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“No.”

“Okay.”

And I mean it. Which is new to me. I’ve never been able to go two seconds without knowing something, but right now I understand, so I respect it. I lie there with my head on his arm and let the whole thing sit in the dark, unexplained. He’s asleep in about five minutes.

I lie awake for a while with my hand on his chest, thinking about his hands. When he was sitting on the edge of my bed watching that video, they were shaking so hard. Two hours later, he came back and took my hand in both of his, and they were steady.

On Monday, he has meetings all afternoon: his coach, then somebody from athletics, then his coach again. He’s outside the science building when I come out of my four o’clock, leaning on the railing with his hands in his pockets, and I can tell from his face that something’s wrong.

“I’m sitting Friday,” he says before I can ask.

I stop on the steps. “What?”

“One game.”

Friday is the home opener against Brennan State. It’s been on every poster on campus for two weeks. “Friday’s the home opener.”

“I know what Friday is.”

I scoff. “That’s bullshit.”

“No.”

That stops me flat, because I had about four more sentences lined up behind that one. “He hit you with a hockey stick, Nash.”

“And then I beat the shit out of him,” he says flatly.

I look at him, trying to read him past his anger, and come up short.

“It’s one game,” he says.

He hates it. I can see him hating it. His jaw’s clenched, and he’s looking out at the parking lot instead of at me. But he’s still saying it out loud like he agrees with it.

“What about Greeley?” I ask.

“Three.”

“Three games?”

“Yeah.”

I’m smiling before I can decide not to. “Okay. I feel better.”

The corner of his mouth moves about a millimeter.

We start walking, and he tells me the rest in pieces. There’s a thing he has to do with somebody from athletics next week. The video’s been taken down off two of the accounts. Berwyn said something to the whole room this morning. Then he says, “Layous’s centering the third now.”

“Is that Greeley’s spot?”

“It was.”

“So when he comes back—”

“He’s got to work to get it back.”

I look up at him. “And you’re still second line.”

“Yeah.”