Chapter Four

SYDNEY HAS A problem.

The problem is approximately six feet three inches of professional hockey player who knows how to sit a horse and is currently playing Chet Atkins’s “Mister Sandman” on her acoustic guitar using a thumb pick .

And he’s good at math too.

And he’s pretty .

If his face didn’t look like that, the rest might be easier to deal with.

But it does.

She focuses on his hands instead.

That doesn’t solve the problem.

The band is still there, clustered on the porch, eating second helpings of dinner and watching with interest as Matts shows an impressive level of guitar-playing skill. He’s not as good as her, but music is her thing and supposedly hockey is Matts’s. Or maybe math. Or looking good on horseback. The man is aggravatingly multifaceted.

When Matts finishes, he gets an encouraging round of applause.

“Finally, some sensible music,” her dad says to the groans of the band members present. “Do you take requests? Maybe something that’s been on the country charts in the last decade?”

Matts grins and immediately plays the recognizable G-riff of “Keep the Wolves Away” by Uncle Lucius. It’s not an arrangement Sydney has heard before, but he’s clearly practiced it. She wonders if he came up with it himself.

“You know,” her mom says as Matts continues, “if you’re going to play something with lyrics, I think you have to sing them.”

The band murmurs in agreement.

Sydney thinks he’s going to resist, but he doesn’t, just smiles and starts over from the beginning.

He doesn’t have a lot of range, but he seems to know his limits. And his voice is well-suited to the song, something he also knows judging by his smirk when he glances up to meet her eyes.

She lets her hair fall in front of her face and goes to get another beer.

Sydney’s mom gets up at the same time, headed back inside, and Sydney realizes she has about two minutes to prepare herself because, sure enough, when her mother steps back onto the porch, it’s with her own guitar in hand.

“How do you feel about duets?” she asks Matts as he’s finishing the song.

He looks surprised but gestures to the open chair next to him.

Sydney’s mom nods, pleased, and turns to hand her guitar to Sydney. Sydney can’t decide if it’s dread or excitement tightening her stomach.

“Mother,” she starts.

“Sydney Marie, you are responsible for every gray hair on my head. Playing a little country music will not kill you and will make me happy after a long day.”

Sydney sighs and accepts the guitar.

She sits by Matts and tweaks the tuning of the guitar as her mom starts making suggestions. Sydney tries not to think too hard about the heat of Matts beside her. About her guitar in his hands.

“Oh,” Matts says. “Yeah, I know plenty of Little Big Town. How about ‘Boondocks’?”

Sydney sighs again, purposely loudly, but her mom ignores her. Matts starts the first verse, and it’s simple enough for her to accompany him.

It’s not perfect, but they’re skilled enough to play together without playing over each other. Sydney keeps her voice soft and high, smoothing out the edges she usually pushes to the forefront when singing her music. When they finish the song proper, Matts starts the harmony round, and Rex and Devo pick up the second verse like they’ve planned it. Sydney and her mom take the third, and they sing it through three times just because it sounds so damn good.

Matts transitions easily into “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker, clearly delighted when they all keep singing with him—though Rex has to pull up the lyrics on his phone. And then after that, they do “Man of Constant Sorrow,” which, unfortunately, everyone present knows because it’s one of her mother’s favorites. Sydney quickly adjusts to play the banjo part, grinning despite herself. By the end of that song, they’re all singing, even her dad and Sky, neither of whom can carry a tune to save their lives. It’s unwieldy and ridiculous and wonderful, and Sydney doesn’t want it to end.

It has to though, which Matts makes clear after a final, laughing flourish. “Okay, I need to head out soon.”

“One more,” her dad says. “‘Landslide,’ if you know it.”

The mood immediately sobers.

“Yessir,” Matts says. “As long as Sydney will help me.”

It’s not really a two-guitar song, but it’s absolutely a two-voice song.

“I’ll take the first verse; you take the second?” Sydney says.

“Yeah,” Matts murmurs, meeting her eyes, “end together.”

“Landslide” is one of her dad’s favorite songs. She’s sung it at least a hundred times, but it feels different when her hands are idle and she’s looking at Matts’s fingers move with confident familiarity on the strings of her guitar.

Sydney closes her eyes.

It’s clear he knows the song, that he isn’t just BS-ing his way through it. And their harmony, when they join up together at the chorus, is perfect. It’s just—perfect.

