Page 8 of For the Boys
Berkley joined Amelia in an eye roll and sat down in the recliner, cuddling up with her favorite blanket. It was early October, but the apartment was cool despite having the heat turned up to seventy degrees. She gave in to a shiver and pulled her freezing feet underneath her.
“Can you believe this is your last game in this apartment?” Amelia said with a frown.
“Let’s not talk about it. I don’t want to be sad right now.”
“You don’t want to be sad?” Amelia scoffed. “You’re the one leaving us! You’re lucky we can afford rent without you or we’d be really mad.”
Berkley winced. Amelia had a point.
At the end of last semester, she’d begun hunting for her own apartment. She loved Amelia and Kimber dearly, but she needed her own space. Her search over the summer months had been fruitless, but she’d kept in touch with the realtor in case something came up.
Three weeks ago, it had. An apartment near Campus Martius, a few blocks from the Detroit River, had opened up, and Berkley had signed the lease yesterday. Moving in the middle of her final year of law school wasn’t the brightest idea she’d ever had, but she couldn’t let the apartment slip away.
She would be sad to leave her friends, whom she had lived with for the better part of the last five years, but she was more than a little excited about the prospect of living alone. She would miss nights like this though.
On the TV, the announcers were discussing how the Warriors had finished last season and what they expected from the team in the new one.
“The Warriors made several important off-season moves, including signing Hank Ratelle and Tommy Grey to contract extensions, as well as picking up some great players in the free-agent market,” the announcer said. “But the return of some key offensive players such as Brent Jean, Cole Reid, and Chase Olsson will make all the difference. And of course Mitch Frambough and Parker Graff are returning to lead the defensive core.”
“They’re talking about your boy,” Amelia said, smirking.
Berkley chucked a pillow at her head, and Amelia ducked, the glass of wine in her hand nearly spilling on the couch.
Finally, the puck dropped. The season had commenced.
The game started off fast and physical. About halfway through the first period, Berkley watched as Brent Jean, the tall, dark, and—if you asked Berkley—ridiculously sexy Warriors forward, took the puck into the offensive zone alone, killing time for a line change. He carried it into the left of the Eagles goalie and slipped it between his pads to score. Berkley was immediately out of her seat, screaming and shouting, celebrating right along with her favorite player and his teammates. When Amelia took aim at Berkley’s head with the pillow Berkley had let fly earlier, she sat back down, grinning proudly.
Once she and her roommates had moved into Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood three years ago, Berkley quickly learned members of the Warriors frequented The Backdoor, a local dance club. The first time she saw Brent there had been a major shock; he cut a figure as impressive off the ice as on, which made him all the more intimidating. Whenever she made eye contact with him across a crowded room, she never looked away first, but she could never find the courage to talk to him, and he never approached her.
Besides, she was a law student and he was a professional athlete. She had resigned herself to the fact that they weren’t meant to be anything more than two strangers passing in the night.
Brent went on to score two more goals in the game, earning him his first professional hat trick, and the Warriors won, 5–1.
With an extra pep in her step, Berkley bid Amelia goodnight, bounding upstairs and into the bathroom for her nightly routine. After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she entered her room, grabbed her phone, and turned off airplane mode. The notifications came pouring in, and she took a few minutes to scroll through them.
There were several texts from Amelia, asking when she was going to come downstairs for the game, as well as one from Kimber, sarcastically wishing the Warriors good luck. A few of her law school classmates had reached out, asking if she had completed her paper.
Buried among all of the Instagram messages, comments, and likes, sat a notification so out of place that Berkley thought she was seeing things. Before tapping on it to investigate, she blinked several times, urging her optic nerves to make the connection to her brain, to confirm what she was seeing was real.
The second she did, she gasped and dropped her phone, quickly scooping it up and running down the hall to Amelia’s open door.
“Ames, oh my God, you have to look at this and tell me I’m not imagining things.”
Amelia grabbed Berkley’s phone and took a minute to study the screen. “It says Brent Jean followed you,” she said calmly. Berkley waited a beat and watched as Amelia’s mouth dropped open. “OH MY GOD IT SAYS BRENT JEAN FOLLOWED YOU!” Before long, they were both jumping up and down, holding hands and screaming like teenage girls at a Jonas Brothers concert. Kimber stomped into the room.
“What the hell are you two screaming about? I’m doing homework!” The look on her face saidmy roommates are children.
“Brent Jean followed Berkley on Instagram!” Amelia told her, as Berkley was still too shocked to speak.
Kimber looked at Berkley. “Really?” Berkley held out her phone in confirmation. Kimber’s mouth formed a tiny “O” of surprise when she realized they were serious.
“You should message him!” Amelia said excitedly.
Berkley mulled that idea over. If she did message him and he didn’t say anything back, so be it. Given that she’d been slightly obsessed with him for years, and he’d just had a career night, she couldn’t waste the opportunity to strike up a conversation. “I think I will.”
“What are you going to say?” Kimber asked.
“Hey,” Berkley said aloud as she typed. “Congratulations on your hatty tonight!”
