Page 275 of Across His Line

“Is that bad?”

“It’s good. If I get one.” He pulls the shirt down and fixes it. “It means they want to look at me up close. Teams. In a room.”

“Is it here?”

“Buffalo, I think. End of May. Beginning of June.” He’s quiet. “And then the draft.”

I don’t say anything.

I look down at my boxes. They’re fine now.

And it dawns on me that I still don’t know where I am going. But it helps that Rafe doesn’t know either.

We end up on the bed. He pulls me into him, and I nuzzle my head on his chest.

He’s waiting for an invite that might be coming next week to a hotel in a city neither of us has ever been to, and then June, and then a stage, and then a team that might own his rights and might not, and might want him to sign and might not.

Neither of us knows where we’re going to be in the fall. That used to be just mine. Now it’s both of ours.

I put my hand flat on his chest.

He puts his over it.

And neither of us says anything else.

38

Trash Cans Every Six Feet

Rafe

The letter comes as an email, which is stupid. I thought it would be a letter. It’s the middle of May at four in the afternoon while I’m on the floor of the weight room between sets.

Berwyn texts first. Just check your email. Then the email. A familiar logo at the top I’ve seen on TV my whole life.

You have been invited to attend the NHL Scouting Combine.

Dates. A hotel. A list of what to bring. A line in bold about the medical forms. A line in bold about arriving on time.

I read it three times on the floor of the weight room with my heart going like I’m still on the bench press.

Barnes is spotting Kennebeck at the next station. He looks over. He sees my face.

“What?”

I turn the phone around.

Barnes reads it. Then he drops the bar. Kennebeck catches it. But Barnes lets go of it with both hands and puts them on top of his head and yells something wordless at the ceiling. Kennebeck yells at Barnes for almost killing him, and then reads the phone over Barnes’s shoulder, still lying on the bench, upside down, and doesn’t say anything at all.

He just reaches up and hits me in the chest with the back of his hand.

That’s Kennebeck for holy shit.

Berwyn calls me into his office the next morning. The coffee pot’s still on. I don’t think it’s ever been off.

“You need somebody,” he says. “Before you get on that plane. Somebody who’s in the room for the parts I can’t be. Somebody who knows which teams are lying.”

“I know.”