Me: Gavin likes watching the bikini carwash across thestreet.
Jordan: I’m sure it is only Gavin that enjoystheview.
Me: I needmygirl.
Jordan: What, the eye candy isn’t enoughforyou?
Me: Not in the slightest. They’re nothing comparedtoyou.
Jordan: You know I am only joking,right?
Me: I am just speaking the truth, little girl. I kind of think you’re the bee’sknees.
Jordan: Ohreally?
Me: I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’tmeanit.
Jordan: Ilikeyou.
Me:Howmuch?
Jordan: More than I can really admit. It’s more than what can fit in the parameters of such as small wordas‘like’.
Me: What word would you useinstead,then?
I was nervous waiting for her text to come through. I knew we were trying to take this whole thing slow, but fuck it – I just couldn’t. I was already falling hard and fast and that one little word was on the tip of my tongue. Four letters that I was scared shitless of putting together. Jordan played it perfectly,though.
Jordan: Admire, esteem, treasure, canonize, cherish—just a few that popped intomyhead.
Me: You’re killing me,Smalls!
Jordan: Really? It’s because I used canonize,isn’tit?
Me: How’dyouknow?!
Jordan: Lucky guess. Enjoy lunch and say hi to the guys for me. I don’t want to distract youtoomuch.
Me: You’re always a welcomedistraction.
* * *
Practice seemedto drone on more than usual. Part of it was because it was leg day so my morning workout had worn me out, but it was mostly because I couldn’t wait for Jordan to get there. I was so proud of myself for coming up with our date, and I was pumped to see the look onherface.
“Crosby!” Coach Hayesbellowed.
“YeahCoach?”
“What the fuck has gotten into you? It’s like you’re not even tryingtoday.”
I shook my head, hitting the cross bar with my stick. “SorryCoach.”
“Snap the fuck out of it or you will not be starting tomorrownight.”
Fuck. I must be really pissing him off tonight.That was a big threat, telling your starting goalie you might not play him on the first night of the playoffs. It was a fucking low blow, and I knew I hadn’t been messing up thatbadly.
Once I started playing closer attention, I realized it wasn’t me in particular that was stinking up the joint—the entire team was. Gavin threw his hands in the air as Harding missed another one of his signature slap shots, not even getting it close tothenet.
“All right guys, what gives?” he yelled as his father threw his clipboard down on the floor. “We can’t be psyching ourselves out because of theplayoffs.”