Page 34 of Playing it Safe

I scratch Puck's chin. "I don't know what you mean."

"You've been there a few hours, and you've already become the person who handles things. Who anticipates needs." He pauses. "Does that pattern feel familiar?"

I stare at the wall. "That's just how I am."

"I know. That's what makes it worth examining." Another pause. "Is there a difference between being needed and being wanted?"

"Are we doing a session right now?"

"We're having a conversation. But think about the question. When you do things for people — your family, your teammates, Briar — are you doing it because they asked, or because being useful is how you feel safe?"

Puck puts his head down on my thigh. I don't answer.

"I'm not asking you to stop caring for people," Odin says. "I'm asking you to notice whether anyone asked you to start."

I end the call and sit with Puck's weight on my leg and Briar's quiet house around me, and for one bad second I let myself hear that nobody asked. Not Ma, not Davey, not Ian. I appointed myself. Somewhere back there I decided that if I stopped being the one who fixed things, there'd be no reason to keep me around — and then I built a whole life to make sure nobody ever tested the theory.

The thought is too big. So I do what I always do. I get up and find something to fix.

Odin has effectively ruined shopping for me. It takes an hour at the grocery store because I’m second-guessing what each item means every time I put it in the cart. Sure, I’m upgrading the brand of olive oil. This isn’t because I’m trying to parent Briar or whatever the fuck. Life is too short for rancid, cheap olive oil.

At the checkout, I see a display of stick-on face gems — sparkly little dots in gold and silver, the kind fans wear to games. I know Briar said her sister doesn’t need anything, but she’s got a playoff game coming up, and maybe she doesn’t know this is an option. I put two packs in the cart, in case Deen’s roommates want to try them.

I stock Briar’s fridge, fold the grocery bags, and wipe down the counter. Puck has claimed the living room windowsill, where a strip of weak sunlight falls across the glass. He looks settled. More settled than he ever looked at my house, despite the lack of squirrels here.

When Briar gets home from practice, I'm on the couch, reading my library haul. She drops her bag by the door and surveys the townhouse. “Why does everything look different?”

I shrug. “I don’t think I moved anything.”

She walks around, sniffing. “You cleaned? It’s all sparkly. Oh my god, Cameron, did you mop?”

She opens the fridge and surveys the contents for a moment. Everything is where it should be — her yogurt on the shelf she clearly prefers, the eggs in the door, and the greens in the crisper. She closes the fridge and meets my gaze.

"Thank you," she says quietly.

"There's something on the counter for Deen." I nod toward the face gems. "For the next game. If she wants them."

Briar picks up the packs and studies the sparkly dots. She runs her thumb over the packaging and says nothing for a long time.

"She's going to love these," Briar says at last. She takes her bag to her room, shuts the door, and I sit on her couch with her cat and the question Odin left me with. I can’t stop thinking about how easy it would be to store two sets of hockey gear in my new mudroom.

Chapter 15

Briar

The athletic trainer, Senga, presses her thumbs into my hamstring, and I bite back a sound that has nothing to do with the stretch.

"You're tight through here," she says, working the muscle. "Have you been using a foam roller?"

"Every night." This is true. What's also true is that I've been foam rolling in my living room while Cameron reads on the couch three feet away. It takes every ounce of discipline I have not to think about what his hands would feel like doing this instead. His hands, enormous and strong-looking, along with every other part of his body.

"Okay, extend for me."

I straighten my leg, which is tingling the more I think about my roommate. Senga tests the range. I stare at the training room ceiling, thinking about Cameron Miller's forearms and the way he wrings out a dish towel in my kitchen like he's strangling it. I really need to get a grip.

It's been a week of Cameron in my house, smelling like whatever body wash he uses — a manly smell that’s clean and warm and lingers in the bathroom after his showers and makes me walk into the steam, sniffing like an addict. One week of him stocking my fridge, mopping my floors, and reading on my couch with Puck on his lap. One week of his shoulders in a T-shirt, his voice on the phone with his mother, and the soft sound of him padding around in socks while he thinks I’m asleep.

He left for a road game on Tuesday — the kind that doesn't count, the Fury's season already a ghost — and the house felt wrong without him. Too quiet. Too still. Puck sat on the windowsill, staring at the street, visibly forlorn despite what Cameron says about the cat hating him. I sat on the couch and told myself I wasn't forlorn either.