She forgets for a while that they have an audience.

It’s not often that Sydney’s feelings intercede when she’s performing. She’s usually too practiced for that, and it’s not like the lyrics even particularly resonate with her. But by the end, with Matts’s low, rich voice layered beneath hers, her throat feels hot and raw with an emotion she can’t name. Want, maybe. Though what she wants, she isn’t sure.

“Well, shit,” Rex says as Syd opens her eyes again. “Maybe we should take you on tour with us.”

Sydney’s mom stands and moves toward the house. “Honey,” she says, dropping a hand to squeeze Matts’s shoulder as she passes him, “you are welcome back any time.”

“Thanks. This has been nice. So. Thanks.”

And then he goes bashful, as though he hadn’t just fully impressed an actual, professional band. And her mother. Which is potentially more noteworthy.

“I’ll walk you out,” Sydney says.

He’s quiet as he follows her through the house, lingering in the hallway, looking at pictures.

“So,” Matts says as they step off the porch. “Do I pass muster?”

“Don’t go digging for compliments. You know you’re good. Though your clear preference for country music has you on thin ice.”

“Well, luckily, I’m familiar with ice. Because of the…hockey.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

Matts turns to walk backward, hands in his pockets. “What do you have against country music, anyway?”

“You want the list of offenses in alphabetical order or by level of transgression? Because the genre’s faults are numerous and sundry .”

He doesn’t respond for several seconds, and the crunch of gravel under their feet takes over, loud in the otherwise silence.

“I don’t know anyone else who talks like you,” Matts says finally.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was one.”

They linger by the driver’s side door of his pretty little BMW coupe.

His eyes are dark and fathomless, and Sydney can’t decide if she likes the way he’s looking at her, one hand resting on the top of the car, the other on the door handle.

“Anyway, goodnight,” she says as the silence gets awkward.

“Yeah. Goodnight.”

She takes a step back. Then another. He’s still not getting in his car.

“Hey, do you think—” Matts moves toward her and then stops, almost as if he’s making himself, rocking back on his heels. “Would you maybe want to play again sometime? I know it’s not your style, and you’re probably busy with your actual music, so it’s fine if you can’t, but it would be nice for me. If you’re up for it.”

“Well, we did decide to be friends. Friends have jam sessions.”

“They do,” he agrees solemnly.

“But you’ll have to learn some electric guitar if you want me to do acoustic nonsense with you. For, you know, equality.” Sydney holds out her hand. “Deal?”

It’s weird. It’s a weird thing to do.

But she wants to touch him, and the action affords her the pleasure.

Matts accepts the handshake: warm, tight, lingering.

“Deal,” he agrees.

He gets in his car, and Sydney watches his taillights fade to black down the drive, and she doesn’t flex her hand like some ridiculous character in a Regency era drama as she walks back up to the house.

She doesn’t.

*

IN THE FOLLOWING week, Sydney doesn’t think much about Matts.

She’s too busy buying last-minute Christmas presents, exchanging said presents, arguing with Rex and Sky about their spring set list, ironing out their bus versus airline schedule for the summer tour, helping round up escaped cows again , and then helping with a complete back fence overhaul since, clearly, Devo’s patch jobs are no longer working.

Sydney doesn’t have time to think about Matts.

Except for, maybe, in the evenings when all the introverts she lives with have tucked themselves away in their rooms, and she finds herself going for a night ride with Boogie or slipping into their practice space to play some unfocused melodies. It’s one of these nights, reclined on the mangled old couch against the wall beside Sky’s drum kit, idly playing the same dozen notes over and over again, that Sydney gets a series of texts from Matts.

Tomorrow is my first game back.

Theres 2 tix for you at willcall if you want them.

Or Eli says you can join him in their box.

No pressure tho.

We’re playing the Stars so it should be good.

They’re our biggest rival.

Clearly, Matts hasn’t heard of the “no double-texting” rule, or more likely, he’s elected to ignore it.

Sydney sits up, googles the time and arena location, and then sets aside her guitar, considering. It occurs to her that MJ—former childhood friend and current rodeo queen—is likely in town for Christmas and might be interested, considering she and Matts spent a solid half hour talking at the party a few weeks prior. And Sydney really needs to do something about her inadvisable crush. Seeing him make eyes at MJ would help in that pursuit.

