March
BRAIN BUCKET (OR SIMPLY BUCKET): the helmet.
Graham
The regular season ended with Harkness ranked number one on the Eastern seaboard. Sports Illustrated wanted to interview Hartley and Orson, so the press office was setting it up. But Hartley wasn’t wild about giving an interview. “Anyone else want to be captain?” Hartley asked in the locker room before practice. “I’m taking applications.”
“Whiner,” Rikker teased him. “You get to talk about your game stats, not your sex life. How tough could that be?”
“Eh. They want to ask me a bunch of questions about what it’s like to represent an Ivy League school. They’re going to photograph the dining hall during Sunday dinner. How do I talk about Harkness without coming off as an elitist jackass? I’m just a poor kid from a shitty part of Connecticut.”
“Then just say that,” I suggested. “Tell the truth.”
“What would you know about that?” Bella mumbled, walking by with a stack of practice jerseys. She tossed one at me without meeting my eyes.
Bella was still pissed at me, and though she kept her reasons to herself, every guy in the locker room knew it.
“What on Earth did you do?” they all asked me during the first week of Bella’s freeze-out.
“More like… who did you do?” Trevi asked.
I didn’t know what was worse — the fact that the whole world (except me) had already known that Bella had a thing for me. Or that my love life was up for discussion. It sure didn’t help my raging case of chronic paranoia.
Also, I missed her. Our relationship had never been simple. Or even honest. But there had been happy nights together, with the two of us tucked into a booth at Capri’s telling jokes into the wee hours. It sucked knowing that I’d blown up our friendship.
For the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, we were matched up against Central Mass. It was a three game series. During the first game, we cut through their defense like a hot knife through butter, winning 3-0. Coach warned us that they’d come out swinging for the second game, and that we’d better be ready.
He was right.
Game two was fast and brutal. I got sent to the sin bin before the first period was over. But their side had even more fouls. There was one player in particular, a giant of a guy with a nasty attitude. His jersey actually said TRODER on the back. What kind of a name was that? He had a way of sweeping my teammates’ skates out from under them when the refs weren’t looking.
He was egregious, and I was sick of it. Before the game was over, I was sure I could teach him a lesson. I just needed to bide my time, watching for an opening.
It never came.
In the meantime, I saw Rikker and Hartley score one of the most exciting goals I’d ever seen in any hockey game, ever. The second period was almost over, and Rikker took a shot on goal that missed. Quick as lightning, he skated behind the net to retrieve the puck. But instead of skating it back around, Rikker popped the puck off the ice and over the net.
Hartley couldn’t see much of what Rikker was doing, though, with the goalie in the way. Working on sheer instinct, Hartley raised his stick at precisely the right nanosecond. Tipping the blade, he smacked the puck back toward the net.
Four thousand jaws dropped as it ricocheted off his stick, flying into the goal.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and Hartley stood there looking stunned even as the scoreboard lit up with his goal.
We were all a little stunned, actually. And that proved dangerous for me. When I wasn’t watching, that asshole Troder got me. One minute I was shipping the puck around behind the net, passing to Big-D. And the next moment I was sailing head-first toward the ice.
Shit!
That simple sentiment was all I could manage as the bright surface raced toward my eyes. Then everything went black.
Rikker
I didn’t actually see Graham take the hit.
Instead, I heard Trevi say, “oh fuck,” in a sort of awed voice that made me turn to look. And when I saw one of our players spread out on the ice, I just knew it was him.
I just knew.
Later, I’d realize that this was the minute the whole thing fell apart. You can tell each other that your relationship is private. That nobody else needs to know. But that sort of thinking requires that everything go exactly right. It doesn’t account for the dark minute when your lover is being carried off the ice on a stretcher, while you try: A) not to puke from worry and B) not to even look interested.
This wasn’t soccer, where they ran onto the field every five minutes to cart somebody off. A hockey player gets up and skates off, even if he’s bleeding all over the place. Even if he has a broken limb. But Graham wasn’t moving. The sight of his limp hand dangling off the side of the stretcher made me forget to breathe.
As his unconscious body disappeared down the chute, a chill slid down my spine, from my neck to the small of my back.
Bella and Coach followed on the medics’ heels.
The game resumed, but I couldn’t concentrate long enough to keep track of my own shifts. In fact, I don’t even remember the third period of that game, even though we clinched it.
Coach reappeared at some point to resume calling the shots. But Bella did not come back. I sneaked looks down the chute every chance I got. But neither she nor Graham emerged to put me out of my misery.
“Wake up, Rikker!” Hartley elbowed me.
I stood up and vaulted over the wall, jumping into the fray for what would prove to be my last shift of the game.
But even the final buzzer didn’t offer any relief, since the team took for-fucking-ever to shower and pack up. Coach spent a fair bit of time staring at his phone, while I tried to guess from his face whether or not he’d learned anything.
Naturally, I texted Bella about a dozen times. But she didn’t answer me, which was terrifying. I felt like vomiting just from the stress of not knowing what was going on.
Finally, Coach told everyone to get on the bus. “We’re going to stop at the emergency room so I can check on Graham.”
By the time the bus pulled up outside the little hospital, I was sweating through my clean shirt. I needed to go inside and see Graham. But at the same time, I knew he wouldn’t want me hovering in there. Too obvious, right?
Fuck!
But when Coach got off the bus, a handful of players followed him. So I got up too, and a couple more guys followed me. A minute later, there were probably a dozen guys in hockey jackets standing under the fluorescent waiting room lights, looking around for someone to tell us where Graham was. Coach approached the desk, but the lady manning it was on the phone.
And then, from somewhere behind the desk, I heard my name.
“Rikker?” It was Graham’s voice.
