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“I love the social aspect, the camaraderie of being with my people,” said Kaitlin. “I don’t have to explain it. They just get me.”

Georgie nodded. “It’s like being a member of a special club. That sense of belonging, of having found family who care passionately about what we hold dear.” She broke into a smile that crinkled her eyes and warmed Oliver’s heart. “It’s the best feeling in the world.”

Kaitlin reached across the table offering her Hickory Sticks. “Oliver…”

“Oh! Thanks.” He held out his hand.

Kaitlin poured a scattering into his palm. “There’s also the exhilaration of being part of something bigger than you, something you can’t control.”

Adding more pictures to the envelope she’d addressed, Georgie glanced up. “The ultimate emotional rollercoaster.”

“God, yeah, especially in the playoffs.” Kaitlin shoved aside her bag of snacks and picked up a handprinted letter stapled to a scribbled drawing of a player with a tawny moustache and an enormous cowboy hat. “Uh, Leesa?” She placed the papers in front of her friend. “For you.”

“Aw, cute!” Leesa added them to a separate stack she kept to the side. “Looks like him, too.”

Who the Stetson-wearing, hockey-playing him was, Oliver had no clue.

“So much goes unspoken between us fans, too,” said Georgie. “We all have the same hopes, the same dreams for our team.”

Leesa nodded. “The same heroes and villains.”

“The same euphoria when we win.” Kaitlin picked up her pen.

Oliver raised his brows. “We?” He finished the rest of his smoky-flavoured snacks.

“Yeah? It’s us, the players, and the coaches together against the world,” explained Leesa. “We’re all part of the same team, the same family.”

“For better, for worse,” said Kaitlin. “In sickness and in health.”

“For long as we both shall live.” Georgie whisked the glue stick across the edge of the envelope’s back flap and patted it closed. “I’m not exaggerating either. Sometimes I feel like I’m married to the team. They are my life.”

The others nodded in agreement.

“And when we win and everyone’s celebrating, it’s like Christmas and the best birthday you could ever imagine all rolled into one incredible moment,” Georgie mused. “There’s nothing like it.”

Expressing herself passionately about the sport, she positively glowed, flaring Oliver’s infatuation again. God, she’s pretty. A breath lodged in his chest. And fun and happy. Carefree. I wish I could be more like that.

But while Georgie’s words brimmed with nostalgia and bliss, a dark thought—the unmentionable—blew through Oliver’s mind like a threatening storm cloud.

What happens when they lose?

“Just imagine what it’ll be like when we win the Cup again,” said Georgie.

Leesa paused and looked up from the address she’d been writing. “I think my heart will explode when it finally happens. I’ve already warned work. Don’t expect to see me for days afterward. I’ll be too busy running around the city screaming my head off.”

“I might paint my face blue, just the once.” Kaitlin dropped a few photos into an envelope. “And that’s saying something ’cause I’m not a fan of face painters.”

“Or chest painters,” said Leesa. “They inevitably smear their goopy makeup on everyone.”

Oliver hid his inner cringe. “So why do it?”

“So my grandma’s bridge club won’t recognize me,” said Kaitlin. “I work in TV and our videographers will be out in full force the night we win. Odds are, someone will record me drunk dancing on top of a bus shelter and air it on the news. I can’t have my sweet grandma subjected to a bunch of pearl-clutching snobs the next time she plays cards.”

Georgie laughed. “That’s love for ya. Makes you do the unthinkable.”

Oliver had never loved something that hard in his life. A person? Sure, but a pastime or hobby? Never. He couldn’t relate. At all.

“But enough about that.” Georgie lifted her tea. “Tell us about Egypt, Oliver! What are the pyramids like close up? Have you gone inside?”