Page 49 of Break Points and Face Offs

There are two indoor courts in the center. Blue surfaces, low nets running across the middle. I don’t understand all the lines on the floor, but when I ask Priestley where I’m supposed to stand, he just grins. “You’re going to want to warm up for this, believe me.”

I’m unsuccessful when I try to hold in a gulp.

I copy his movements when he starts warming up. He’s pointing out all the different lines and naming them for me.

“That’s the T, and that’s the baseline.”

I nod, most of what he’s saying goes over my head.

Seeing Priestley Rosenthal in shorts is kind of distracting. Even his pajamas at breakfast this morning were fancy. They were all black and looked like they were made out of linen. They should have been creased to fuck, but they weren’t. I imagined him sleeping on top of the sheets with his arms crossed over his chest like Count Dracula.

Now he stretches—really fucking low—in a pair of shorts with the Princeton P stitched into the leg. I match his stretch and his eyebrows come up.

“You’re more flexible than I thought you’d be,” he remarks.

My heart rate increases. There’s that blood rushing south again.

“You’d be surprised how flexible hockey players are.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat.

Once we’re warmed up, Priestley jogs to the other side of the court and starts warming up his shoulder.

When he’s finished, he looks across the net at me.

“What?”

“Are you really going to stand like that?”

“Like what?”

He gestures vaguely at me with the arm not holding a racket.

“You’re never going to return my serve like that. How would you prepare for a puck?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, is there ever a point in a hockey game where a puck might be coming at you at over one hundred miles per hour?”

“Like, the whole game.”

“No, I mean … never mind.”

He jogs back across the court, stepping over the net until he’s on my side.

“What are you doing?”

“Helping you.”

“Why?”

“Because, when I beat you, I don’t want you whining that it wasn’t fair.”

I still have a feeling that nothing about this is fair, but it’s too late to back out now.

“You need to fix your stance.”

“Okay?”