“Yeah.” He nods his dark head.
“What’d you do?”
“I told him thanks and walked off.”
“That’s it?”
“I’ve gotten really good at letting criticism and condescending assholes roll off my back.”
I think he means his father. I don’t know a lot about John Maverick Sr., but I know that the few times Mav has talked about him, he lost a little of the playful, fun demeanor that he’s known for.
“Well, I think you’re doing okay. Plenty of people are waiting in line to ease the burden of your success and celebrate by getting naked. In pairs, apparently.”
He grins. “Could have been you. We all hung out upstairs and then went to The Hideout. I was looking for you. Where were you?”
“I went out for a little while, then crashed so I could get up early and run before work.”
“Date?”
“Yeah.” A guy I met online—total waste of time. I knew within seconds we weren’t compatible. I sigh. “I cannot tell one more guy my favorite color or pretend to care about the places he wants to travel to someday. I’m so over it. I need a change of scenery.” I spent twenty dollars on drinks last night, and for what?
“What are you doing this summer?” He leans back on one elbow.
“I applied for some internships, but so far, nothing. It looks like I’ll be staying in Valley and working at the Hall of Fame.” I bump my shoulder against his. “Maybe I could start a coffee and dry-cleaning service for the chicks that come out of your apartment in the morning.”
“Not unless you’re moving to Minnesota.”
“What?” I pause, bottle to my lips.
“That’s why I was looking for you last night. I wanted to talk to you.”
I stare at him, trying to make sense of the words coming out of his mouth. “Talk to me about what?”
“I, uh, signed with the Wildcats,” he says.
Maverick came to Valley already drafted by the NHL team, the Wildcats. This isn’t news. Except. “Oh my gosh! Signed as in…”
His eyes hold mine. “I’m not coming back next year.”
I text the girls for an emergency group lunch, and we meet up on my hour break between work and classes so that I can fill them in on the Maverick news.
“I can’t believe it.” Reagan digs through her purse for gum and then offers it around the table. “When did this happen?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, pushing away my plate. My stomach is a ball of knots. “He told me this morning. None of you knew?”
Ginny raises a hand. “Heath told me after the championship game. I would have said something, but he made me promise not to until Maverick announced it.”
Her boyfriend and Maverick are best friends, so it makes sense he knew before the rest of us. Still, I hate that I’m just now finding out. The championship game was weeks ago.
“Did anyone else know?” Reagan asks. “I don’t think Adam did because he’s terrible at keeping secrets from me.”
“I did.” Sienna raises her hand from the table the same way Ginny did. She’s dating Rhett and the newest addition to our friend group. Newest, but no less important. I don’t know what I’d do without these three.
“That’s why he went to Minnesota,” she adds, and the pieces start to fall in place as I think back to Maverick’s actions over the past month. If he were anyone else, the signs would have been obvious. The trip to Minnesota, the extra partying, doubling up on girls.
I can’t imagine him not living downstairs from me or hanging out with all of us upstairs. He routinely makes me roll my eyes at his incessant flirting and over-the-top shenanigans, but he’s part of our friend group. An integral part.
All my friends are dating hockey players. I live next to them, I party with them, I even work with them doing recruitment tours at the Hall of Fame.
It really is the end of an era.
“Is Heath leaving too?” Reagan asks Ginny, her gaze narrowed.
She shakes her head and fingers the end of her long, blonde braid. “No. He wants to finish school.”
“And hang out with his awesome girlfriend,” I point out. Heath and Ginny have been inseparable since they started dating last fall, and I can’t imagine a world in which he goes anywhere without her.
“That too.” She smiles, a little smitten and doe eyed.
The three of them talk about all the changes happening while I’m lost in my thoughts. There is this underlying excitement as they talk about it, even though their words are sad, and lunch includes no less than five group hugs. Sienna graduates next week with Rhett and Adam, and now that I know Maverick is leaving too, I feel an odd pang of sorrow.
Up until this moment, I’ve had a hard time feeling the same sadness as my friends that things were changing, maybe because I’m so ready for change myself that I couldn’t wrap my brain around what they were feeling.
No matter where Sienna goes, we’ll stay friends, and being friends with her, I’ll also get tabs on Rhett. And since Adam is staying in Valley for medical school and dating my roommate, I know I’ll see him too. Things were changing, but they didn’t seem so permanent as Maverick leaving does.
Ginny leans forward and rests her palms on the table. “Heath is throwing him a party tonight at the apartment. Shirts are optional, but fun is not.”
I feel my brows lift. “I’m sorry, what?”
She giggles, and her brown eyes light up with humor and excitement. “It’s seriously the tagline for tonight. And you should see the amount of Mad Dog we bought.”
A party where MD 20/20 is the drink of choice and shirts are discouraged? The knot in my stomach loosens at the ridiculousness that I’ve come to love about our group. “Only a party for Maverick would require a tagline.”
2
Johnny
A knock at the front door sends Charli running toward it, barking.
Heath’s voice calls from the other side. “Mav? Are you home?”
I pull open the door and step back to let him in. My buddy sets a large box on the coffee table in the living room.
“I think I got everything, but I’m going to do another pass to make sure.”
I move forward and open one of the flaps to see inside. “What is all this?”
“Your shit.” He plops down on the leather couch. “Video games, headphones, books.” He shakes his head. “I had no idea I was hoarding so much of your stuff. You should see how empty my room looks now.”
I pull out a pair of Beats headphones. “I gave these to you.”
“Loaned,” he says definitively. He has a hard time accepting gifts, which is too bad for him because I like giving them.
“I thought you might say that.” I walk over to the kitchen counter and pull a new pair of headphones out of the box they shipped in yesterday. I toss them at him.
He sits up and cradles the box, turning them over and then sliding the headphones out. “No way!” He smiles, but his excitement is short lived. He sets them on the table next to the box. “Mav, no. I can’t accept these. They’re like three hundred dollars.”