing has been atrocious. The guys mentioned that Wisconsin has a reputation for playing dirty, and they’re living up to it—and getting away with most of it.

And, unfortunately, the lack of action on the ice makes it far too easy for me to get sucked into my thoughts, something that’s been happening since yesterday, when I watched an interview Lane had on ESPN.

I knew Lane was good, obviously. I knew he was going to the pros next year.

But I guess, before I saw how hyped up he was on a national sports channel, how much of a big deal they made the interview out to be, and how famous sports anchors on the network gushed over him … I guess I didn’t realize just how big of a deal he is.

Just how bright of a future he has in front of him.

I never fully appreciated that Lane might be just a year away from being one of the best and most famous hockey players in the country.

Instead of being a local hero who gets recognized and adulated everywhere on campus, he’s about to become the kind of person who gets that treatment everywherein the country. He’s about to be a bonafide celebrity.

And he’s about to become all that on the other side of the country, playing for San Jose while I’m back here in Vermont, with two more years left before I graduate.

I’ve been living in the moment so much with Lane, eager to make up for the lost time with him, enjoying every minute of it, that I haven’t really thought about the future.

It hadn’t really sunk into my mind that we’re just a couple months away from a huge cleavage in our lives, him moving to another coast after we’ve only just gotten together.

I don’t want things to end between us. We haven’t had a real conversation about this, but with the way Lane talks sometimes, the casual comments he makes about things we should do in the future that imply we’ll still be together months or years from now, I don’t think he does, either.

After all, the way we felt about each other didn’t fizzle out in the year and a half we were apart after Chicago, even if during all that time we both thought the other had callously broken our hearts.

But being pulled apart after just months of finally really being together, Lane’s life suddenly changing, while I’m here in Brumehill for two more years and who knows where for law school for three more …

I’m trying not to be pessimistic. Things can work out, and I want them to. But am I setting myself up for the biggest heartbreak yet if I justassumetheywill?

My attention gets pulled back to reality as an exclamation of outrage fills the room.

I refocus on one of the flatscreens above the bar to see that, once again, a Wisconsin player fouled one of our guys and the refs did nothing about it.

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