At first, I was just flooded with relief. If Graham was saying my name, then he was okay, right? I took a big breath, as if I’d been deprived of oxygen for hours.
“Rikker?” He called again, sounding agitated. Someone answered him in a low voice. But then Graham spoke again. “Where am I? What happened to Rikker?”
A chill snaked its way up my spine again. And one by one, my teammates, who had been talking to one another, went quiet.
“RIKKER,” came Graham’s hoarse voice again. Then my teammates were looking at me, confusion on their faces. Coach turned, his bushy eyebrows raised in my direction.
An older nurse wearing pink scrubs came out from the back just then. “Is someone here named Rikker?”
For a moment I just stood there, rooted to the linoleum, unsure what to do. Graham was going to burst a vessel when he found out that the team was standing out here listening to him call my name.
That woke me up. Lifting a shoulder in the world’s least-convincing casual shrug, I followed the nurse, with Coach on my heels.
Walking into that hospital room was like having an out-of-body experience.
Graham was lying on a bed in a hospital Johnnie, looking sweaty and confused. Bella stood next to him, holding his hand. And the look on her face was 100 percent freaked out. At that second, my heart went across the room to put my hands on Graham. I really just needed to touch him.
But my feet stayed locked at the foot of the bed, my body rigid with indecision. Don’t do it, I reminded myself. Graham wouldn’t want me touching him in front of other people.
His eyes locked onto me the second I entered the room. “Where am I?” he croaked.
The question took me aback. “Um, at the hospital?”
“Why?”
Shit! Wasn’t it obvious? I opened my mouth, but no answer came out. No wonder Bella looked so scared.
The nurse bailed me out. “You got hit on the head during your hockey game,” she said calmly. “You have a concussion, but you’re going to be fine.”
“Okay,” Graham said, sounding entirely unconvinced.
The nurse lifted her chin to me. “He’s been asking for you. He thought you might have gotten hurt, too.”
“I’m fine,” I said slowly. There was something in Graham’s expression that wasn’t quite right. He had a pained squint, and his gaze wobbled.
“Son, how are you feeling?” Coach asked. “That was quite a hit.”
“Head hurts,” Graham said, raising a hand to rub his temple. “Where am I?” he asked.
What the fuck? Hadn’t we just been over that?
“West Regional Hospital,” the nurse said, her voice patient. “You got hit on the head during your hockey game. You have a concussion, but you’re going to be fine.”
Graham squinted at her. “Okay.”
“Why is he…?” I looked to the nurse for help.
But it was Coach who answered my question. “It’s called retrograde amnesia. When you get hit that hard, for a little while the brain can’t make new memories. You don’t remember the game, do you, big guy?” Graham looked up at him, confused. Coach moved closer to him, giving him the same gentle punch on the arm that you’d give a toddler. “Hang in there, kid.”
“How are we doing?” a heavyset female doctor asked, stomping into the room. She had a voice like a chainsaw.
“What happened?” Graham asked.
“You took a hit on the head,” the doctor said, jotting something on the chart she was holding. Then she looked up at Coach and me. “I sure hope one of you is Rikker. We’re getting tired of making excuses for you.”
“Um…” I started.
“Did they get you too?” Graham asked, looking me up and down.
“I’m fine,” I said again. “I didn’t take a hit.”
He squinted at me. “What are we doing at the hospital?”
“Jesus, Graham!” Bella put a hand to her heart. She looked like she might even pass out. So I moved around the crowded little room and put my hands on her shoulders.
The doctor approached Graham with a little penlight in her hand. “You’re at the hospital because you have a concussion. We need to watch you for a few hours just to make sure everything is going well for you.”
“Can I take him home tonight?” Coach asked. “It’s a two-hour drive. We could have him checked out at our own hospital by midnight.”
The doctor frowned. “I’m sure you know your way around a concussion. But I can’t advise that. These next couple of hours are the ones that matter the most. We need to be sure he doesn’t have an even more serious head injury.”
Coach held his hands up. “Okay. It was just a suggestion. I want him to have whatever he needs.” He nodded to Bella and me and then tipped his head toward the door. “Let’s go figure out what we’re going to do. The rest of the team needs to get back.”
“I’ll be right back, Sweetie,” Bella whispered. She lifted Graham’s hand and gave his palm the same kiss that I would have liked to give it. Then she patted his arm, and she and I followed Coach the short distance into the waiting room. “If he has to stay, I can drive him back in the morning,” Bella offered in a shaky voice. I’d never seen her so rattled.
Coach put a hand on her shoulder. “I was just going to ask if you could do that, honey.”
“Is Rikker here?” came from the back.
Oh, fuck.
“What the hell?” Hartley asked, wandering up to us. “Is he okay?”
“He’s confused,” I said, feeling sweat begin to coat my back. “Really confused. It’s a concussion. Maybe he thinks we all just left him here.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Hartley said, maneuvering around us towards the back.
“That would be great,” I said, relaxing a little.
“So, Bella needs a car and a hotel room,” Coach said, pulling out his phone. “We’ll set that up. Then I’ll speak to the doctor again. And when we’re sure that he’s okay, the rest of us can head out.”
Most of my teammates were milling around the waiting room now. “I saw some vending machines by the front door,” Orson said. “Anybody want to spot me a dollar?”
“What happened to Rikker?” came from the exam room.
Fuck. There he went again. My neck got hot, and I began sending some very desperate thoughts back in Graham’s direction. For the love of all that’s holy, please stop asking for me.
Big-D was rifling through his wallet, looking for singles for the vending machine. “What’s up with him?” he asked. “He must be really out of his mind if he’s looking for the team homo.”
At that, my blood pressure spiked. And then it spiked again, because Graham picked that moment to call, “Rikker!”
