Page 98 of Forecheck
“He will be,” Ryan said, holding up his phone. “They play Nashville the night before, and then New Jersey on Monday, both at home.”
“Why did you look that up?”
“I really want to meet him,” Ryan admitted with a sheepish grin.
“That makes two of us,” Harper said.
“Ry, you don’t even like hockey.”
“Maybe after three years in Michigan, it’s time to change that,” he said. “You know I want to stay here after graduation.”
True. He had told me so on several occasions.
“Okay, fine. I’ll ask him, but he’s a busy man, so no guarantees.”
Harper snorted. “From what you’ve told us, he worships the ground you walk on and would do pretty much anything you asked.”
Also true. Or, at least, it had been. Now I wasn’t so sure.
Once Ryan and Harper had gone, I curled up on the couch to watch Brent’s game. We may not have been speaking, but the Warriors were still my favorite team. Tonight, they were in Colorado, taking on the Chargers. It was nearly nine, and my eyelids felt like sandpaper every time I blinked. I laid my head down on a throw pillow and pulled my blanket up to my chin, drifting slowly off to sleep just as the puck dropped to start the game.
I woke several hours later to my phone buzzing on the coffee table.
“Hello?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“Berk?” Brent said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just fell asleep.”
“You didn’t watch the game?”
“No, baby. I’m sorry.”
“So you missed my four goals,” Brent said.
That forced me fully awake. That and the fact that he was being…nice, the iciness from yesterday seeming to have vanished in the intervening hours. “Four? Brent, are you serious?”
He laughed, the sound a warm caress. God, I missed him. “No, but I did have one. And we won, thank you for asking.”
“That’s great, babe,” I said, rising from the couch and making my way upstairs. I put Brent on speaker while I went through my nighttime routine. While Brent chattered about the game, my unease grew until I burst, like a cork popping free of a champagne bottle.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted in the middle of his sentence.
“Me, too.”
“It’s not that Ineverwant to live with you,” I said in a rush. “But this is such a stressful time for both of us right now. I’m about to finish law school and take the Bar, and you’re gearing up for the playoffs. Maybe once summer is over, we can revisit the idea, but right now…”
“I get it,” he said. “It wasn’t fair of me to spring that on you, and it was really fucked up of me to react the way I did. I know better than to toss those kinds of bombs on you in the heat of the moment. It’s just something that’s been on my mind, and I guess I wanted to gauge where you’re at. Clearly, I fumbled.”
“You didn’t fumble,” I said. “It just surprised me. We both reacted badly.”
“We did,” he agreed. “But we’re okay.”
“Of course,” I assured him, my shoulders dropping as I relaxed for the first time in two days.
“How was your night?” he asked.
“Good. Ryan and Harper came over to study.” Both Ryan and Harper’s comments floated through my mind, and now that it appeared things between us were once again on solid ground,I had no reason not to extend the invitation to Brent. “Which reminds me, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”
