Page 21 of Blueline Baby

“I’m fine,” I call back, which would be more convincing if my voice didn’t crack as I said it.

The door isn’t locked, so Jude opens it and finds me on the edge of the tub with my head between my knees. He looks at me, then the toilet, then the sweat on me, and his eyebrows go up.

“Bro you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick.”

“You’re gray, man.”

“I have a date.”

“A date.” He says it like I’m speaking a foreign language. “The Toronto girl said yes?”

“Last week.”

“And you’re in here throwing up over it.” He leans on the doorframe, delighted now, because I’ve given him nothing to work with in two years and this is basically his Christmas. “I watched you eat a steak before Game 7. I’ve seen you nap in the locker room during the playoffs you have never once been nervous for anything in your life.”

“I’ve never been nervous for hockey,” I say, mumbling at the floor. “Hockey I know how to do. This I don’t. And it’s the only thing I’ve ever actually cared about not blowing.”

He throws a towel at my head. “Brush your teeth and take a shower. You smell awful.”

I knock on her door because I’ve been pacing the hallway terrified for the past ten minutes and even though I’m slightly early, it’s better than the panic clawing up my throat.

She opens the door in jeans and a sweater, with her hair down, and I forget the sentence I had ready.

“Hi,” she says quietly.

“Hi. You look—” I stop, because “you look” has gone nowhere good twice already. “You ready?”

She nods and locks the door without a word, and we walk out to my truck in a silence I’m one hundred percent sure is her regretting every decision that led to this date.

I open the passenger door for her, and she hesitates before climbing up.

“Okay,” she says. “Who are you, and what did you do with the guy who passed out on my couch?”

“He’s around,” I say. “He’s just letting me drive tonight.”

I watch her fight a laugh before shutting her door feeling like if she’s making fun of me then I might actually still have a shot at this.

I pull up in front of a little French bistro that I definitely found because I asked Dean what Lorelei’s favorite restaurant was and he said this one.

Chloe stops on the sidewalk, takes in the striped awning and the flowers, says, “Oh, that’s cute,” and then reaches down and takes my hand, sliding hers into mine like it’s nothing, like she’s done it a hundred times, and something goes off in my chest like a bottle rocket on New Years.

We’re seated at a little table in the back, and it only takes a minute before she peeks over the menu at me. “Do you speak French?” She whispers behind her hand, like she’s keeping a secret from the whole restaurant.

“No. Do you?” I look down at my own menu and find the problem, which is that every word on it is French.

She laughs, that clear, bright sound I’d pay good money to hear on a loop for the rest of my life. “Okay. As long as we order something that says fromage we’re fine, because that’s just cheese.”

“What about—” I pick a random word on the page and take a run at it. “Tête de veau.”

“Gross, that’s a head.” She says with a little shiver. “Tête means head. You want to order a head of something.”

“Could be good.”

“It’s a head, Jack.”

We do not order the head. We end up pointing at things and hoping, and what shows up is some kind of meat over some kind of pasta under a blanket of gooey cheese, plus a whole basket of crusty bread, and Chloe takes one bite of the bread and makes a sound that is, quite frankly a little inappropriate for a restaurant.