I took a deep breath in through my nose. “Maybe he was trying to pass me the puck before he got clonked. He wants to know if the pass was complete.”
Bella gave me a skittish look that implied that I should probably just shut up now.
Hartley emerged from the back, a startled look on his face. “Shit, he is confused. He doesn’t know why we’re at a hospital.”
Coach nodded, tapping on his phone. “I know it’s a little creepy, but it always goes away. Tomorrow he’ll make more sense.”
“…And he really wants to talk to Rikker,” Hartley finished with a shrug. “Like, he doesn’t know he just talked to you five minutes ago.”
“Weird,” I said, sweating.
“Rikker!”
With too many sets of eyes on me, I turned and hustled toward the back. When I stepped into Graham’s room again, his face went right to relief. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Of course I am, G.”
“They didn’t get you?”
I shook my head. “You’re the only one who’s hurt,” I said carefully. There was something about the way he kept worrying about me that just didn’t make sense. If I could figure out what it was, maybe he’d stop yelling my name.
“How did I get hurt?”
“You got knocked down in the hockey game against Central Mass.” I sat down on the plastic chair on the wall at the head of his bed. “Everything is going to be fine, G.” I checked to be sure that we were completely alone before reaching over to give his shoulder a little squeeze. “Seriously, just relax.”
“We’re at the hospital?” Graham asked.
Jesus. “Yes, G. We are at the hospital. You got hit on the head. But you’re going to be okay.” I yawned like a lion, suddenly exhausted. Graham closed his eyes, and it made me want to do the same. So I leaned back against the wall and relaxed.
A couple of minutes later, Bella appeared in the doorway. Graham’s eyes flew open. “Where am I?” he asked her.
“In the hospital,” she said, her face drawn with worry.
“Where’s Rikker?” Graham asked.
Bella’s eyes went wide, and she pointed at me.
With great effort, Graham turned, spotting me. “Rikker are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said yet again. “Dude, why do you keep asking me that?”
He looked frustrated. “We’re in the hospital. Did they get us both?”
Goosebumps rose up on my arms. “Did who get us?”
Graham’s face flushed, and his eyes got red. But he didn’t say a word.
And now my own throat was tightening up, because I thought I understood. “G,” I whispered. “Do you think that somebody got beat up? Like in the alley?”
His voice was scratchy, and his eyes were enormous. “Why are we at a hospital? Tell me the truth.”
“Whoa,” I said, putting a hand on the side of his face, my thumb brushing his top lip. “No, man. It’s not like that. We’re here because of a hockey injury. Just a hockey game.”
Those cool blue eyes measured me. I could see him trying to decide whether or not it was safe to relax.
There was a sound in the hallway then, and I yanked my hand back just in time.
Coach stuck his head in. “Rikker, Bella, let’s strategize.” He beckoned to us and then disappeared. I’d forgotten that Bella was even in the room with us. She stood there, frozen, staring at us.
I looked down at Graham. “Listen. We’re at the hospital because of a hit you took in the hockey game.”
Slowly, Graham nodded.
“Repeat it,” I demanded. “Why are we here?”
“The hockey game,” he said.
“That’s right. And everyone else is fine, okay? I’m going to talk to Coach for a second. Don’t yell for me, okay? Because the whole team can hear you. And I’m right outside.”
Grabbing a speechless Bella by the elbow, I pulled her into the waiting area.
The doctor was giving instructions to Coach. “Two weeks at the bare minimum. But he’ll need to be evaluated then. Don’t rush it. You do not want a second concussion. The second time takes twice as long to recover.”
Coach winced. “Okay. We’ll be conservative.”
I was practically hopping from foot to foot, wondering how long Graham would remember what I’d just told him. But the doctor wasn’t finished with Coach.
“Please do,” the doctor continued. “I’ve seen far too many repeat concussions in this E.R., always because a big game was coming up, and the athlete insisted he was fine. I’m going to send him home with a lot of care information. But he’ll need help making decisions. I know he’s an adult, but his parents should be involved.”
“They will be. Thank you.” Coach turned to the whole crew. “Okay, guys. Last call for the men’s, or the soda machine. We’re going to hit the road.” Then he put a hand on Bella’s shoulder and began talking about a rental car and a hotel room.
“Rikker!” Graham barked from the other room.
Aw Christ. There was so much fear in his voice it was practically ripping me in two.
Bella and Coach looked up from their conversation. Coach frowned. “Damn. I wish he was doing better already. I’ll go tell him goodbye.” He walked to the back, with Bella on his heels.
Hartley waved me over. “You’re coming on the bus, right?”
My mouth went dry, wondering what would happen after I left. Was Graham going to yell my name all night? And all because he thought some thugs beat me up in an alley. But if I stayed here, everyone might wonder why. Or would they? I felt utterly paranoid. I felt like Graham. “Uh, yeah,” I said to Hartley. “Unless you think Bella could use my help. She might like that. I mean… whatever makes sense, man.” I tried to sound casual, but my voice was shaking.
Hartley just looked at me right then. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Hartley looked right through me. I could actually see the understanding blossom in his brown eyes. What followed was the most awkward silence of my life. Just a vacuum in space between my captain and I, with the guffaws of the French freshman and Big-D as background noise.
Finally, Hartley cleared his throat. “Would he, uh, want you stay here?”
I looked down at the linoleum floor tiles. “I don’t fucking know. He’s not making any sense.”
And then Big-D was standing there too, chewing peanut M&Ms and asking Hartley when they were leaving.
“Whenever Coach says,” Hartley snapped.
From the back, Graham yelled for me again. And Big-D’s eyes lifted toward the corridor, and I felt my whole body go tense. Please just go out to the fucking bus, asshole. Instead, he popped another candy in his mouth and locked eyes with me. “If I’m ever hit on the head hard enough to yell for the team homo, one of you will just shoot me, right? Put me out of my misery.”
