Page 64 of Replay

Josh was still parked in front of his condo building after Daniel disappeared inside. “I just wanted to maybe talk for a bit?”

“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what about.

Despite saying he wanted to talk, he was quiet on the way over to my place. I was happy to relax in the comfortable seat and watch the city moving past us. Josh was a competent driver and familiar with the city streets.

Madeline’s place wasn’t far, so he soon pulled into a parking space on a side street. During the daytime the parking spots were limited and always occupied, but not at this time of night. I twisted in the car to see his face.

He was watching me with his worried puppy expression. “Did you have fun tonight? The guys weren’t too much?”

Was that what he was worried about? “It was a lot of fun. Your teammates are easy to get along with. You’re the only hockey player I know, so I wasn’t sure what they’d be like.”

He shrugged. “They’re just people.”

“You’re right. And since I knew you back in high school, you seem like a normal person. But others don’t think you are.” People like Andrea. “You guys are kinda famous around here.” I was happy he had found his dream. Despite our high school history, he was a nice guy.

“We play a sport. Not a big deal.”

It actually was, based on what I’d heard about hockey player salaries. “I’m glad you haven’t got a big head about it anyway.”

“So, um, would you like to do something like this again?”

“An escape room?”

“Not sure about that. But hanging out. Friends.”

Right. Friends. He was an outgoing guy—the hand-holding thing was probably just to make me feel included. And more of this? I’d had fun. I didn’t know a lot of people in the city, and sometimes it was lonely. So far, I’d only done free-time things with my roommate, who traveled half the time, and Andrea, who had a partner and was busy on her own. Now, I had Jess and Josh to hang out with as well. He was busy during the season with games and practice and traveling—it didn’t have to be complicated. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Even if we just hung out, watched a movie or something?” His brow furrowed, like he was worried I might not like that.

“Honestly, some days that’s all I have the energy for.”

“I’d like to watch that Lord of the Rings show with you.”

“Didn’t you watch it?”

“Yeah, but you know more about it. I’d like to hear what you think of it.”

That sounded…great. Easy, comfortable, low stress. Friendly. “Let’s do that.”

There was a big smile on his face. “When are you free?”

Chapter 20

Subtle

Josh

The team finally notched its first win at home. The game was tied at the end of regulation, so went into overtime and then a shootout. Which wasn’t great, but at least we could score when it was one guy against the goalie. Petey held up his end—he was the only one of us playing well in games right now.

Coach didn’t let up in practice. We were at the bottom of the Eastern standings. The crowds at home were quiet, and there was a different air, both in the home arena and on the road.

Everyone expected us to lose. And we were going on a road trip, which only made it harder to win.

I didn’t know what all went into making our schedule—there were a lot of teams, and some shared their arena with basketball teams or other groups, so fitting things in had to be difficult. Katie probably knew how to use math to make it all work. This trip we were playing the California teams and Seattle. The time changes were brutal—it felt like we were playing after our normal game would have ended. Our internal clocks were messed up.

It was nice to hit Cali later in the season when the change from the cold in Toronto was a relief, but we were arriving at the beginning of November. Pretty sure we were hitting Edmonton and Calgary in February when it would be fucking freezing.

“Hello?”

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