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Shar shook her head then leaned over and planted a kiss on Rob's cheek. "I wasn't feeling great after the game.”

“And we didn't even have a corn dog." She grinned, walking with me to the door. I held it open for her. "While I'm thrilled that we get to be roomies, is there a reason you're not staying with Rob?"

She looped her thumbs in her back pockets. "Only that I'm an amazing girlfriend."

"To me or him?"

Her smile widened. "Both. No, I just didn't want to take away from this. It's his tournament with the guys. I want to be here, but I don't want to distract him."

We pushed out the doors and started across the parking lot. The night was warm and still. Shar's face pulled into an apologetic grimace. "Okay, since we’re talking real, can I ask you a question, and promise you won't get mad?”

Did a question about our roommate situation constitute real talk? I laughed. “This is probably the best time since I'm still a little buzzed and haven't gotten to my post-beer sappy stage."

Shar sighed. "Aw, I love your post-beer sappy stage."

The parking lot light momentarily flooded over us before we passed back into shadow, the laughter and music from the bar fading behind us.

"Are you—" Sharla fiddled with her hands. "So I think I know the answer to this, but I just wanted to be sure.” She chewed her lower lip. “Do you like men? Or?—"

It took me a moment before I figured out where she was headed with this line of questioning. I gaped at her. "Shar, are you asking if I'm a lesbian?"

Sharla held up her hands. "Zero judgment. I just wondered because you said sex wasn't great with Colin, and you haven't dated anyone in the last, what, year and a half? Two years?"

I laughed out loud. "Oh my hell, I'm not a lesbian."

"Okay! I just wanted to tell you that if you were, it would be fine?—"

"Do you think I would hide something like that from you?"

She laughed. "I don't know! Maybe you hadn't figured it out yet.”

“And you thought now would be the moment—in a parking lot at a hockey tournament—when I'd suddenly realize, 'Oh! The reason penis sex wasn't great was because I don't like penises!'"

Shar grabbed onto my arm, trying to cover my mouth. "Shh! You just yelled 'penises' across the parking lot twice."

We both dissolved into a fit of snorts and giggles, pausing at the row of cars. It was quiet out, and it felt more appropriate to have this conversation in the dark before walking into the lobby of the hotel.

I wiped my eyes and lowered my voice. "Maybe I just haven't found the right penis yet."

Shar put a hand on her hip, pretending that was a very astute observation. "But, like, nobody? There aren't any guys that you have even the tiniest crush on?"

I blew out a breath. "I don't think I know how to have crushes." I paused a moment, then took that statement back. "No. That's not true. I think I know what a crush is. It's just that my body has decided to sabotage me and feel things only for men I can't have."

Shar smirked. "Coach Wilson?"

She said it like she was singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” and it was my turn to shush her.

She laughed and pulled away as I grabbed her arm. "There's nobody out here!"

"I know, but—!" I gestured back at the bar where the team could exit at any moment, then pulled the clip from my hair, shook out my curls, and swooped them back up in a twist, securing them again. "I just—it's like my body found his frequency back then . . . "

"And your antenna is broken? You can't switch from AM to FM?" Shar finished for me, continuing with the sound wave metaphor.

"If that's a gay joke?—"

Shar chortled. "Maybe you just need to sleep with him and get it out of your system. He’s like a crush blockage. Your mind does like doing things in order."

I groaned. "First of all, highly doubt that would ever happen. Second . . .” I allowed myself to consider it.

To imagine Chase in front of me. All I could see was him exiting the washroom with that damn towel around his waist. I really wasn’t very creative.

“My high school self would lose her freaking mind. "

"Babe, I hate to tell you, but you're still your high school self."

"I hope not.”

Shar gripped my wrist. “No. I had this fantasy when I was sixteen that a super hot, ripped guy stepped out of my shower and wrapped himself in a baby-blue towel. So guess what colour of towels I bought for me and Rob?"

Okay. Maybe the towel thing was a common fantasy. I grinned. "Seriously?"

"Oh, yeah. And I make him stand there on the bath mat for as long as I want."

She stepped back, and I wrapped my arms around myself. "See, but that's the problem. I never quite got to the fantasizing stage. I stalled out at the 'Holy crap, I'm feeling things between my thighs' stage."