“Really?” Hartley asked, his jaw tight. “You want to do this right now, with your teammate flat out in the next room?”
“That’s the thing, though,” Big-D said, folding his arms. “I’m just looking out for Graham. Actually, Rikker never told us whether he likes to give or receive.” He stared me down. “Which is it? If you like to be the cumbucket, maybe Graham is safe.”
A spear of red-hot anger sliced through my chest. “Funny. You seem real eager to know what sex with me is like,” I said. “Curious, maybe?”
His ground his teeth. “Watch your fucking mouth.”
“Yeah? You feel like making me?” I was too stressed out to back down. “That’s your strategy, maybe. You want my hands on you any way you can get them.”
Big-D made two fists, his face red. “Shut it, faggot.”
Hartley jumped between us. “STOP! Both of you.”
“Rikker!” Graham yelled. And the tension I felt was unbearable.
Hartley pointed at me. “Stay with… Bella,” he finished. Then he jerked a thumb at Big-D. “You, on the bus. Right now.”
Big-D gave me one last, angry stare before he turned around.
Hartley gave me a shove toward the back, and we both went into Graham’s room.
“There’s too many people in here,” the doctor grumbled, checking Graham’s eyes again. “You all can sit in the waiting room. Except for Rikker, because he’s going to save my eardrums.”
“Where’s…?” Graham tried to see around the doctor.
“Right here,” I ground out.
“Why are we in a hospital, Rik?” he asked.
“Uh, Hockey game, G. You took a hit on the head.”
Bella tugged on my arm. “He’s afraid of something. Why?”
I put my lips close to her ear. “Not now, Bella.”
“He doesn’t want you to go,” she said, her face flushing.
“Then I’ll sit in that fucking chair all night, okay? Now hush.” I could still feel the blood pounding in my ears. Hitting something sounded really good right about now.
Bella took a shaky breath. Then she went over to ask Coach if I could stay with her to keep her company.
“Sounds like a fine plan, if Rikker is willing,” Coach said.
“Hey, no problem,” I stammered.
The doctor finished her examination. “He’s awfully agitated,” she said, frowning. “I don’t love that. But there’s been no vomiting for an hour now.” She patted Graham on the shoulder. “Why are you so upset, buddy?”
Coach tugged his chin. “Shit. I don’t feel like I should walk out of here.”
“Why are we here?” Graham asked.
I cleared my throat. “You took a hit during the hockey game,” I said for the millionth time. But then I had an idea. “Hey. Where is his stuff? Did he come in here with his helmet?”
“Why?” the doctor asked.
But I’d already found the door of a flimsy little closet in the corner, and yanked it open. Graham’s hockey bag was crammed inside, the helmet on top. “G, look at this,” I said, pointing to the crack. “This is why we’re here.”
“The hockey game,” Graham said.
“That’s right.” I handed him the helmet. “That’s the only reason.”
Graham fingered the crack in the helmet while everyone watched.
“Coach, just leave me here with Bella,” I said. “We’ll be fine.”
He looked from Graham to me and then to Bella. “You can just add a room with the team card,” he said.
“I’ll just stay in this chair,” I pointed. “Seriously. One night. We’ll leave in the morning.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m good. They’re waiting for you.”
Still frowning, Coach patted Graham’s shin. “Stay strong, kid. And I’ll see you tomorrow when you get back.” Then he turned and left the room.
I sagged into the plastic hospital chair, feeling the first hit of relief.
An hour and a half later, I woke up with a start. My head lay on my crossed arms, which were propped onto Graham’s bed.
“Sorry,” Bella said from behind me. It was her return to the room that had startled me.
I picked up my head, untangling my stiff neck. Graham was asleep, his fingers curled into the cage of his helmet. “What time is it?”
“Midnight. I got the rental car.”
I yawned and stood up. “You can have the chair.”
She shook her head. “I already asked them to bring in another one, and they said it’s against policy.” Bella rolled her eyes. “So I’m going to the hotel, unless I can talk you into going in my place.”
“Naw. I’ll stay,” I said.
“Thought you’d say that,” Bella said, her eyes downcast. “He wants you, anyway.” She let out another sigh, and then walked over to the head of Graham’s bed. Bending down, she barely touched her fingers to his sleeping head. “Tell me what happened, Rikker. What were you talking about before? Something happened in an alley. Graham got beaten up?”
I shook my head. It wasn’t something I could discuss with her.
But Bella’s laser eyes did not retreat. “Graham didn’t get beat up,” she whispered. “You did.”
Ugh. “It was a long time ago, Bella. I’m over it.”
“But he isn’t,” she whispered.
Chivalry be damned, I sat back down in my chair. “I guess not,” I agreed with her in a low voice. “I didn’t really know that until tonight.”
“Was it bad? Must’ve been, if the hospital is freaking him out.”
I didn’t really know what to make of that, since Graham hadn’t even come to the hospital with me. And I didn’t remember it so well, to be fair. “I got through it,” I said, not wanting to go into specifics. “But maybe that’s why I’m over it, you know? I dealt with the injuries. They sucked, but it’s done with.”
Bella looked down at my sleeping boyfriend. “But he’s still duking it out, isn’t he? The hardest-hitting defenseman we have. Trying to intimidate the other team, night after night.” Her eyes never left Graham, even as she spoke to me.
Well, shit. I hoped she was wrong about that. I hoped Graham wasn’t still trying to dole out retribution after all these years. How absofuckinglutely depressing.
Bella leaned down farther, kissing Graham’s hair. “Mmm, helmet sweat,” she said. It was supposed to be a joke, but she looked too sad to pull it off. “Goodnight, sweetie,” she whispered to him. Then Bella walked over to the wall and flipped the overhead light off. “Night, Rikker.”
