Page 16 of Puck Daddies
“We can’t make it a habit,” Rocco says. He’s clinical when he needs to be. “Not right now. Not with everything else.”
I swallow and nod. “We need to focus. We need sleep. We need to not look like idiots at practice because our heads are on pillows instead of plays.”
“And she’s—” Oliver blows out a breath. He’s careful with words about her. “She’s not something you half-do.”
“No,” I say. “She is not.”
“We tell ourselves it was a one-time thing,” Rocco says. “We tell her, if she asks, we need to keep the friendship intact and the season from going sideways.”
I look at the doorway down the hall. I hate saying it out loud. I do it anyway. “So, we agree. Last night shouldn’t happen again.”
Oliver grimaces like the words taste worse to him than they do to me. “We agree it shouldn’t,” he says. The wordshouldn’tdoes a lot of work. He doesn’t try to swap it forwon’t. He’s not a liar.
“We’re not telling her what to do,” Rocco adds, because he’s not a liar either. “We’re telling ourselves what not to do.”
“Right.” It’s hard to agree to that. But it’s the right thing to do. For her. For us. For the team.
We eat in the kind of silence that isn’t empty. We’re all listening for the soft sounds that mean she’s up.
We’ve always been good at rules. It’s how we got ourselves this far with the pieces still fitting. Rules about sleep on road trips, rules about shirts on the couch when we’ve been to the gym, rules about who takes the first shower on early mornings, rules about fighting your own team during practice. Rules about love would be new. Rules about sex are not complicated if you tell the truth.
Rocco pushes his plate away and drains his water. “I’m going to make coffee.”
Oliver stands and starts setting out forks and napkins for two more plates even though we usually eat at the counter like heathens. He’s making the table look like breakfast in a way that says you’re welcome here without using words. It works on me. It will work on her.
I pour two more pancakes. My hands have stopped shaking. The house smells like the kind of morning people write postcards about. The room has that clean feeling that happens when a plan is on the table, even if it’s not a plan anybody likes.
I’m about to flip when the soft scuff of bare feet on carpet hits behind me and takes my brain apart in one second flat.
Meg pads in, sleepy and rumpled and wearing my tee from last night, and that’s it, I’m sunk.
Her hair is a mess in a way that will ruin me when I replay it later. Her eyes are narrow with sleep. Her mouth is soft. My shirthangs to mid-thigh and makes her look like she belongs in my bed and my kitchen and my life like she always did, and I hate how much I love it because it makes everyshouldn’twe just said feel like a lie or a dare.
“Morning,” she says, voice low, raw in the best way. She looks at the stove and then at the table and smiles like she knows exactly why I’m cooking and exactly what I’m trying to avoid. She looks at me last. It’s a look that could undo a year of discipline if I let it.
If she asks, I’ll give her whatever she wants.
7
ROCCO
I volunteerto drive because it gives me something to do. Keys, wheel, signal, turn—tasks that line up and behave. Meg slides into the passenger seat with her tote, her apron folded on top. She looks like she slept two hours and argued with a mirror.
Brave face. I know the brave face. She’s used it since homeroom.
“Thanks,” she says. Small word, steady voice.
“Of course,” I say. I turn the heater down so the vents don’t dry her out. She has sensitive skin. I check the mirrors even though they’re already right. I back out slow because she gets motion sickness easily.
Things I’ve done for years. Things that mean more now somehow.
We don’t talk much in the first four blocks. It’s the kind of silence that isn’t empty. She tucks her hands into the sleeves of the sweatshirt she borrowed. My hoodie from the hook by the door. I look away before I think too much about that.
The city is pale-blue cold. The sidewalks shine where last night’s wet clung and froze. Neon OPEN signs blink awake like the block is just waking up. The wipers grumble once and find a rhythm. I stop at a yellow I could have made and don’t explain why. She looks at the light like it’s doing her a favor.
“Hud texted,” she says finally, gaze on the road ahead. “He’s delivering to Ms. Delaney first so she can scold him and get it out of her system.”
I snort. “Front-loading the scold. Smart.”
