Page 19 of The Save

"You hoped nobody showed up before you tried the cookies."

He did the little eye drop and exhale as he smiled.Ugh.I turned from the table and crouched, pretending to look for something in my backpack. What was happening to me? I was not one of those girls who melted in a guy's presence. Not that there was anything wrong with that—in fact, I wished Iwasone of those girls plenty of times when Colin touched me and tried to whisper something sexy while I lay there in the dark thinking about acute angles.

Now it felt like I'd been plucked up and dropped in the middle of a foreign country where I didn't speak the language. My palms started sweating. I glanced up at the sharp sound of a chair scraping across the floor.

Chase sat down, leaning back and lifting his arms behind his head.Heaven help me."I think the guys will show up. But not until—" He peered at the clock. "About three forty-five."

I pulled out my notebook and pencil, completing my ruse. There was nothing I needed to write down. "Right before they hitthe ice with Rob?" Chase nodded. When he said nothing else, I continued, "Because they'll want a cookie, but they don’t give a shit about their classes."

"Exactly."

I pulled out the chair next to me and sat. "Well. You never know." Without looking up, I started doodling on the top corner of the page. Externally, I hoped I was pulling off being cool and collected because internally all I heard was:Shit! Shit! Shit!

Two hours. Chase and I had to be here for two hours together. If nobody showed up, what the hell were we going to do? I was already burning a hole in my underwear for reasons I didn't want to deconstruct at the moment, and I didn't have any homework to catch up on. No distractions. Nothing.

But—I clung to that ‘but’—I had seen Rory and Axel that morning talking with Rob in the quad and told them about the study hours. The whole team had gotten the message about our new academic support plan, and Axel and Rory were already going to be working one-on-one with me and Chase to get things sorted with their professors and put in some extra credit. There was a chance that they’d show up before the end of our time, wasn’t there?

The silence stretched, and the soft brush of my pencil against paper started to grate. I waited until I couldn’t stand it anymore, then asked, “What were you doing before coming to Douglas?"

I was going for casual, but the truth was, I’d been curious about Chase’s story from the second I saw him sitting on the Outlaws bench. What had happened to him? How had he ended up back here in Calgary, coaching, after his career had looked so promising?

He shrugged. "Couple years at U of C. Took classes. Worked construction. Did some coaching for a bantam team. Nothing special."

I stopped doodling and looked up. Chase stared at the door, his arms crossed over his chest. “And before that?” I couldn’t help myself.

He glanced over but quickly looked away. “Uh, played for the Hitmen for a bit.”

My eyes widened. “You were here in Calgary? After you left?”

He drew in a deep breath. “Played Juniors out in B.C. when I was seventeen. Got picked up by the Hitmen a year later. Thought I was headed somewhere, but I wasn’t drafted. Tried out for a couple of feeder teams, bounced around for a bit. By the time I was twenty, I knew it wasn’t happening. Took a year off, worked, then started at U of C. Did part-time classes, part-time coaching. Finished my degree slowly—a bit here, a bit there. Not exactly a straight line.”

I realized I was staring and dropped my gaze back to my paper, twisting the ring on my left hand. “And how did you end up at Douglas?”

Chase hesitated. “Got lucky, I guess.”

That wasn’t a real answer, but I didn’t want to pry. I mean, I absolutely did want to pry, but by the tight set of his jaw, I decided it wasn’t socially prudent.

“What about you?” He shifted in the chair, and the plastic creaked.

“Definitely a straight line.”

He nodded once. “No surprises there.”

“What do you mean by that?” I rested my arms over my notebook. Chase finally met my eyes, but he didn’t answer. “Are you saying I’m boring?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I would never criticize an honest pursuit of academics.”

My eyes narrowed. “How can you even talk? You already got your degree.”

“I’m not knocking school.”

“Just people whoprioritizeit?” I tucked my curls behind my ear. “You did what you loved, and I did what I loved. How is one better than the other?”

“Well, you didn’t fail at yours yet, so I’d say you’re winning.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it. Our two trajectories appeared in my head like a line graph. Both of us heading straight up toward our goals and then . . . “I’m sorry hockey didn’t?—”

"Yo! This the right room?" The door swung open with a bang, and I jumped. Axel appeared first, a family-sized bag of All-Dressed Old Dutch chips in one hand. Rory followed, slinging his backpack onto the table.

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