Then she left.
Graham
Someone was trying to press my head into a vice. And Christ that hurt.
Prying my eyes open, the first thing I saw was an unfamiliar ceiling. Wait. It wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. I moved my eyes a few degrees, which was painful. But the edges of the room came into focus. A hospital room. Memories of last night began flickering at the edge of my consciousness. There was a lot that didn’t make sense. But I knew Coach had been here. And Bella, Hartley and…
I moved my chin to see more. In my left hand I held my hockey helmet, which had a nasty crack in it. Under my right hand lay Rikker’s sleeping head. My heart gave a little squeeze just seeing him there, his strong arms folded onto my mattress, the soft skin at the side of his neck disappearing into the collar of his T-shirt.
Gently, I removed my hand from his hair, though. I never touched Rikker in public, not even a playful punch to the shoulder.
God, my head hurt so badly. What else happened last night? I’d been confused, and I could picture the faces of my friends trying to calm me down. Rikker, especially. He’d looked shaken. But why?
Beside me, Rikker groaned. He rolled his head around on the mattress, slowly stretching out his neck. Then he picked his sleepy face up and studied me. “You’re awake,” he said, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “We’re at the Central Mass hospital, because you got knocked on the head during the…”
“…Hockey game,” I said.
He blinked at me. “Okay. Good job remembering that.”
A doctor strode into the room then, stethoscope around her neck. She wore honest-to-God combat boots with her scrubs, and a blue jewel in her nose. “Morning, sunshine. I’m just going to look you over one more time before we can release you, okay? Same drill as last night.”
“Last night?” I asked. But as she came closer, I realized that I remembered her. It had been dark in the room, but during the night I’d awoken several times to see her stalking towards me with a light that she’d shined in my eyes while I was trying to sleep. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Yep,” she said. “Every two hours you tried to eject me from the premises. Good times.”
“Sorry,” I managed. “I was confused.”
Rikker moaned into his hands. “Yes, you were. It was a long night.”
The doctor moved around to the side of the bed where Rikker was still sitting. “Now that we’re friends again, I want to look at that contusion on your hip, too. Maybe your boyfriend could step out for a minute.”
Boyfriend.
The word hit me like an ice bath. Holy crap. For the first time it occurred to me to wonder whether my deflector shields had taken a worse beating last night than my hockey helmet or my skull.
I must not have kept the flinch off my face. Because the doctor cocked an eyebrow. “Sorry. My mistake. It’s just that you did an awful lot of yellin’ for him last night. Wouldn’t let him leave the room.”
I turned my head too fast toward Rikker. The result was a new flash of pain. But the troubled expression on Rikker’s face was even worse. “What happened here?” I croaked, afraid of his answer.
“We’ll talk in a bit,” he said. “I’m going to look around for coffee.” He got up and slid out of the room.
“Roll for me, hon,” the doctor said with a nudge to my shoulder.
Reeling, I turned my body so that she could lift the hospital gown that I was wearing. I didn’t remember putting it on. I didn’t remember how I got here, or who drove me.
I had no idea what I might have said last night, and who might have heard it.
Just then, Bella waltzed into the room, sipping from a Starbucks cup.
“Give us a second, sweetie,” the doctor said.
“Oh, I’ve seen it all before,” she said, parking herself against the wall and taking another slug of her coffee.
“Huh,” the doctor said, probing my groin with gloved fingers. “Y’all seem to have more fun in college than I ever did.”
Bella ignored her. “You’re looking better, Graham.”
“How bad was it?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“This will heal up easily,” the doctor said. “But that concussion is going to slow you down for a month or more.”
But that wasn’t what I was asking. “Bella,” I rasped. “What happened here last night?”
She sighed. “You were pretty out of it. And maybe that’s all people will think. That you were out of it.”
“What did I say when I was out of it?”
She avoided my eyes. “You just kept calling for Rikker. And whenever he walked away, you’d start yelling for him again.”
Unfortunately, that sounded awfully familiar. I remembered being really confused about where I was, and how I’d gotten hurt.
And I’d assumed the worst.
“Shit.” Even now I fended off a shudder. And now I knew why I’d woken up with my hockey helmet in my hand. Someone was trying to help me remember what happened.
Rikker.
“Why didn’t he get on the bus with the rest of the team?” There was panic rising in my throat, and when I swallowed, I tasted bile.
Bella’s eyes narrowed at me. “What would you have him do? The choice was between staying with you, which you demanded out loud to anyone who would listen. Or walking away while you shouted his name. He did his fucking best, Graham.”
Rikker walked in then, carrying a white cup of coffee. After he sipped from it, he made a face. Pointing at Bella, he said, “You got good coffee. Where’s mine?”
“Patience,” she snapped. “I will drive you both to get something when Graham is released.”
“I’m just going to go over some instructions with you all, and then he can go,” the doctor said. I’d actually forgotten she was in the room with us. “These are for whomever will care for you.” The doctor held out a sheaf of papers. Bella took a half step forward, as if to take them. But then she bit her lip and looked at Rikker.
My boyfriend reached out to take the paperwork.
“Read it through carefully,” the doctor said. “He can’t do it himself, because he’s not supposed to read anything for a while, until the headaches stop.”
“That will make midterms fun,” I grumbled.
“I’ll read them,” Rikker said gruffly.
“Now listen up,” the doctor said. “You’re going to need a lot more sleep than usual. No reading. No aerobic exercise…”
After the doctor gave us a ten-minute lecture about all the things I wasn’t supposed to do for at least two weeks, we went outside. I thought I’d felt bad before, but out in the sun it was ten times worse. The light glinted off the snow banks at the edges of the parking lot. And the glare went like a needle straight to my brain.
