In those weeks, I meet up with my sisters and their families, and I go to my parents’ house for dinner, and I make the long drive to visit my grandparents because it’s worth it to see the smile that used to coax me out from behind my mother’s legs.
There’s an English department get-together one weekend, and Sophie and I stroll the farmers market and go to the movies often. We run into a few parents, students, and coworkers throughout the summer, and it’s a reminder of how easy it is to be recognized in public, and why the promise of privacy exists only at home. She and I also have the luxury of snuggling on my couch or hers. We share a bed, and we hug all the time. I'm an affectionate person, and being affectionate with the people I’m close to comes naturally to me, butI know it'll be different with Jamie. He had said he doesn’t know how to be friends with someone like me, but I’m not convinced I know how to be friends with someone like him either. We’ve done it poorly twice.
Possible things continue to feel impossible when I think we can’t go out because of him, and we can’t stay home because of me. I do my best to explain it to him without the lies our friendship doesn’t deserve. But fantasies, even consistently kept to myself, become restless nuisances when I forget how he tastes and do everything I can to remember.
And I'm nowhere naive enough to believe he hasn't done the same.
Still, I can come with Jamie’s name on my tongue, and it won't matter as long as he can't hear me. That's the thing about fantasies—they're not real; they're just all we get for now. I moan into my pillow that night because it's probably better than screaming.
We talk the next day, and plenty after that.
We don't see each other again until the first soccer scrimmage of Harper's sophomore year.
Chapter Seven: Jamie
(I Went to New York)
My first games of the season had always brought about a thrum of energy. That combination of excitement and nerves. A lot of "I can't wait to get back out there" and "Am I ready for this?" Most of it was eager anticipation. There’d always been a hint of fear that it could all go wrong. And a lot of those feelings have returned sharply today.
Things can change from one year to the next.
So much stays the same.
As I watch Harper take the field—she's a starter now—I think I feel Mateo's eyes on me. I also think it can't be true when he has a team to worry about, and he could've looked at me a dozen times over the past few months if he'd wanted. Instead, we greeted each other minutes ago with a friendly handshake and clapped shoulders.
Afriendlyhandshake. Because we're friends.
Or we’re friends enough to text and call and share stories and learn more about each other, even if we’re not the kind of friends who go out to eat or visit each other at home. I get it, though. I really do. There’s never been a time I’ve seen him and not come close tobegging for another five minutes or one more touch. Mateo won’t invite me to dinner just to listen to me go hoarse with need.
Hearing his voice or remembering his smile is enough to push me over the edge when I’m hard and wet and wanting, but that confession won’t earn me another invitation either. Friends probably don’t want to spend happy hour trying to forget about the shooting star that made them dream of being hard and wet and wanting together.
Harper's team wins that scrimmage. The season continues to go well for them after that. Danielle shows up a few times. Melanie and I talk more than once. Mateo and I see each other at least a couple of times a week, right there on the sideline. Christmas and New Year's pass with sober texts omitting half the truth. I turn another year older and spend it watching a hockey game while my leg aches.
"You know you could askhimout," Kai growls, fed up with my sulking on a random Wednesday night in early February.
I look around the mildly busy bar, then down at the stupid fucking mango chipotle wings I ordered. "You make it sound like we're dating."
"What you two are doing is so much worse than that. Waitingyearsfor each other? That's some freaky tragic romance shit."
Over the next few days, I think about asking Mateo out to dinner. Or we could meet for drinks. Or just a movie. I could wear my hat pulled low, or his hoodie pulled up, and everything could be like the night we met, when we weren’t friends at all.
But whether those feel like dates or freaky tragic romance shit, I do nothing but kick a wayward soccer ball his way when I see him again.
At the end-of-the-season banquet, we spend more time together than we did the year before. It would be unnecessary if we could remember how to do it anywhere else. Harper receives the Most Improved Player award, and I'm reminded the night has nothing todo with me. She has two more years of high school soccer to play, and I can't wait to see the ways she succeeds before she graduates. I won't wish away time with her, but it doesn't stop my heart from keeping more than one beat.
In the weeks that follow, I'm scheduled for autograph signings with other former NHL stars because the things I touch are still worth something. I continue to appear during a handful of game broadcasts because my name still gets attention and my face still keeps it. I get asked to pose for pictures everywhere, and I love it because I'm wanted and wanted and wanted.
Mateo and I text between obligations. We talk a few times a month. My leg throbs with pain I wanted gone a long time ago. My chest aches for things that haven’t happened yet. Another notification appears on my phone, and I smile at theMI put there more than a year ago, doing my best to ignore how much I still hurt about it, too.
Spring break comes around again, and Harper's just turned 16. We get an invitation from Taylor McKeon, my fiercest rival-turned-acquaintance. He offers to host us at his sprawling vacation home in upstate New York, and Harper agrees to the trip because she thinks Taylor's son is hot. I agree because it's three time zones away from home. She and I arrive, and it's gorgeous in this different world. More than a dozen of us—mostly former players and a few gorgeous women—are spending the week together. We forget about the rest of our lives as much as the rest of our lives will allow.
Of course, it's the end of the regular season when we’re in New York, and most of us are watching the playoff race closely. During one game, we're surprised and unsurprised by the secret Taylor spills in the privacy of his own home. He hasn't played in years, but he's no better at staying away from the game than I am, and I feelthe sting of envy when I hear the news we’ve all promised not to repeat until the story breaks. I'm never far from hockey, but the lake has thawed and Taylor's extra skates remain piled in his garage. My wishes have to hold for another day.
There’s other fun to distract me, especially because this group of adults isn't known for following rules. Those of us with kids are aware enough of what's happening to be considered responsible. When the few teens aren't on their phones, they're pushing boundaries, but they're as safe as they can be under this giant roof—or within a loud whistle—and we leave them to it. I'm probably laughing and drinking more than they are when my phone rings.
"Hey," Mateo says after I answer. "Do you want to guess where I am?"
I pull my phone away from my ear and squint to read the time. Math is mostly beyond me, but I'm just okay enough to figure out that it's still afternoon in California. Then I remember I spent one of those with him a year ago.