Sharla grinned. "So you never once imagined something with Chase?"

I pondered that for a moment. No. I hadn't. I'd never plucked that image of him out of real life and dropped him into a story where we were together or . . . doing things. I was just mesmerized by him. That damn puzzle I couldn’t figure out.

I blew out a breath. “I think the problem was—well, still is?—"

"Right," Shar nodded her head. "Not enough data."

"Exactly." I thought of the spreadsheets on Coach Blakely's clipboard. It was so easy for me to see the patterns. But starting with a blank page?—

"You could try collecting some information on your own, you know."

I balked. First the lesbian question, and now this? "I don't think I could do that."

Shar shrugged. "Well, you already said no to Garrett."

"Yeah, I know.” I thought for a moment. “I can't even imagine—" I shook my head, my chest already starting to tighten.

"I don't know. That feels terrifying, the idea of letting someone else see me like that, touch me like that.” Yes, I’d slept with Colin, but those moments were more about survival than connection.

Shar's hands were suddenly on my shoulders. "Maddie. At some point you're going to need to let go."

I frowned. "Let go of what?"

"Everything. You hold it all so tightly, and I get it. You're good at what you do. You have a system. Everything is in order, and it works for you. But if you never let someone else take the wheel?—"

"Letting someone else take the wheel would be dangerous. We would crash and die."

She grinned. "Letting someone else take the wheel means you can lie back and have a mind-blowing orgas?—"

"Okay, so you're allowed to shout that across the parking lot, and I can't say penis?"

"Maddie, for the love!"

I laughed. "No. I get it. I hear you." And I did. Intimacy, connection, meant lowering those walls. Letting someone see all my inner workings. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to . . . I just couldn’t figure out how.

"If you let somebody see past the grades and accolades and that brilliant mind of yours, they're going to love what they see."

I cocked my head to the side. "Shar. I don't think there is anything beyond that." It was a joke, but it also kind of wasn't.

"Oh, there’s something there. And either you're going to figure it out gracefully, or you're going to have a shit storm of a meltdown at Oxford."

"I am not."

"What happens when school is over, Maddie? When you're working and you don’t have that next test to study for or the next scholarship to win?"

"I—" My voice caught as the conversation with Chase snapped into my head. Yeah. Well, my goal is to get them on the ice. Let them do the thing they love. After this, they're not going to have nearly as many opportunities.

Suddenly, the next ten years of my life flashed in front of my eyes—getting the scholarship, studying, earning my degree, then maybe moving on for a master's or PhD, jumping from hoop to hoop to hoop, hopefully discovering something I was passionate about in the process. But would that happen if I couldn’t even find something or someone to be passionate about now?

"What do you always tell Axel and Rory?" Shar asked.

I wet my lips. "That they need to do their laundry more than once a semester?”

She laughed. “The other thing.”

I drew a breath. “That patterns of thinking change with practice."

"Exactly. So . . . You're really good at math. They're not, which means changing those patterns of thinking is going to take practice."

"So are you saying I need . . . practice?”

"Your words, not mine." She dropped her hands and adjusted her purse on her shoulder. "I just want you to be happy. Maybe you need a tutor, too."

Pressure built behind my eyes at the expression on her face. It was a different iteration of a look I knew in my bones. "You're looking at me like my mom right now."

"I’m not—” Sharla sniffed. "How about a good friend. And I’m not the one leaving, by the way."

I deflated a little. "I get it. I'm broken, and you need to fix me while you still have time."

A smile split her face. "It's more like I want you to stop depriving the male species of that sweet, sweet ass."

I threw my head back and laughed, almost stumbling over the parking block behind me. "Perfect. Well, I've got my homework. Find someone willing to tutor me in relationships and physical intimacy?—”

"That'll be easy."

"—who doesn’t make me want to throw up in my mouth."

"Okay. Maybe a slightly harder sell.”

“Who isn’t Chase Wilson. Because apparently, he's the only one my body knows how to notice at the moment."

"Right. Same frequency and?—"

We both jumped as the slam of a car door sounded behind us. My head snapped to the left, and my stomach lurched like I was suddenly dangling at the top of the Drop of Doom.

Chase Wilson stood on the other side of his truck, and his passenger window was open.