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“Hey. Are you home?”

“Yeah. Where are you?” Aspen asked when she heard a lot of background noise.

“It’s one of the players’ birthday, and they invited me and the crew out for the party with everyone. I didn’t want to say no because she invited all of us and was really nice about it.”

“You’re at a birthday party?” Aspen sat on the bed and kicked off her shoes.

“Yeah. And to be honest with you, I’ve had a couple of drinks.”

“Oh?” Aspen asked with a little laugh. “How many is a couple?”

“A couple is two. A couple is still two, right?”

“Are you asking me?” Aspen laughed again, moving to lie back against her pillow.

“I’ve had two drinks.”

“Okay. Well, someone’s going to take you back to the hotel, yeah?”

“Yes, I will be okay. Louisville won today. It was a great game.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a good day.”

“I have. But I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” Aspen replied and thought about booking that flight to Minneapolis as soon as she got off the phone with Kendra.

“I’m a little tipsy.”

“I can tell. I wish I could see your face right now.”

“I can’t video chat. There are so many people here.”

“I’ll wait until I see you, then,” she said, knowing it would be sooner than Kendra thought.

“I called because I probably won’t be able to call and talk for a long time when I get back because it’ll be so late.”

“That’s okay. Can you just text me when you get back to your room so that I know you’re safe?”

“Yeah. Hey, what happened in that match?”

“God, I don’t want to talk about that. We were having a good conversation.”

“Are you and DJ okay?”

“We’re good. We had an off day, but we talked on the flight back. We’re okay.”

“Maybe I can come to a practice when I get back?”

“I’d love that. You give great strategic advice.”

“I give great other things, too,” Kendra told her.

Aspen’s eyes went wide.

“You do, huh?”

“I can’t believe I just said that. I’m in public, and we’re not… We haven’t had that talk, and–”