Hey, she texts MJ . You want a free ticket to the Hounds/Stars game tomorrow?

By the time Sydney’s forced herself off the couch, locked up, and headed back to the house, there’s a response:

Is this a HHG thing?

HHG? Syd doesn’t have a clue what she means.

Hot Hockey Guy.

We’re not calling him that.

We absolutely are.

Syd sighs. Is that a yes?

Sure, why not.

Sydney’s suddenly regretting extending the invitation.

Devo is in the kitchen when she slips through the back door, and he freezes, open milk carton inches from his face.

“You’re disgusting,” she says. “Any chance you want to go to a hockey game tomorrow?”

“Hard pass.” He considers her, the milk in his hand, shrugs, and takes a drink. “Also, I thought Matts was injured.”

“It’s his first game back.”

“Of course it is.”

“He’s just being nice because I invited him to the thing.”

“Of course he is.”

“God, you’re infuriating.”

“Of course I am.”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Of course you are.”

She gives him the finger as she leaves the kitchen.

She texts Eli next: Hey are you going to the game tomorrow?

I am. You want to ride with me and Damien?

Is there room for one more? I invited my friend MJ.

As long as you don’t mind Hawk encroaching on your space.

That’s a feature not a bug.

She doesn’t respond to Matts until she’s in bed, staring at the glowing stars on the ceiling and wondering if she should respond at all.

I’ll be there, cowboy. Make it worth my while.

Yes, ma’am, he answers.

*

MJ AND ELI get along like a house on fire. Once they arrive at their box seats in the arena, Syd finds herself mostly tuning out their conversation to focus on the players warming up below. MJ is on one side of her and Damien, boyfriend of Rome—the second alternate captain—is on her other side. He’s an exceptionally handsome man who, apparently, played hockey himself at the same boarding school Rome attended before electing to be a writer.

“All right, so,” MJ says, nudging Syd with her elbow, “what number is HHG?”

“We’re not calling him that.”

“Calling who what?” Eli asks.

“HHG,” MJ repeats. “Hot hockey guy. Justin Matthews.”

Eli wrinkles his nose.

“You have to admit he’s hot,” MJ says. “Even people who don’t like men would recognize he’s hot.”

“Truth,” Damien agrees from the other side of her. “Though his hair is—”

“Distressingly close to a mullet?” Syd finishes for him.

“Yeah, that.”

Even more distressing, Syd finds herself becoming endeared to the hairstyle. The jumbotron chooses that moment to focus on the man in question, tossing pucks to kids, grinning. His hair is thick and wavy, and the cut frames his face. Sort of. It’s nice.

She looks down at Hawk; a safe action. Hawk looks back at her like she’s fully aware of Sydney’s avoidance tactics.

“He’s number seventy-two,” Sydney says.

“I always wonder why professional athletes choose their numbers,” MJ muses. “I mean, they’re all superstitious, right? So seventy-two has to mean something to him.”

Sydney knows the answer, but divulging it feels like a small betrayal. Or maybe not a betrayal; Matts probably won’t care. Maybe it feels more like a concession, allowing someone else access to privately shared knowledge that, until that moment, felt privileged. Intimate. Or maybe she’s overthinking things. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Syd?” Eli says. “You’re making a face.”

She needs to get better about that. “He picked 72 because he likes Rubik’s Cubes. And if you add all the digits in the number of Rubik’s Cube configuration options, that’s the number you get.”

MJ turns fully in her seat to look at her. “What the fuck.”

“ Really ?” Damien says.

“Huh,” Eli adds. “I didn’t know that.”

“How do you know that?” MJ asks.

Sydney waves a dismissive hand. “Because I asked. He came to the cookout. You could have been part of the conversation if you’d deigned to grace us with your presence.”

“And interrupt your geeky bonding? Perish the thought.”

“I don’t even like math.”

“No, but with your powers combined, you’d probably get a perfect SAT score,” Eli points out, not incorrectly.

“Sounds like you complete each other,” MJ adds with zero subtlety.

The jumbotron returns to Matts again. He’s leaning on his stick, talking around a mouth guard that’s teetering precariously from between his teeth. He’s doing nothing of note whatsoever. And yet.

“Please,” Sydney says. “Do I look like the kind of person who ends up with…” She gestures to the jumbotron. “…that.”

“I mean,” Eli demurs, wiggling his wedding-banded finger, “I could say the same about me. And Alex put a ring on it.”

