Unsteady

We won. Again.

Fucking finally.

The team is riding the high, Gym Class Heroes blaring somehow louder as I walk through the tunnel into the dressing room. I smile brightly as my team smacks my back, Freddy and Dougherty skipping around and singing with a few of the more outgoing underclassmen.

Every single one of them deserves this; not to mention it pushes our points finally high enough not to give me as much worry before the Cornell game next weekend. Harvard still looms on the horizon, one of our top competitors this year, but for tonight—a win is a win.

“A motherfucking Reiner shutout!” Freddy shouts, whistles blaring all around as he takes the sacred knot of rope, looped from cut strands of conference-winning nets, and hands it to Bennett, declaring him our player of the game. Everyone cheers as Bennett, still in his thick leg pads, but stripped down to a long sleeve compression shirt up top, stands and accepts it with a nod.

I know better than to expect any sort of speech, and he doesn’t offer anything other than, “Couldn’t have done it without my defensemen and this entire team. Go Wolves.” He lifts the long drape of rope again, before sitting back against his cubby.

Coach Harris smiles, because he knows his star goalie in the same way I do, appreciates his quirks and rituals. He’s built trust with Bennett, with us all, but I know personally how much he’s worked with Bennett.

He nods at all of us once, and leaves with a quick, “Enjoy your evening, boys. Don’t be stupid,” tossed over his shoulder.

But it’s Toren Kane, sitting sullenly in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest, sweat dripping from his wet black hair, that he pats on the shoulder as goes.

Something pulls tight in my chest at the sight.

Freddy is already announcing the party at the Hockey Dorms—which will be massive, as our Halloween parties always are. And if the large bags of face paint that currently sit on our kitchen counter are anything to go off of, he will be forcing any of the unprepared underclassmen into designated costumes.

We, as a team, usually go all out.

But, considering my girlfriend bailed just before the second period via text, I have other plans in mind.

My girlfriend. Two weeks later and it still tastes just as fucking sweet.

Last night, I’d gotten her to agree to attending one of my parents’ schmoozy galas with my face buried between her thighs.

I shower quickly, changing into gray sweatpants and a neon orange shirt that says I’m Only Here for the Boos with a ghost sporting heart eyes—a gift from Freddy his freshman year when I said I was too busy to dress up before we went downtown. Definitely part of the way he’s wormed his way into my heart as one of my best friends. Since then, the cheesy shirts for every major holiday have become a sort of strange tradition between the two of us.

I’m gone before Freddy can try to stop me, only telling Bennett where I’m going. I know the drive like the back of my hand now, as I spend any of my minimal free time with her—and being with Sadie often means running her brothers around, getting them dinner or picking them up from practices.

Still, I’ve yet to have a run in with her dad. Which, I’m sure, is a very purposeful thing for her.

If I’m involved in the plans, we never end up at her house for the night. She avoids it—even if it means I end the night helping her tuck sleepy kids into an air mattress on her dorm floor. Sometimes I can convince them to sleep at the Hockey House, where Liam and Oliver get showered with endless attention of whatever players are at our house—playing games with them until Sadie turns her stern voice on and forces them to their respective beds.

Beds I purchased impulsively one day and put into the unused room at the end of the hall.

I know she’s home tonight, because there’s only a handful of reasons she would cancel. Aurora attended the game, our new loyal fan, but she gave me a quick shake of her head to tell me Sadie wouldn’t be showing.

The street she lives on is dark, no real decoration, all porch lights off except theirs. I knock in a pattern before stepping back so she can see me in the peephole before she answers.

“Holy shit,” I mutter, smiling broadly as I take in her appearance at the front door.

She’s dressed in a brown, fuzzy onesie—complete with a floppy hood—a big plastic pumpkin bowl full of candy hefted on her waist, and a tiny Darth Vader hanging onto her leg.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, but there’s nothing but joy on her face, hidden lightly beneath my favorite little furrowed brow expression.

