“See what?”
“You’re a runner.” She nodded. “I recognize it because I have that same feeling when it comes to track. The rush of it. The speed of rounding that corner, baton in your hand.”
Grace looked down at her injured hand and grimaced.
My stomach twisted into a knot.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said, pulling me back out of my head.
“You got all of that from talking to my friends and looking at a track picture from 1982?”
She shrugged. “That, and I’m usually pretty good at reading people.”
“Sure, whatever,” I said, brushing her off.
I couldn’t love anything near as much as I loved hockey.
Could I?
“Check out that hair! She must have used like two cans of hairspray to get it that high.” She flipped the yearbook toward me. “Prom 1982,Under the Stars…”
Pictures of girls with teased hair and puffy-sleeve dresses filled the page. Even the guys’ hair and outfits were intense.
“Mullet town and powder-blue tuxes,” I said, reaching for the yearbook. “Dude.”
“Those dresses,” she said as she shifted some loose papers around on the floor. “Classic.”
I chuckled. “Woodhaven should totally have an eighties-themed prom this year.”
“We did that. Last year. It—” She coughed into her hand, and then her jaw tensed.
“It, what?”
“Nothing. Come on, let’s get back to work.”
Okay, now I had to know. “Did it suck?”
“No. I went. It, it, it’s nothing. Um…I need a drink.” She pushed up and hustled to her bag.
There was definitely more to the story, and it was weird, but I wanted to know more about it. And her.
Chapter Eleven
Preach
I moved the puck through two defenders, spun, passed it to Brodie, then sat into a burst of power, speeding toward the net.
Brodie hopped the puck to me, I guided it around, then slapped it. The net snapped as the puck rammed into it. The crowd bellowed around me. The buzzer went off and the red light swirled.
I’d scored. I’d made the winning shot.
The buzzer kept going, stealing my focus. The yelling crowd faded away but that buzzer. It kept going. And going.
What the—
“Ryan!”
Something shook my arm. I turned around, expecting Brodie to be tackling me onto the ice because I’d just made the winning goal. But there was darkness.