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“I don’t think he’s a dick,” I told her. “I just think he’s … standoffish.”
“That’s the polite way to call someone a dick.” Maggie gave me a sympathetic look. Olivia reached over to clink her spoon with Maggie’s.
After first breaking down the Cougars win from earlier in the day, both Olivia and Maggie began to grill me on my first day with the Bobcats. I recounted my interaction with Nolan and how I had felt like he was testing me throughout the entire day. Even after practice, Nolan waved me off when I told him it was best if he came in for treatment. He had mumbled something about how he never came in for treatment after practices.
It took everything I had in me not to explode on him on our first day together. I had worked my tail off to be deserving of the accolades and the respect people gave me when it came to my craft, but not Nolan. It didn’t matter to him that I had perfected Nate Rousch’s therapy regimen to get him back on the ice three months sooner than anyone had predicted. Nolan Hill didn’t care about any of that. He was only concerned with everything going according to his plan this season, and I was clearlynota part of his plan.
“No matter what we call him doesn’t change that I think I’m in for a long season. He’s fighting me on everything and if Idon’t figure something out with him soon, the coaches will be breathing down my neck asking why Nolan isn’t performing well.”
“How are you going to handle him?” Maggie asked.
I had spent all evening trying to come up with a plan to win over Nolan Hill, but I had come up empty-handed every time until I realized I didn’t need to win him over. I only needed to promise him his deepest desire—going out on top. “I’m going to exploit the one thing he wants more in this world than anything—to win. If I can figure out a way to equate what I can do for him to results on the field, I think I’m in business.”
“You better not let him take up all your free time. You promised that you’d start prioritizing yourself more.” Olivia leveled me with a look that could have stopped one of the Bobcats’ three-hundred-pound linemen dead in their tracks.
“I know.”
“Let’s get some accountability for those words.” Olivia jumped up from my couch and ran off toward the kitchen. I watched her rustle around in different drawers until she came running back toward the couch with a piece of paper and a pen. “We’re making a bucket list.”
“I didn’t think you were serious about that,” I told her.
Olivia ignored me and numbered the piece of paper with a one. “What’s our first item?”
“I think you should put yourself out there again and try dating. You may even find your person,” Maggie chimed in.
I opened my mouth to protest, but it was too late—Olivia was already writing it down.
“What did you write next to that?” I asked as I moved to get a better view. “Olivia! No!”
Olivia had writtenGET SOME ACTIONin big letters next to the first item on the list. I grabbed the pen from her hand and crossed it out.
Olivia rolled her eyes. “You are no fun.”
“What’s next?” Maggie asked, trying to help calm the situation between the two of us.
“Well, if we’re talking about my love life …” I trailed off for a moment as I let myself dream about something other than my career for once. “I’ve always watched couples in love kiss on New Year’s Eve. I suppose that goes together with dating. I just hope that I am with someone at that point.”
“I’m so excited.” Maggie bounced up and down from her spot on the couch. “This issogoing to be the year for love.”
Maggie had always been ever the romantic since I first got to know her when she and Olivia joined the Cougars. After she started dating Tommy last year, she had become downright insufferable. I honestly wondered if those two would ever move out of the honeymoon phase. But judging by the way she sighed dreamily every time her phone chimed, I was guessing that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.
“I also want to have a real Thanksgiving this year. Without any arguments and with a homemade turkey.”
Olivia’s eyes softened at my next one. She understood the desire to have something as simple as every person I love sitting down at a table together full of gratitude. We grew up in a household where we were lucky if our parents withheld having a fight until after dinner. For the two of us, we just considered Thanksgiving an extra-long weekend off school. When I got older, I would spend the few dollars I earned at my job at our local grocery store on a pumpkin pie for Olivia and me to share behind our closed bedroom door.
As soon as I allowed myself to speak that kind of longing into existence, it was like the floodgates had opened and all the things I wanted to do to heal the pieces of myself that were broken at such a young age came rushing out.
“I want to wear matching pajamas on Christmas morning.” Olivia groaned at that one, but she didn’t hesitate to write it down.
My desire to work had started at a young age. It was never because I was ambitious to make something of myself. At least, not at first. It started as just a way to get out of the house. Then work became a way for me to try and prove to my parents that I could do something with myself in the hopes that I would then get their attention. Eventually, working just became the only thing I knew how to do.
I knew I was worthy of so much more.
I rattled off a few other things to Olivia before I came to a stalemate with all my desires written down in her neat scrawl.
“I have one more thing,” Olivia told me as she started to write down the final item. “Have a day where you say yes to everything.”
“A ‘yes’ day?” I asked.