“Uhhn,” I complained.
“The car is just right over here,” Bella said, pointing at a green rental sedan. “Graham, you can have shotgun or the back seat. Wherever you’re going to be the most comfortable.”
I didn’t think it mattered. I was going to be miserable no matter what. My head still felt as if angry gorillas had beaten on it. “I’ll take the back,” I said, opening the rear door.
“You know, I’d be happy to drive,” Rikker offered.
Bella shot him a glare over the hood of the car. “News flash, Rik. Even though I possess a vagina, I’m still capable of driving a car.”
He held his hands up in submission. “Easy, Bella. I was just trying to be helpful. One would think that you’d spent all night in a plastic hospital chair. Oh wait, that was me.”
She got in and cranked the engine. “And that’s why I’m driving. I’m the only one who slept. Also, I know where the Starbucks is.”
“I won’t argue with that,” Rikker mumbled. He reclined the passenger seat a few degrees and let out a weary sigh.
“I’m sorry,” I said as Bella pulled the car around the hospital’s drive circle.
“For what?” She asked. “Getting tripped by that fucker last night? Rikker and I will live. We might even stop bitching at each other.”
Putting my head back, I covered my eyes with my forearm. Everything was just so fricking bleak. I’d never been injured at hockey before — not like this. The worst I’d had were bruises and strained muscles. Before we’d left the hospital, the doctor had been careful to tell me that it wasn’t clear yet how much time I’d need to heal. At least two weeks. But I had a bad feeling.
The car made a couple more turns and then stopped. “Do you mind going in for us?” Rikker asked. “I’d really appreciate it.”
I was sure that Bella would tell Rikker to go and buy his own damned coffee. But she didn’t. “Double cappuccino with skim milk?”
Money changed hands. “A couple of muffins would be awesome. G, are you awake?”
I grunted.
“You’re not supposed to have coffee, but you should eat,” Rikker said.
“Not hungry,” I mumbled.
Bella disappeared, her car door slamming. And then there was silence. Even though I couldn’t see him, I felt Rikker’s eyes on me.
“We have to talk,” he said eventually.
“About how I made a complete fool of myself last night?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. I opened my eyes, and found his unhappy ones looking back at me. “Okay. How about we just skip over the part where I get offended at the idea that your wanting me nearby makes you a…” he made quote marks out of his fingers, “complete fool.”
God, I was such an asshole. “Rik, my head is killing me. We can talk now if you want. But I’m going to be even stupider than usual.”
He sighed. Then he opened the passenger side door and got out. A second later, he opened the rear door and slid into the back seat next to me. Reaching up, he took my head in his hands and began rubbing gently.
Oh, yeah. The pain was almost bearable when he did that. I did a quick scan of the parking lot (even though it hurt my eyes to shift them left and right) before leaning over to rest my head on his chest.
He kept up the massage, even dropping a quick kiss onto the top of my head. “How about I talk, and you just listen.”
I nodded.
“Good boy. Now, I realized something last night, and I feel like a big idiot for not getting this before.”
His fingertips smoothed down my brow line, and I leaned into him even though I was positive that I wouldn’t like whatever he said next.
“Somehow, I’d sort of forgotten that you were there too, in that alley five years ago.”
I grunted. “Not ever talking about this. You said so yourself.”
He palmed my forehead, holding my head in place against his chest. “New rule. We can talk about it any time one of us has a fucking panic attack in a hospital. See, I always thought that I was the only one who got hurt that day. But that isn’t true, is it? Yeah, the cracked ribs really sucked. But they healed.”
His hands were still, just cupping my head. And I hoped he was done with this subject. But no such luck.
“See, this is really fucked,” he continued. “Because now I’m starting to think that maybe my parents did me a favor sending me away to Vermont. They did it for the wrong reasons, of course. But I got to start over in a new place, right? No chance I’d ever run into the assholes who beat me. I got a brand new school, where they didn’t preach about sin all fucking day. But you had to stay there and pretend like nothing happened.”
“Didn’t have to,” I said. My silence had been a choice. And I made that choice out of pure cowardice.
He began massaging my temples again. “You were sixteen, G, and you’d just been jumped. I never realized how much that fucked with your head.”
I didn’t want any of Rikker’s sympathy, and I sure as hell didn’t deserve it. “The only thing that fucked with my head was the surface of the ice.”
Rikker gave a grunt of disapproval. He wanted a confession from me — some kind of closure for old fears. As if that would help me become a better boyfriend, the kind that wasn’t afraid to hold his hand in the hospital.
But he was only partly right. That scene in the alley had scared me silly. But admitting it now wouldn’t help. Those old fears had crusted over into something more like disgust. And I’d been trapped in it from the moment I left Rikker alone there to fend for himself.
You can’t solve that with a quick chat in the back of a rental car. You can’t solve it at all.
Even so, I relaxed my body against his. I had to. Everything was just so screwed up. I was injured and in pain. And my teammates thought… I didn’t have a clue what they thought. I felt sick just wondering. The touch of Rikker’s hands was the only thing in the world I had going for me.
The only thing.
His fingertips made slow circles through my pain. His whisper was so soft that I wouldn’t have heard it if I weren’t practically sitting on him. “What am I going to do with you, G?”
My eyes had drifted closed, and so when Bella opened the driver’s door, they startled open again. But I didn’t pick my head up off Rikker’s chest. That would have required more effort than I was capable of exerting.
Bella slid into the driver’s seat and turned around. When she saw us basically cuddling in the backseat, a flash of raw hurt crossed her face. Then, without comment, she passed a cup of coffee and a bakery bag into the backseat. Rikker set the bag in his lap, and took the coffee into his free hand. He kept his other one on my head. The engine fired up, and Bella reversed out of the parking spot.
