Page 39 of Offside

I kept my face completely neutral, excitement churning. “Yeah. Of course.”

“You’re the best.” Griffin clapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t tell her I asked, she’ll give me a full lecture about being a grown adult woman who doesn’t need⁠—”

“A babysitter.”

“Exactly. You get it.”

“I have a sister. Go,” I said.

Griffin went. I watched him disappear through the back door of the bar and turned back to my beer, expression still neutral.

Eli had watched the whole exchange from two feet away without appearing to watch it at all. The ask, the answer, the part where I had agreed to look after Griffin’s sister a beat too quickly for it to mean nothing. He said nothing about any of it. That was Eli. He didn’t ask questions or offer opinions uninvited. He simply kept things in that quiet way of his and let them sit, and I had learned in two months playing alongside him that Eli’s silence was never empty.

I finished my beer.

I was at the bar waiting for a water when I heard Maren’s voice shift.

I couldn’t have explained how I knew. It wasn’t volume. She wasn’t loud, but something in the register changed. The warm ease of her usual tone was gone. What replaced it was tighter and flatter, a careful evenness like she was managing a situation. I was turning before she got to the end of the sentence.

She was at the bar, maybe twenty feet away. A man beside her, late twenties, baseball cap, several empty drinks in front of him and acting like it, had his hand on her arm. Not her shoulder. Her arm, fingers wrapped around it, and she’d angled her body away. Polite, and also very clear, and he was not reading it.

“Come on,” the guy was saying, leaning in. “Just one more drink.”

“I’m good, thanks.” Maren’s voice was steady. She was handling it. She had clearly handled versions of this before and knew exactly how, and she did not need anyone’s help.

I crossed the bar in about eight steps anyway.

I came up on the guy’s other side. Not behind him, beside him, close enough that he turned and found me six inches from his face.

He blinked. Looked up. I had a few inches on him and was using all of them.

“Hey, man, I was just⁠—”

“I know what you were doing.” My voice came out low and even and cold without any effort at all. My eyes dropped to his hand, still on Maren’s arm. “Take your hand off her.”

The guy dropped it immediately. Then he registered who he was talking to and went still. “Wait.” His eyes went wide. “Holy shit. Are you—you’re Ryan Lindqvist.”

I said nothing. I was fixed on the spot on Maren’s arm where his hand had been.

“Oh my god.” His entire bearing changed, the alcohol-fueled confidence dissolving into something embarrassingly close to awe. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea, I didn’t know she was—I mean, I wouldn’t have—I’m a huge fan, seriously, the game last week against Colorado, that assist in the third⁠—”

“I don’t care.” My voice was low and about ten degrees below the temperature of the room. I took one step closer, not aggressive, just close enough that he had nowhere to look but at me. “When a woman says no, that’s the end of the sentence.” Then I added, “She’s mine.” Quietly. Like a fact. That’s probably going to bite me in the ass later. I didn’t give a shit. I was burning with red hot rage. “You had your hands on her when she didn’t want them there. Do you understand me?”

He swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, man, I’m sorry⁠—”

“Keep your hands to yourself.” I said it quietly, which somehow made it worse. “We clear?”

“Crystal.” He grabbed his drink and was gone before I finished all the things I wanted to say.

I watched him go until I was certain he wasn’t coming back. The anger was still radiating hot and clean. Not performed. Just real, and mine.

I took one slow breath and turned to Maren.

She was watching me. Startled, yes, but her eyes were wide, a flush high on her cheeks I was pretty sure had nothing to do with the heat of the bar.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” she said.

“I know.”