Page 82 of On the Edge

Walking back across the hall to my room, toiletries clutched in my hand and towel flung over one shoulder, I step in to find Nate stretched out on my bare mattress.

“Did you miss me?” he asks, smiling wide beneath his summer tan. His eyes look impossibly green against that brown skin, and his brown hair is shot through with sun-bleached strands. He looks like he’s just come back from Australia, not a ranch in Montana.

“Not particularly,” I tell him.

“I named a horse after you. New filly—mean as all hell. Bit me on the shoulder,” he rattles off. As usual, he’s completely unperturbed by my rudeness. “So, her name isAtlas. Better than Daisy, which is what it was when we bought her. I have never met a horse less like a daisy.”

“You named your horse Atlas because it bit you,” I summarize, feeling oddly pleased with this. He grins. “Fair. Have a good summer, then?”

“I did! The best—the literal fucking best. You?”

“Fine.”

Nate thinks about that answer for a second, parsing through the tone and trying to figure out whether that “fine” leans more toward good or bad. Swinging his legs slowly over the side of the bed and sitting up, he pats the bare mattress.

“Sheets?”

Tossing my damp towel over the dresser, I bend over my suitcase once more and pull out the new set of sheets. Nate takes them silently and together we make up the bed. That done, he carefully lies back down and pillows his head under his arm, watching me. I sigh.

“Okay, fine. I talked to Henri,” I admit.

“Mm-hm,” he hums. “Called him to yell at him some more?”

“To apologize.” Nate’s eyebrows shoot upward. Frowning at him, I start unpacking my suitcase. “So, that’s that. We’re friends.”

“I saw him yesterday when the team got together for a meeting with Coach Mackenzie. He’s captain this year—Vas, that is. Not Coach.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” I don’t know what, if anything, being captain of a hockey team entails, but I know Henri was probably thrilled and embarrassed by the achievement in equal measure. I bet he tried to talk his coach into giving the job to someone else.

“Vas looked like he wanted to fucking melt into the floor when Coach announced it. Everyone agreed it should be him, though. We love that guy.”

“Yeah,” I agree, because I’m well aware of how highly Henri is regarded by Nate and his teammates.

“Vas is looking good, too.” My head snaps up. Nate is still draped across my bed, fingers idly playing with his cellphone as he talks in a casual, offhand way.

“Okay.” There really isn’t anything else to say to that.

“You are an impeccable conversationalist,” he notes. I toss a pair of rolled-up socks at his face, but he bats them away with the reflexes of an athlete. “You going to meet up with Vas?”

“Probably not.”

Nate sighs and stretches, wincing a bit. He sees me catch it and lifts one shoulder in a small shrug. “Broken ribs.”

I blink at him, trying to perform the mental calculus that will make that add up. It doesn’t.

“I didn’t think you’d started practice yet,” I say slowly, still trying to remember how his training schedule went last year.

“No, we haven’t. Not until tomorrow. Ranch accident.” He grins at me, inviting me in on the joke. I don’t laugh—remembering the moment two years ago when Nate came back from Christmas break with twenty-seven stitches in his arm after he was kicked by a horse and its hoof cut him. Ranch accidents seem to happen too frequently for my taste.

“Fuck. How long are you out?” Nate looks at me like I’m insane. I can’t see how that was the wrong question. Playing hockey with broken ribs seems like a distinctly bad idea.

“I’m not telling Coach. Bruised ribs are nothing—I’m not missing any games during my last season.”

“Broken,” I correct.

“Whatever. Same thing.” He grins again. Again, I don’t return it. As far as I’m concerned, there is a big leap between bruised and broken. “Listen, it’s nothing. Don’t tell Vas.”

“Jesus, I won’t. I already told you I’m not going to see him.”

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