We rode back to Harkness that way, with me drowsing on Rikker. He had to wake me when the car pulled up in front of Beaumont House. “Let’s go, big man. Time to get you set up inside. Bella, I’ll return the car if you want.”
“I got it,” she said, her voice low. “And then I’ll hit the pharmacy for his meds, too. See you upstairs.”
“Thanks,” I said, my voice thick.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
Rikker
I followed Graham into the Beaumont House courtyard. He seemed a little unsteady on his feet, and I didn’t want to leave him alone, even though we’d never really walked around together before.
Not once.
For some reason, my mind picked that moment to realize just how fucked up our relationship really was. There were people in the world who would have used the word “perverse” to describe the things that Graham and I did in the bedroom. But they had it backwards. What was really perverse was the way we pretended like we didn’t know each other all the other times.
Graham had to get a head injury before he forgot to get pissy about me walking beside him. Fuck my life.
At his entryway door, Graham waved his ID in front of the sensor. I followed him upstairs, and into his room. His eyes were at half-mast.
“What can I get you?” I asked.
He put his hand over his face. “A new head, or a bottle of Johnnie Walker.”
“Okay, what’s third on your list?”
“I need a shower.”
“That you can have.”
Graham carried his towel and his toiletries out into the hallway, and I made myself sit down on his desk chair instead of following him. But sixty seconds later, I heard a crash from the bathroom. With my heart in my throat, I shot out of the room and into the bathroom, all the while picturing Graham prone on the marble tiles. But I found him kneeling there instead, staring down at his shower stuff where it had scattered all over the floor.
“Shit. Are you okay?”
He looked sheepish. “I stumbled a little. It’s nothing.”
Standing over him, I pushed one hand through his soft hair, willing my heart to stop pounding. “Let me pick this stuff up. Come on.” I turned on the shower for him and watched him strip. But he looked steady enough, I guess. So I collected the shampoo and the shaving stuff he’d dropped and handed the caddy into the shower stall.
“Thanks,” he sighed. “I’m okay now.”
I stood there for a second, wondering what to do. “I’ll be in your room,” I said finally. “Don’t be a stranger.”
He gave me a half-hearted chuckle. So I pushed open the bathroom door, and almost collided with Hartley.
“Hey,” he said, his eyes darting to the bathroom door. “Bella texted that you were back. How is he?”
“He’s better,” I said. “He’s not confused anymore, but his head hurts.”
“Okay,” Hartley crossed and uncrossed his arms. “That’s progress, I guess.”
“Sure,” I said, feeling miserable. I was worried about Graham, but I sure as hell wasn’t allowed to say so. “Let’s, uh, give him a minute.”
“Yeah,” Hartley said. “So, listen. I just propped open the entryway for…”
But now there were rapid footsteps coming up the staircase. And when I looked down, it was Graham’s mom who was charging up them. “Johnny Rikker!” she squealed. “I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Uh, what’s that Mrs. G?”
Beside me, Hartley lifted an eyebrow.
“My baby has a concussion, and it’s all your fault.” Mrs. Graham reached the landing and launched herself at me, throwing her arms around me in a hug.
Awkwardly, I hugged her back. “I didn’t trip him. You should really take it out on that bruiser at Central Mass.”
“Hockey, John. He never mentioned playing hockey until you wanted to try out in the eighth grade.”
Over her shoulder, I took another involuntary look at Hartley. He was now staring at the two of us with undisguised curiosity. “Sorry about that,” I stammered. “He wasn’t supposed to get his bell rung.”
“Oh, I don’t really mean it,” she said, releasing me. “Is he okay? I was worried enough to get on a plane at seven this morning.”
“He’ll be okay. You can see for yourself in a minute.” I jerked my thumb toward the bathroom door, where the sound of the shower had ceased. Then, remembering all the paperwork from the hospital, I opened the door to Graham’s dorm room and grabbed my duffel off the floor. From inside, I pulled the packet of instructions. “Here’s what they sent for… you to read.”
I stopped myself just in time from putting “me” in that sentence.
“Thank you, honey.” Mrs Graham took the papers from me and began to flip through them, right there on the landing.
My sleep-deprived brain was just figuring out that I was handing Graham over to his mother, the same way I’d handed over the paperwork.
Graham opened the bathroom door then, wearing a towel around his waist. “Mom,” he said, shock in his voice.
She hug-tackled him. “Sweetie, I was so worried.”
“I’m all wet. Jeez. Everybody give me a minute, okay?” Graham disappeared into his bedroom, glowering all the way.
“I’m going to baby him,” she announced. “He’s just going to have to put up with it.”
Hartley smiled at her. “Good luck with that.”
That’s when Bella came charging up the stairs, too. “Oh, Mrs. Graham!”
“Bella, sweetie!” They hugged, and I noticed just how crowded it had become here outside Graham’s room.
Bella held up a little white bag. “I filled his prescription. And the pharmacist said not to take these on an empty stomach. So I bought him a sandwich at the deli.”
“Oh honey, thank you! Here I was practically flapping my arms to come here to take care of him, and the three of you have already done it.” Mrs. Graham rapped a knuckle on the room door. “Michael, can we come in yet?”
“Yeah,” came Graham’s reluctant voice from inside the room. The door opened, and he stood there, filling the space, a freaked-out look on his face.
I could see how this would play out. It wasn’t going to be me who sat down beside Graham, asking him whether or not he wanted to take something for the pain. It wasn’t going to be me who read the proper dose off the medicine bottle.
Ten minutes ago, I’d assumed that Graham and I would spend the rest of the day napping on his bed, so that I could keep an eye on him. But that wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to take care of him. Or even tell him how much I wanted him to feel better.