“Faster than literally anyone found advisable,” Damien adds. “And I don’t fit the typical WAG profile either. Fantastic hair aside.”

Eli points to him in agreement.

“Also,” MJ says, “Matts could hardly take his eyes off you when he was supposed to be flirting with me at that party. So.”

“Stop.”

“Also, also,” MJ continues, “I invited him to go home with me, and he turned me down, which, if I’m offering, people don’t typically turn me down. Unless they’re interested in someone else.”

“And,” Eli interjects, “when he laid eyes upon you for the first time, I believe he said something to the effect of ‘who is she? ’ while—” Eli gasps theatrically and throws a hand to his chest, pretending to swoon.

Sydney is certain Eli is embellishing because she’s certain Matts has never swooned in his life.

“Okay, enough,” she says, maybe a little more honestly, a little more gravely, than the tenor of the conversation until that point would permit. “I’m not a masochist. Even if he was curious enough to start something with me, it would only end in disaster. I’m not fishing for compliments here; I’m being realistic.”

MJ sighs at her.

Eli sobers. “Hey. We’ll drop it if you want to drop it. But also, saying curiosity is the only reason he’d be interested in you is selling yourself incredibly short.”

“I want to drop it,” Sydney grits out.

They drop it.

She’s surprised to find that she enjoys the game for the game’s sake. She’s watched hockey a few times on TV, usually during the playoffs when it’s on ESPN, but never an entire game from start to finish. Watching with the partners of two players on the ice makes it even more interesting, especially because Eli likes to shout at the refs, and Damien likes to mutter expletives and entreaties to deities—in a combination of English and French—under his breath. It’s charming.

Sydney always considered hockey to be a brutal sport, with its checking and fights and the sheer size of the players. But it’s also elegant, not despite but because of the physicality. Two-hundred-pound men balanced on precarious knife-edges, moving with speed and skill. And in addition to somehow hurtling themselves across the ice without dying, they’re also displaying impressive hand-eye coordination and teamwork, and—

She winces as one particularly massive Hell Hounds defenseman slams an opposing player into the boards.

So, yes, it’s violent, but it’s also beautiful. Especially when Rome intercepts the puck and passes to Matts, and Matts shoots it straight between the legs of the goalie. The puck hits the back of the net in the same instant that the goalkeeper’s knees hit the ice, and Sydney is out of her seat screaming about it before the horn even sounds.

She’s decided: Hockey is pretty great, actually.

The Hounds win, and the four of them wait for the stands to empty before taking the private elevator down to meet with Alex and Rome.

But Alex and Rome aren’t the only ones in the hallway when they emerge from the elevator. There’s the giant defenseman, and the goalie, and Rome’s boyfriend, Damien, and—

Matts.

Who is grinning, bare-footed, and wet-haired. The shirt that he isn’t wearing is rolled up in his hands, and he’s using it as a whip to chase around the others, and they’re all shrieking like they’re middle school boys and not professional athletes with multi-million-dollar contracts.

They stop as the elevator empties.

Matts, who is the closest to them, slings his shirt around his neck, still laughing and half naked as he approaches.

Sydney realizes she’s made a critical error.

He hugs Eli first, and then, as though it’s natural, as though it’s something that they do, he hugs her. Regrettably, Sydney knows she will be replaying this moment mentally later. Possibly several times. Because the heat of him is—and his chest is —

He smells like citrus, and one of his hands easily spans a good portion of her upper back, and his stubble-rough chin is pressed to her temple, and—

Sydney remembers, belatedly, that she’s supposed to hug him back, which results in her returning the gesture just as he’s starting to let go, ending in an awkward, backward-forward lurch before they break apart.

“Hey,” she says.

Smooth.

She tries again. “Nice goal, cowboy. I’d say you held up your end of the bargain.”

Better.

He scrubs a hand through his hair, looking away, and the aw-shucks gesture should feel contrived, but it doesn’t.

“Yeah, well.” He doesn’t appear interested in finishing the sentence.

“Hey, Matts,” MJ says brightly. He startles like he didn’t even notice her. He doesn’t hug her.

“Hey,” Matts repeats. He doesn’t have a chance to say anything else because the giant defenseman is stepping between them, attention unmistakably on MJ. This, at least, is familiar territory.

“Hi,” he says, extending a hand. “I’m Dimitri.”

