Page 38

Grayson

“Ready?”

Astrid emerges from the bathroom, hair dried, wearing a pair of jeans and yet another patterned, knit sweater. I stare at her for a moment, watching as she turns and pulls her beanie down over her head, running her hands through her hair in the mirror.

Forty-five minutes ago, she had her lips wrapped around my cock. Less than an hour ago, Astrid was insisting that I come in her mouth, and now she stands nonchalantly by the door, like that entire encounter didn’t completely rewire her system.

Maybe it didn’t. Maybe that was only me.

“Yeah,” I grunt, pushing up from the bed, not letting myself think about how domestic this feels. How I’d sat in the bed while she showered, listened to the pattern of the water hitting her body, then falling to the shower floor. When I heard the hairdryer click on, I lost all concentration on the images flickering over the TV, and instead could only think about Astrid, and how much I’d want to hear her hairdryer every morning.

But, based on how she’s acting, she’s not thinking about this at all. For her, this is an arrangement—a case study for her, Callie counseling for me, and hook-ups thrown in as an extra.

Together, we move toward the door, and when we step into the hallway, Astrid pauses for a moment, her hand on the handle.

“Got the room key?” she asks, and I tap my pocket.

“It’s all in the phone,” I say, and we turn, walking down the hall and toward the lobby. It’s late now, the sky fully dark outside. I was surprised Astrid wanted to go out to get dinner. If I’d had my choice, we would have stayed in the room and had room service brought up to us.

If it was up to me, Astrid would still be in my bed right now.

But the moment we were done, she’d peeled away from me, a stark, neutral expression falling over her face. She’d gone to the bathroom, and when she returned, grabbing her bag from the floor, I’d looked up at her, heart flipping.

When I asked her if everything was okay, she responded so smoothly, so naturally— “Yes, of course.”— that I couldn’t find it in myself to even question her. It felt like if I pressed it, I would single myself out as the one thinking differently about this whole thing.

Just like at the farmer's market, it feels as if Astrid has wholly and completely shut me out of her head, leaving me at the door wondering what in the world could be going on inside.

We exit into the dark street and the bracing Minnesota cold assaults us. I resist the urge to put my arm around her shoulder.

One block later, we find the place she looked up earlier—Burger in the Building, a fifties-themed burger place tucked right into the bustling Minneapolis night life. We slip in together and the place envelopes us in warmth, the smell of sizzling beef and the light, drifting scent of milkshakes.

The walls are a bright red, and there are stacks of potato bags on the far wall. The tables are all black-and-white checkered, and servers wear baby blue fifties-style outfits, complete with aprons and hats. One smiles at us when we walk in.

“Well, hello,” she says, “just the two of you tonight?”

I nod, and Astrid says, “Yes, in a booth please.”

When we sit down together, I realize we walked the entire way here without saying a word, and it feels natural. Normal to walk in companionable silence, and slide into the booth and each reach for our menus.

“Water, please,” Astrid says, tipping her chin up to the server when he stops by, recommending their milkshakes. He’s young, pimpled, with a head of auburn curls and a bored expression on his face.

“I’ll take a Choco-Lava shake, please,” I say, tapping the menu where a glossy picture of a deep brown shake, dripping with fudge, practically jumps off the page. “Oh, and a Coke.”

When the server leaves, Astrid eyes me warily. “Isn’t there a team nutritionist who’s going to have a heart attack about what you just ordered?”

“Ha, no,” I say, thinking of the nutritionists at the practice facilities, who are there for us to consult, but not our wardens. Looking at her from over the top of the menu, I add, “I figure, at what other point in my life am I going to burn ten thousand calories in a day? Might as well take advantage of it.”

“Really?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “You think what we did burned ten thousand calories?”

My cock twitches at her bold reference. She’s impossible to figure out—jumping out of bed and acting like it’s not a big deal and waiting until we’re in a restaurant to bring it up. Until we’re somewhere that I can’t just reach over and touch her if I want to.

Maybe that’s the point.

I open my mouth to respond, but our server returns, expression blank as he slides a water, a Coke, and a huge, dripping milkshake onto the table. When he straightens up and tucks the platter under his arm, he asks, “Do you guys need another minute?”

