“Maybe, but there’re no guarantees that when the time comes, I’ll play. A million things might happen between now and then to fuck it all up.”

I never considered that Heath would worry about his future when he has it mapped out. I don’t stress about life beyond college, only planning for it. I guess once you have it figured out, the only thing to worry about is how things might go wrong.

“You just got here. Give yourself time to just be and let life happen. You don’t need to have the next three years or beyond all planned out. What fun would that be? Four months ago, I didn’t know you and now I do.” He steps into my space and places his hands on the mattress on either side of me. “Not knowing can be exciting.”

A knock at the door is followed by Maverick’s voice. “Yo, Payne, let’s go.”

Heath brings his mouth to mine and kisses me softly.

“I think I’ll wait for you guys to leave,” I whisper.

“How are you going to get to the dorm?”

“I’ll walk.”

“No.”

“No?”

He finds his keys on top of his desk and tosses them to me and then kisses me one last time before he heads out.

26

HEATH

We’re sitting around the apartment before we head to the arena for tonight’s game. Rauthruss is FaceTiming Carrie, and it doesn’t annoy me quite as much as usual. Mav’s sharing his pre-game peanut butter sandwich with Charli, and Adam’s staring at the TV with a look of hard concentration.

I know he wears the weight of the world on his shoulders before games, worrying about how we’ll play. He takes a lot of that pressure on himself, most I think isn’t really necessary, but I guess that’s why he’s the captain.

“Scott, what are you going to do after graduation?” I ask him, surprised I don’t know.

Mav’s already signed with the Cats and Rauthruss’s family runs a hockey camp that he plans to take over.

“I’m premed, man. Going to medical school.”

“Really?”

The other guys look to me with equally surprised faces.

“I didn’t know.” Or maybe I did and forgot it already. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking past next week. Even my own future feels weird. Pro hockey is like this thing I’ve agreed to but doesn’t really feel like it’s going to happen. Two and a half years feels so far away.

“We’re gonna be busting people up and he’s going to be putting them back together,” Mav says, mouth full of peanut butter.

“I can see you being a team doctor or something; that’d be cool.”

He laughs and says sarcastically, “Thanks. I hadn’t thought of that.”