“His name is Kuzy,” Alex, Eli’s husband, shouts from down the hall.

MJ takes Dimitri’s hand and flips it. She makes a show of kissing his knuckles, to his absolute delight.

“Mary Jane,” she says. “But you can call me MJ.”

“Call you beautiful,” Dimitri says.

The line shouldn’t work, but between his low, Russian-accented voice and charming, self-assured smile, it clearly does.

“I’ll answer to it,” MJ allows.

“She’s a rodeo queen,” Matts adds helpfully. “Her horse’s name is Mouse. You like horses, right, Kuzy?”

Sydney can’t help but notice these are not the words of a man hoping to hook up with the girl he’s talking about.

“Horses,” Dimitri (Kuzy?) says, nodding wisely. “Good. Best animal.” He glances guiltily at Hawk. “But dogs also best.”

“Nice save.” Eli laughs, leaning into Alex’s side.

“You got dinner plans tonight?” MJ asks Dimitri.

“You,” he says.

“Mm. See, that could be interpreted a number of ways, and I like all of them.”

Dimitri’s grin widens. He nods down the hall, giving her hand a tug. “I think, food first. Then we talk interpret. Okay?”

“Works for me. Bye Eli, bye Syd. Bye…everyone else I didn’t meet.”

They set off toward the garage together, and the men in the hallway all roll their eyes like this is standard behavior before greeting their significant others. Well, the goalie greets Hawk, who, as soon as her vest has been removed, goes charging into his arms and bowls him over.

With Hawk in the mix, Sydney realizes that everyone is paired off—Sydney and Matts left in a pocket of space that is just their own.

“How does he just do that,” Matts mutters, eyes still on Kuzy and MJ’s retreating backs.

“Oh, to be a certified Hot Person,” Sydney agrees. “Where you can make eye contact and then ride off into the sunset.”

“No,” Matts disagrees. “I’m hotter than Kuzy, and that shit never happens to me.”

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“What? I know what I look like. I’m just saying. Being hot isn’t enough. You have to be able to talk to people. And I should probably be embarrassed that someone who’s only been speaking English for, like, four years is way better at talking to girls than I am.”

“You seem to do pretty okay talking to me .” Sydney doesn’t mean for it to sound loaded, but it does once the assertion has left her mouth.

“Yeah. But you’re an outlier. Statistically.”

“I’m a statistical outlier. Possibly the weirdest compliment I’ve ever been given.”

“I doubt that. Don’t celebrities constantly deal with creepy adoring fans?”

“Bold of you to call me a celebrity, but…” Sydney considers it. “There was one guy after a concert who said I had the most beautiful teeth he’d ever seen, and instead of an autograph, he wanted me to bite his wrist and leave a mark so he could go get it tattooed on him at a shop down the street.”

“Did you?”

“No, gross.”

Matts tips his head, studying her.

“What?”

“I’m wondering if it would be weird to ask you to smile. Because I can’t remember any specifics about your teeth. But I’m also pretty sure that’s rude to ask.” Matts appears genuinely puzzled by this conundrum.

Jesus. How is it possible for a man to be so endearing?

Sydney helpfully bares her teeth.

He leans forward to consider them more closely, and after a moment’s contemplation, Matts reaches out and uses his thumb to gently push up her top lip, exposing her canine. She lets him. His thumb drifts down to her bottom lip and presses. His fingers under her chin are warm and firm.

“Bad news,” Matts says gravely. “Creepy guy was right.”

Eli appears in Sydney’s peripheral vision. “Hey quick question. What the fuck are you two doing?”

Matts straightens with a lurch, wrenching his hand back, and Sydney nearly sways forward to follow it.

“We were talking about Sydney’s teeth,” Matts explains, his neck flushing a mottled pink. Sydney wants to put her mouth on it.

“See, Matts,” Alex says, slinging his arm around Eli’s shoulders as he joins them. “This is why you’re single.”

Matts’s eyes cut to the side, and the flush isn’t just endearing, it’s heartbreaking.

“Hey,” Sydney says. “Leave him alone. He’s being charming.”

“I am?” Matts asks.

“You are,” she insists. “Ten out of ten. Highly recommend. Would be flirted with again.”

“Don’t oversell it,” Matts mutters, but he’s smiling again, a small, bashful thing that makes her want to punch something.

