Page 211 of On His Team

There’s no glance toward either end of the hallway first. No check for who might be around. She doesn’t lower her voice or stop three feet away like we’re about to have a conversation about work.

She grabs the front of my hoodie, pulls me down, and kisses me. Two seconds. Maybe three. Then she lets go.

“Hi.”

I’m still looking at her face. “Hi.”

Gianna turns toward Mackey and Marsh like nothing happened.

“Hi, guys.”

Mackey blinks. “Hi.”

Marsh watches her for another second. “What’s up?”

She smiles at both of them and continues down the hallway toward laundry with the clipboard tucked back against her chest.

I watch her disappear through the equipment-room door.

Mackey looks at me.

Marsh looks after Gianna and makes a small noise. “Huh.”

I pick my bag back up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

We keep walking.

I like that way more than I expected. Not the part where everybody sees us. I don’t care about that. It’s the fact that nothing has to be managed anymore.

Tuesday night, she comes to Hawthorne with Lucy and sits beside me on the couch instead of across from me. Her laptop is open on her thighs for maybe twenty minutes before she gives up pretending to work and slides both feet underneath my leg.

At some point, she eats half of what is on my plate without asking.

Benson notices. His eyes go to her feet tucked against me, then to my face. Then he goes back to his laptop.

On Wednesday, Gianna comes by the rink after work and kisses me in front of Donovan. Donovan waits until she’s gone before looking over from the sharpening machine.

And by Thursday, everybody has stopped reacting at all. Something we spent weeks hiding becomes normal in about four days.

Gianna is my girlfriend.

I catch myself thinking the word sometimes just because it still feels new.

Then Michigan arrives.

Friday’s game has been sold out for almost two weeks, and the student section is already loud while we’re still in warmups. Michigan always does that to this place. It doesn’t matter what either team is ranked or what happened the weekend before. Nobody wants to lose this one. Especially now.

We’re sitting close enough to the tournament line that every result matters. Michigan is exactly the kind of win that helps, and everybody in the room knows it without Coach having to stand there and explain rankings again.

Before we go out, he writes one thing on the board.

Play our game.

Stanley looks at it. “That’s expected.”

Coach turns toward him. “Want me to write something else?”