Page 27 of Changing the Playbook
“You beautiful moron.” She shakes her head with theatrical disappointment. “She didn’t say she doesn’t want you. She just said you’re complicated.”
“How is that different?”
“Because one is about you as a person, and one is about circumstances.” Andy wipes her hands with surgical precision. “Maybe she’s got her own complications. Maybe the timing’s wrong. Maybe she’s terrified. Maybe she needs to be convinced you’re not just another jock—or that being with you isn’t as hard as she thinks.”
“Or maybe she just doesn’t like me.”
“Also possible.” She shrugs. “But you’ll never know unless you try again.”
The pizza suddenly becomes fascinating, all those little grease pools in the pepperoni cups like tiny lakes of regret. I don’t want to look at Andy, because I don’t want any more reason to think about Sophie, and I’m suddenly regretting opening up about her at all.
“Look,” Andy says, reaching across the table to grab my wrist. Her fingers are warm and slightly sticky with pizza grease, and it’s weirdly grounding. “Remember when I thought Declan was just another hockey asshole trying to score?”
“Vividly.”
She’s smiling at the memory. “Point is, sometimes complicated doesn’t mean impossible. Sometimes it just means worth the work.”
“Since when did you become a relationship philosopher?”
“Since I started dating someone who moved across an ocean and we’re making it work through sheer stubbornness and competitive emoji usage.” Her expression goes soft again, that same look from the video call. “Sophie knows who you are now. That’s already different from one random night.”
I nod, but don’t say anything.
“So what’s she actually like?”
“Complicated,” I say, but the word tastes different now. Less final, more hopeful.
“Try again with more adjectives.”
“Smart. Funny in this dry, unexpected way. Studying to be a nurse, so she’s got that whole caring-but-takes-no-shit thing.”
“You’re so far gone it’s physically painful to witness.” Andy’s smiling like she’s proud of me for falling off this particular cliff. “Text her.”
“And say what? ‘Hey, remember when you basically issued a restraining order in the parking lot? Want to grab coffee and reject me again?’”
“Or just ‘Hey, thinking about you.’” She flags down the waitress for the check. “Simple. Honest. Leaves the door cracked without kicking it down.”
My phone sits on the table between us like an unexploded grenade. I know Sophie’s contact info sits right there, in my recent numbers, three weeks old. But it may as well be written in invisible ink, because texting her is just not something I can get behind right now.
“Thursday,” Andy says, yanking me back. “Karaoke. You’re coming.”
I sigh and throw some cash on the table. “Sounds like emotional terrorism.”
“Perfect for your current mental state.”
As we leave Antonio’s, Andy hugs me, quick and fierce like she’s trying to squeeze bravery into me through osmosis. It’s the reverse of just six months ago, when she’d been in my arms after a devastating summer romance gone wrong, needing a pick-me-up from her big brother. The shoe is on the other foot, now.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, “I think any girl who can make you build nervous pepperoni art is worth fighting for. Even if you’rebothcomplicated.”
After she leaves, I stand on the corner like an idiot, phone burning a hole in my hand. The smart play is to delete Sophie’s number. Move on. Forget about girls for a while, focus on the team and the scouts and thegiant fucking opportunitythat’s right in front of me in the NHL.
But my thumb won’t swipe left to delete.
I type out a message:
Hey, I know ‘complicated guy’ wasn’t on your course load this semester, but I can’t stop thinking about that night. Coffee?
My finger hovers over send long enough for the screen to dim. Then I delete every word, pocket the phone, and head home. But I don’t delete her number, because maybe tomorrow I’ll be brave enough. Or maybe I’ll keep building pepperoni monuments to my own hesitation.