Damien and Rome amble over to join their little group, and Sydney clears her throat, taking a conscious step back. “Well, this has been fun, but I’ve got an early morning so we should probably be going, right Eli?”

“Right,” he agrees, his eyes narrowed.

“Oh,” Matts says. “I thought— Can I text you later? About music stuff?”

Sydney’s trying to stop herself from doing something stupid. Like telling him to put his fingers on her face again.

“Well,” she says with a flourish that hopefully comes off as cocky and not hysterical, “if music be the food of love, play on, and all that.”

“ Wow , okay,” Damien says.

“What?” Matts asks, looking first at Sydney and then Damien. “Doesn’t that mean ‘yes’?”

It occurs to Sydney with slowly dawning horror that Damien is a private-school-educated professional writer, and he’s probably aware of the opening lines from Twelfth Night and what they mean. She can’t get away with honesty couched in expected misinterpretation here.

“Nothing,” Sydney says, desperately meeting Damien’s eyes before looking back at Matts. “Just, yes. That’s— Texting is fine. Music is fine.” She salutes him for some ungodly reason, but he salutes her back, so at least they both look like idiots.

Blessedly, Eli calls Hawk to him, links one elbow with Alex and one with Sydney, and pulls them down the hall, yelling goodbye to the others. Rome and Damien follow. When she glances over her shoulder, Matts has one hand up in a subdued wave, the goalie’s arm over his shoulder.

Sydney exhales once they exit into the parking garage, but her relief is short-lived.

A few seconds later, Rome asks Damien, “So what did that thing she said mean?”

“It’s from Twelfth Night ,” Damien answers. “This guy Orsino has a massive crush, and he says, ‘If music be the food of love, play on’ because music was considered an amplifier of love. So, he’s calling for more, hoping that if he overdoses on music, it will stop his obsession in the same way that you stop having interest in food if you eat too much.”

Sydney decides she will simply perish, effective immediately.

Damien continues, “The next line is ‘give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.’”

“Damn,” Eli says. “Just lay your cards on the table, Syd.”

“Well, no one was supposed to know that,” she says. “It’s one of the most misinterpreted Shakespeare quotes of all time. He was supposed to think it was an over-the-top flirty way of me saying ‘yes.’”

“So, you’re fine with flirting with him, but you don’t want him to know you’re actually interested in him?” Alex sounds deeply confused.

“Of course! What is difficult to understand about that?”

They’re interrupted by the door slamming open behind them and Matts jogging out.

“Time to get in the car,” Rome says, dragging a protesting Damien out of earshot.

“Yeah, let’s get Hawk settled,” Eli says to a similarly objecting Alex.

Since God has not seen fit to acquiesce her request for a tidy death, Sydney remains where she is, making resigned eye contact with Matts, who is still shirtless and now has his hands jammed in his pockets. The gesture pulls his jeans down to show off the stupid V cut of the muscle on his hips. It’s possible he’s not wearing underwear. It’s also possible he exists purely to vex her.

“So, hey,” Matts says. “I feel like I made you uncomfortable. I should have asked before touching you. And I want to apologize.” He sounds like he’s reading from a script, but his expression is earnest.

“No,” Syd says. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable. You’re just… As you pointed out earlier, you’re attractive and shirtless, and then you were touching me, which was fine . I just got a little flustered. Dazed. Befuddled. Hot and bothered, if you will.”

Matts glances down at himself as though he hasn’t noticed his state of undress. And then scrambles to pull his shirt on.

“Sorry,” he says from inside the fabric. It looks like he’s trying to shove his head through one of the armholes. “You’re usually so confident. It was weird to see you…uh, flustered.”

“Yeah, well, okay, hold on. Come here.” Sydney helps redirect his head so it pops through the collar. “I need you to understand that I am 90 percent bravado and 100 percent anxiety.”

“That’s not how percentages work,” he says, raking disheveled hair out of his face.

“Matts.”

“Sorry. Sorry, I understand. So. We’re good?”

“We’re good.”

“And I can text you?”

“You can text me.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

Neither of them moves.

Matts rocks back on his heels.

“I’m going to go get in the car now.” Sydney says. She does not salute this time, which is only a small consolation.

Once she’s climbed into the back seat, Syd folds over to bury her face in Hawk’s neck.

“Well, that was certainly something,” Alex says.

“Be nice,” Eli hisses back. “She’s having a crisis.”

She is.