“Who are you supposed to be?” I ask, ignoring her question completely. Because it’s ridiculous—where else would I be but with her?

Sadie smirks, but it’s Liam who shouts, “A Wookiee!” as he leaps for me.

I grab him, follow Sadie into the house, then shut and lock the door behind me. This is the furthest I’ve been into her home, which is small and cold. It feels like there isn’t any heat on—and maybe there isn’t.

There’s a set of stairs that look a little worse for wear. Directly to the right is a small, blue tiled kitchen with cookies in a pan on the stovetop, which explains the sugary smell. To my left, I spot Oliver perched on a stained floral couch, a lamp on the side table and the flickering TV the only lights on.

“Hey, bud.”

“Koteskiy.” He nods, before shifting his attention back to the screen.

My eyebrows shoot to my hairline. Sadie covers her mouth to keep the laugh from bursting, turning towards the kitchen. I follow with Liam still on my hip as he tells me about trick-or-treating in the “rich people neighborhood” and that Sadie won’t let him have any more candy tonight.

I reach for a cookie off the tray, but Liam slaps my hands and screeches, “We have to sing first!”

“Sing what?”

“Happy birthday!”

“Is it your birthday, bud?” My eyes dance as I look between him and a blushing Sadie.

He laughs, bright and loud, like I’ve told some ridiculous joke. “No, it’s sissy’s. She’s… um…” He leans into his sister and loudly whispers, “How old are you again?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Twenty-two,” he shouts to me immediately.

My heart drops, eyebrows furrowing as I look at her again. “I… I had no idea.”

Sadie shakes her head and crosses her arms. “Obviously, because I didn’t tell you, hotshot.” She shoves a sugar cookie into her mouth before Liam can stop her, smiling wickedly at him as she chews.

It might be ridiculous, but I’m slightly hurt that she didn’t tell me.

Liam climbs down from my arms and demands that I get his brother so they can sing and Sadie can make her birthday wish. I take a cookie, imprinted with a little orange pumpkin, and head back into the living room.

I lean over the back of the couch, seeing Halloween 3 play over the TV with that same stupid song that plagued my nightmares as a kid.

“How was your game?” I ask Oliver, remembering he had one this afternoon.

He doesn’t look at me. “We won.”

“Score anything?” I smirk, jostling his shoulder. He shifts to stand, coming around the back of the couch and stopping in front of me, closer than he’s ever been to me. Hell, closer than I’ve seen him get to anyone besides Sadie.

He scratches the back of his neck, before dropping his voice to whisper.

“My therapist said Sadie has trauma with her birthday because when she was my age something happened with our mom.” He shrugs. “I always thought it was because dad gets really, really drunk on holidays. On Christmas, he’s sad. On Halloween, he’s usually angry. But, I don’t know.”

I look at him for a long time, stomach sick, souring the leftover taste of the cookie still on my tongue.

“But, that’s probably why she didn’t tell you. And… I don’t want you to be mad at her.”

I try to swallow past the lump forming in my throat.

“I’m not mad at Sadie,” I tell him quietly. There’s a hesitancy to his stance, every line of his face, like he wants to say more but he doesn’t know how. So, I take a guess. “I’m not gonna leave her, Oliver. Never, okay? She may ask me to go one day, but I will never leave her. Not her, or your brother or you. Tell me you understand that.”

His cheeks blush as he angles his eyes down to the ground. “I understand.”

“Good,” I say, and for a moment I feel like crying. I want to wrap this kid in my arms, because his shoulders look heavy with the weight he carries—but I know he’s a bit like Bennett, he doesn’t really like touch.

So I pat his shoulder once and angle us towards the kitchen, following behind him.

We sing Happy Birthday at the top of our lungs, and clap as Liam adds his own little version at the end that seems completely made up as he goes, adding lots of silly noises with his mouth until he’s laughing at his own joke so hard he can’t keep it going.

I kiss Sadie on the temple when she goes for another cookie and she lulls into my touch for a moment.

I’m in love with her.