Page 75 of Penalty Shots

"Hey, bitches!" Jennyfer Cobbs takes the empty seat closest to me. I try to pull my hoodie a little tighter over my face, but she turns to me.

"You can't hide under a hoodie, Ryker. I know that's you in there," she whispers.

I push it away from my face. "I wasn't hiding."

She smiles at me. "You doing ok?"

"Yep."

"You… excited for your hockey camp?"

"Mmhmm," I say, hoping she doesn't continue with the interview into the territory I don't want to comment on.

"And how's Keelan?"

Shit. There it is.

"Uh… good. He's… Keelan."

"Yeah," she says softly. "He's always good. But, like, today especially?"

I shrug.

"Well… tell him I'm thinking of him."

I nod, surprised she doesn't ask about her ex-roommate. But I guess when girls fight, they don't really do things like that.

I gather up my books and slip them into my backpack. "I'll let him know."

School's out, and everyone is moving this week. The dorms are a mass exodus of students packing away boxes and long lines of parked vehicles ready to take them away to their summer destinations.

Keelan and I are heading out with a few of the other guys to a summer training camp in Dallas. We'll be gone until the start of next semester.

"See you around," I tell Jenny.

She smiles at me sadly. "See you around, Ry."

I like Jenny. I can't help but feel bad for her because, honestly, I saw what she saw. Keelan didn't officially do anything with Rina when she and him were together.

But I saw the way he looked at her.

There was something in his eyes that was just different from the way that he looked at Jenny.

Rina was a creature he couldn't put his finger on. Jenny was an open book. No puzzles to figure out. Just Jen. The girl who liked to party and make friends. She was fun and competitive and basically the girl version of Keelan, which might be exactly why they didn't work for each other.

It's still unfair for the poor girl. Not that I'm about to make it my mission to make her feel better about the situation. We get dealt shitty cards in life sometimes. I know the hard moments are the ones that make us grow, even if we fight them.

I make my way past students rolling carts full of bedding, and God knows what else. I opt to take the stairs instead of the elevators that look like they'll be backed up for the next hour.

I take the stairs two at a time, hoping Keelan is finally awake. I tried to give him the morning in. But it's been two years since I met him at hockey camp the summer after he lost his parents. It was the same year my brother went to prison. We both had a lot to get through that year.

Keelan is the brother I didn't know I needed. And we knew the day we met, we'd be in each other's lives whether we liked it or not.

I get to the last step and brush past a girl seated with her head resting in her hands. If it weren't for the soft, "Hey, Ry guy" when I opened the door. I would've missed her entirely.

"Rina?" I say, letting go of the door handle. "Are you okay?"

She brushes her thighs. "I just… yeah, I just came to say goodbye."

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