Page 143 of Full Contact

I’d been tired when I arrived at the condo. Now, after talking about the position, I had a new burst of energy.

Trier had listened to all of it. “You should find out what they’re proposing,” he said.

“I think so too.”

He picked his spoon back up, but he didn’t start eating.

“If it starts to look serious,” I said, “I want to sit down with you and talk it through. Not over reheated chili at ten o’clock at night.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean about what it would mean for us.”

“Yes,” he said.

We ate the rest of the meal in silence and cleared the table together. Trier put the chili into containers while I rinsed the bowls and loaded the dishwasher.

“The May concert,” he said. “The Stravinsky. I checked the date, and so far I’m free. It’s also playoff season, but I’d like to go.”

“Then I’ll put your name on the seat.”

“Does Gwen mind?”

“Gwen gets Messiah. The rest of the season is negotiable.”

At eleven, I pulled my coat on. Trier walked me to the door. He slid both hands inside my open coat and settled them at my waist, kissing me. When I started to pull back, he followed and kissed me again. I held on to him. He was warm through the T-shirt, and he smelled of the camphor rub the trainer had worked into his hip.

I rested my forehead on his shoulder.

“You could stay,” he said quietly.

My clothes for the morning were at home. My laptop was in the car, and the website team’s notes were on it. Seven forty-five was only eight hours and forty-five minutes away.

“I’d be useless at seven forty-five,” I said.

“Text me when you’re in,” he said.

“I will.”

In the elevator, I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes until the doors opened.

Chapter twenty-one

Trier

Late in the second period in a game against Winnipeg, I skated into the corner after a puck that had died against the boards. Their forward followed in behind me for a check. It wasn’t dirty.

My bottom hand was low on the shaft of my stick, and when he hit me, the boards gave an inch. My left wrist bent back, pinned between my hip and the wall, with all of the forward’s weight barreling into it.

The crowd groaned on contact. For a second the outside of my wrist burned, and then it was numb.

I got the puck up the wall to Cross, finished the shift, and went down the tunnel at the next whistle. A trainer met me. She turned my hand over and pressed along the bones with her thumbs, then had me grip her fingers and push against her palm.

“Where does it hurt?”

“There.” I pointed to the outside of the wrist. “And when you press.”

She pressed again. “Numbness? Tingling?”