Page 136 of Powerless
Violet:You’ll look better on the news this way.
Sloane:What?
Violet:They have Buddyz Best!
I’m so nervous I feel like I could puke. I’ve got my elbows propped on my knees and my fingers tapping together in an anxious flutter.
“Girl, you give me anxiety just looking at you.” Harvey’s warm hand lands on my back.
“I’ve never been so nervous in my life.”
“Never?” His brow quirks.
I suck my lips in into my mouth and shake my head quickly. “Never.”
“I mean, if tail-babies can’t make you nervous, then I’d have thought a Stanley Cup game would be a piece of cake.”
“Harvey, good lord.” I drop my head into my hands on a laugh. “Is the tail-baby thing ever going to stop being funny to you?”
He shrugs and grins down at the ice. “Probably not.”
I want to pretend the joke isn’t funny, but the truth is I’m so sick with nerves right now I could hurl all over my maroon Grizzlies jersey with Gervais emblazoned across the back.
It’s the same one I bought all those months ago. It feels monumental somehow.Lucky.
And considering it’s almost the final period of play in game six of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight, the Grizzlies are going to need all the luck they can get. It’s their last chance to close the series out and win it all on home ice.
Their season has been nothing short of miraculous. They went on a hot streak just before Christmas and stuck with it. Those points catapulted them far enough into the standings that they made the playoffs.
Barely. But making it is making it.
They’ve fought long and hard. I know they’re tired. Jasper is sore and ready for a break.
It’s been a long, trying year, but it’s also been the best year.
The playoffs.
A second Olympic gold medal in February.
And us.
Us.God, that still sounds so good to me. The “us” part of our life is so damn good. So damn easy. It feels so damn right.
Something about admitting it out loud, about really accepting it, has lifted a weight from Jasper. He’s still quiet and introspective but now he smiles.
Under the cover of dark, we crawl out onto the roof of our little house in Chestnut Springs and talk about life. Fears. Plans. Babies. We talk about everything because we always have.
“What you smiling about, Sloane?” Harvey nudges me, obviously watching me while I zone out and stare at the grizzly bear logo painted at center ice.
“I’m just . . .” I shrug, regarding the buzzing arena. “Happy. Even if they lose tonight. Everything feels . . .”
“You’re both settled. Figured out what counts in life. It’s the people. Not the things. Not the acclaim. The people.”
“Yeah. Speaking of people. My mom still driving you insane?” She’s been living at the house for six months now, and she and Harvey bicker like an old married couple. I really can’t make heads or tails of it.
I’m not sure I want to.
“That woman,” he mutters. “It’s like after years of keeping her opinions to herself, she’s just blurting them all out left, right, and center. It’s an opinion surplus sale in that house. Buy one, get ten.”
