Page 62 of Rookie Season
Noah
How’s work been? Is Paige behaving?
Ally
Work is good. Your niece is an angel. Are you guys surviving?
Noah
Surviving but ready to get home.
Ally
Home to your green juice?
Noah
Among other things…
Ally
Are the ‘other things’ Harry?
Noah
No.
CHAPTER 26
NOAH
I wakeup from my much needed afternoon nap with a headache and that out-of-body feeling of not knowing what day or time it is. My limbs feel tired and heavy from our two away games in the Midwest and then the two AM flight home. I force one eye open to find Harry Styles lying on my chest like the Sphinx, looking down at me.
Okay, that’s probably another reason my body feels heavy.
Last night, when I finally crawled into bed just before three, I didn’t feel tired anymore. I was really looking forward to seeing Ally, but of course she was already asleep, and I felt somehow restless without seeing her in person. I just lay there staring at my ceiling, wondering if she was sound asleep, if she was okay in the loft without us. Did she feel safe? Did she miss us?
Did she missme?
I wasn’t sure if it was a smart idea to text her separately from the group chat, but after I did, we kept texting the rest of the time I was gone. It felt so natural talking to her and getting to know each other, bit by bit. The more I know about Ally, the more IlikeAlly as a person.
I hoped to catch her before she left for the dance studio this morning, but I swear Harry Styles figured out how to turn my alarm off or something. By the time I woke up, she was gone, so I did what any mopey-ass grown man with a crush would do…I went back to sleep and dreamed about her.
Again.
“Probably time I got up,” I say to Harry as I give him one smooth pet along his back then gently extricate myself from the bed and sit on the edge while I grab my phone. My eyes widen when I see it’s almost four in the afternoon—how did I sleep the entire day?I have practice in thirty minutes, all the way across town.
I glare at Ally’s cat. “I can’t prove it, but I know you can work an iPhone…somehow.”
He does a weird purr-meow sound back.
Quickly, I throw on some joggers and a long-sleeve tee and grab my gym bag.
“Shit, my practice jersey,” I mutter to myself while slipping my feet into my Bauer slides. I run as fast as I can with slides on my feet across the apartment to the laundry room.
“Puck, puck, puck” I say with every step, even though neither Penn nor Fisher is here to hear me and put stickers on the damn chart. I finally reach the room where I left the jersey to hang dry before we left for our games on the road. Harry Styles runs along with me, and I almost trip over him.
My feet come to an abrupt stop when I see Ally standing in front of the dryer, folding her clothes, just like before. A sense of total deja vu washes over me as I notice again, her hair is up in one of those big claw clips and her shirt is so long it covers her running shorts.
