Page 44 of The Lies We Play

Liv: As I said, pending.

Cam, sitting two stalls down, says, “Who’s making you smile, Lafontaine?”

“For a captain, you’re too fucking nosy.”

“Is it Liv?” he asks, already grinning. Then he adds, “Tell her I say hi.”

I ignore him.

My team adores Liv. It happened without permission, the way most things with her do. First, it was the roof. Then it was museums on my off days, because apparently my cultural education had been “deeply underfunded.” Then it was her watching tapes with me and asking questions that started as jokes until she understood enough to be annoying in a more informed way. She now knows more about hockey than she ever wanted to know before she met me.

After home wins, she meets me at the bar.

That’s how my teammates got the idea that Liv and I are a package deal.

Which we might be.

In ways I can’t explain—not even to myself.

Though it’s also in ways we can’t be.

Do I want to kiss her?

I plead the fifth.

Do I want to do more than kiss her?

I’m not discussing the content of my dreams with Cam, the team, the league, or any legal authority currently recognized by the state of New York.

The point is, Liv makes me smile.

She makes my life stranger in a way I have started to need.

My phone vibrates again.

Liv: Update: he just ordered an old-fashioned and asked James what bourbon they have. Yes, he called James by name, and get this . . . James said, “Halston, I can’t keep repeating the shit I sell.” People in this bar know James by name, when I have been coming here every time you have a home game for the past six weeks and have never called him anything but “can I get another Sprite please?”

Liv: Also, he’s wearing a suit at 10 p.m.—Halston, not James—on a Saturday. Creed, who comes to a hockey bar in a suit?

I roll my eyes.

Creed: I’ll be arriving there later in a suit, so don’t judge.

Liv: You’re different. This guy . . . he’s probably a workaholic.

Creed: He’s a lawyer?

Liv: Either a lawyer or someone who lost a bet.

Creed: It could be both.

Liv: He looks nice.

A beat.

Another message.

Liv: Handsome.