Page 158 of Across His Line

I look at her instead of the screen.

She doesn’t notice. She’s already reaching for the remote to back it up herself.

And somewhere in there, the couch gets smaller. She can’t see what I’m pointing at from her end, so she comes into the middle cushion. Then I lean forward to show her something on the far side of the screen, and she leans in, too. Then she’s got her elbows on her knees next to my elbows on my knees, and her shoulder’s about four inches from mine. Her wet hair is dripping one slow drop at a time onto the cushion between us.

I look at the drops for a second. I’m aware of it. All of it. The four inches. Her bare forearm, right there where she’s pushed the sleeve up. The cedar soap. The warm of her through the space between us.

I back up another play.

In the third, a winger for the team in blue picks up the puck in his own end, and I already know.

“Watch,” I say. “He’s going to go wide, and the D is going to bite, and he’s going to cut back to the middle and go top shelf blocker side because the goalie’s been cheating glove all night. Watch the goalie’s left foot. There. He’s already—see that? He’s already leaning. He’s an idiot. Watch.”

The winger goes wide. The D bites. He cuts back.

“Top shelf,” I say. “Blocker—”

It goes in. Top shelf. Blocker side.

“He’s been doing that all night,” I say, and I’m leaning forward with my hands going. I back it up to show her the goalie’s foot again, the lean, the tell. “Every time. Somebody on their bench should be screaming at him. Look at that. Look at his foot. He might as well have thrown his hands up and let—”

I look over.

She isn’t looking at the screen. She’s looking at me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not watching.”

“I am.”

“You're looking at me.”

And she goes red.

It starts at her collar at the neck of that big gray T-shirt and goes up. Her throat. Her jaw. All the way to her ears. She turns her face back to the TV quickly.