Astrid meets my eyes, and I grin, shaking my head. “I’m ready to go. I’ll take the Triple Beast, please. With an extra side of chili fries.”

The Triple Beast is a burger with three different kinds of patties—beef, bison, and pork. It’s also smothered in cheese sauce and piled generously with bacon, not a vegetable in sight.

Astrid shakes her head as she looks down at her menu, clearly biting the corner of her mouth to keep from laughing at my obnoxious choice. “And I’ll have the Not-Much-Room burger, please.”

“You want the extra sautéed mushrooms on that?”

“You know what?” Astrid finds my eyes again. “Yeah—let’s go crazy .”

The server doesn’t even crack a smile, just reaches for our menus. “I’ll have that right out for you.”

“He’s a ray of sunshine,” Astrid says, playing with her straw wrapper. “Then again, I’ve never worked in food service, so maybe that’s the best he can do.”

I let out a surprised breath. “Really? Not even a fast-food job when you were in high school? Something for pocket change?”

Something in her expression changes, and she shifts from side to side, looking a bit uncomfortable. “No,” she admits, clearing her throat and raising her eyes to mine. “I was far too busy with private school.”

I let out a low whistle. “Okay, Astrid, I didn’t know you were rich .”

“I wasn’t rich,” she retorts. “My parents were rich.”

“That’s something rich people say,” I stick the straw into my milkshake and take a long suck from it, noting the way Astrid sips from her water, gaze calculating.

“I take it you didn’t grow up rich, then?”

“God, no.” I laugh, even knowing she’s purposefully changing the conversation, so she won’t have to talk about herself. I wonder if the day will come when she’ll tell me about her private school. “I grew up in rural Nebraska.”

“On a farm?”

“No, definitely not.” I tip my head to the side, consider Astrid for a second. “Are you too rich to be familiar with the concept of trailer trash?”

“I don’t think money takes away one’s ability to be familiar with societal classes,” she says.

“You’re resorting to fancy language because you have no idea what I’m talking about.” I reach out and put my hand over hers, a faux comfort. “It’s okay. I’ll explain it to you.”

She laughs. To my surprise, she doesn’t pull her hand out from under mine.

“Please,” she says, dropping her chin into her other hand, “ do .”

“My dad collected copper.”

“Like, as a hobby?”

“No.” I shake my head, wondering what Astrid would say if she saw his old, beat-up truck. I wonder what she would say if she knew that I used to spend my Sundays with him, prowling the curbs and looking for appliances that might have what we were hunting for. He did a lot of scrap metal work, but copper was the main draw.

So, I tell her about it.

I tell her about what it was like to grow up that far outside of town. I tell her about the time we saw a tornado rip through the neighbor’s fields, cutting straight across the horizon and never once turning toward us. And I tell her about the odd jobs my mom would take on when she wanted something new from the shopping network—washing and folding laundry, doing custodial work at the school.

Astrid listens, only pausing when the server drops off our food, sliding my extra plate of chili fries over to me with the vindictive push of a man who never wants to see a sopping paper tray again.

“Anything else?” he asks, and when we wave him off, Astrid says, “You were talking about the kittens.”

I finish telling her about the kittens born under our porch, and how I’d made sure each of them found a home in town. The veterinarian told me that if I decided to give up on hockey, that might be a good calling for me.

Astrid laughs, brings her hand to her mouth, shakes her head.

Then our food is gone, and all I can think about is the fact that we’re getting on separate planes tomorrow. She’ll head back to Milwaukee, and I’ll fly out to the West Coast for yet another away game.

“Hey,” I say, trying to be as casual as she was earlier, stepping out of the bathroom in that hotel room. “What if you came with me to California tomorrow? Show me the sights?”

“Sure.” Astrid shrugs, flicking her eyes up at me while wiping each of her fingers with a napkin, then crumpling it and throwing it into the little plastic basket. “Why not?”

Suddenly, in the middle of this burger restaurant, it hits me with a sudden, total clarity: I am falling in love with Astrid Foster.