That was not allowed.
Mrs. Graham put her hands on her son’s clean T-shirt, nudging him aside to enter the room. And Bella followed her.
That left Hartley and I in the hallway, with a nervous Graham practically blocking the way into his room. His wishes could not have been any plainer even if he’d held up a sign reading: You Are Dismissed.
Message received.
I shouldered my duffel bag. “Feel better,” I said lamely.
His answer was gruff. “Thanks.”
Without another word, I turned around and began to trudge down the stairs. Exhaustion made my legs feel heavy. And when I pushed the entryway door open at the bottom of the stairs, the damp March air gave me a shiver. I stopped to zip up my jacket.
“Hey, Rikker.”
I turned to see Hartley jogging up to me. “Hey.”
When I headed for the courtyard gate, he followed. “You knew Graham in high school? He never mentioned that.”
Shit. “I’m pretty sure that was intentional,” I said, my voice low.
“Wow.” There was a silence while Hartley did the math about why that might be. Graham would probably shoot me if he heard this conversation. But what was I supposed to say?
When Hartley spoke again, what he said took me by surprise. “You want to grab a slice somewhere? I’m starved.”
The invitation made my throat feel thick. Because I did, in fact, want to grab a slice with Hartley. But if we did that, he might ask me more questions. And I’d be tempted to answer them. And that was simply not allowed.
I was feeling so raw, and totally friendless. “I didn’t really sleep last night,” I ground out. “I think I’ll have to take a rain check. Thanks, though.”
“Yeah, okay.” Hartley held the gate open. When I walked through, he touched my shoulder. “See you at practice Monday.”
“See you,” I grunted.
I’d made it only a few paces when Hartley called after me. “Hey Rikker?”
When I turned to look at him over my shoulder, he was smiling at me. “Awesome play last night. You know. Before…”
The game, and our crazy combo goal, felt like a hundred years ago. But it had, indeed, been awesome. “It was, wasn’t it?”
“The best.” He gave me a wave, and I crossed the street alone. Because that’s how I did everything.
I let myself into McHerrin and trudged up the stairs. When I opened my room door and looked inside, what I saw was an empty little shithole with bare walls. And I was never going take down Skippy’s snowboarding picture to replace it with a shot of me and Graham on a beach somewhere. Even your classic bro shot — two guys holding cans of beer, with baseball caps on backwards — that would never be okay with Graham. Because one of the two visitors I had to my room in seven months might guess.
Dropping my bag on the floor, I flopped down on the bed, alone with my bitter thoughts. Sleep would help, so I tried to make myself comfortable. It was nice for Graham that his mom had come running into town to take care of him. But I’d bet cash money that I was a better napping partner than she was.
As I tried to fall asleep, another dark thought bothered me. It could have been me who sustained the concussion. And when I tried to flip the picture around in my mind, I didn’t like what I saw. Would my mom fly out to take care of me? Not hardly. And would Graham be willing to sit on the edge of my bed, asking me if I needed anything? Sure. Unless Hartley or Coach showed up to check on me. And then what would he do?
I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the answer.
In a few short weeks, the hockey postseason would be finished. I’d have my weekends free again. My teammates would use that time to go to parties with their girlfriends, or hang out with their buddies in the student center. And where would I be? Killing time until it was late enough to sneak into Graham’s room for a few hours, before I snuck out again before dawn.
Graham was never going to budge from his closet. So my choice was to either leave him, or just get used to dining on the scraps he gave me.
So pathetic.
I rolled over, feeling sorry for both of us.
The next two days sucked in much the same way.
For almost forty-eight hours I’d heard nothing from Graham. My texts went unanswered. Just when I was really getting worried, he finally called me Monday afternoon as I was walking out of Spanish class.
“Hey,” he said. “I only have a minute. My mom’s in the bathroom, but I just wanted to say hi.”
“Hi,” I said, maybe a little testily. “How’s your big old melon?”
“Hurts,” he said. “We just got back from the doctor, and there’s a whole lot of shit that I’m not supposed to do for a while. Like read.”
“All right…” I tried to imagine getting through a week at Harkness without reading. “How’s that supposed to work?”
“Exactly. This week Mom is coming to class with me to take notes.”
“No shit?” I stopped walking just outside of the Harkness Commons dining hall to finish our conversation.
“No shit. And I have no idea how long this will last. Shoot me.”
“God, I’m sorry, G.” And I really was. The sound of his voice did something to me, too. It made me realize how badly I missed him. There was a reason I put up with the whole stealthy-like-a-ninja act. He was important to me, whether it was convenient or not. “Can I come over tonight?”
He cleared his throat. “There’s a whole lot of things I’m not supposed to do.”
“Okay. Is talking to me one of them?”
“No,” he laughed.
“I’ll text you before I come, just to make sure the coast is clear. But that means you’ll actually have to text me back.”
“Sorry about that,” he said. “But it hurts when I look at the screen.”
And now I felt like an ass. “Shit. Should I call instead?”
“I’ll ring you when it’s all clear.”
All clear. As if I was a criminal. Christ. “Be well, G. I miss you.”
He cleared his throat. “Later.”
Sigh.
That afternoon I went to practice.
I hadn’t seen any of my teammates since the weirdness at the hospital. For some reason I felt more awkward about walking into the locker room than I ever had before. I’d always wished that Graham could be with me in a way that wasn’t like a state secret. But I’d always understood his struggle, too. He didn’t want eyes on him. I got that.
But now all those eyes were on me as I walked into the locker room. Or at least it felt like they were. I was pretty sure that a couple of conversations stopped as I entered the room.
I didn’t even know what to think about that, other than I knew that Graham wouldn’t like it.
Hartley greeted me with a familiar nod, and I began stripping out of my jacket and jeans, and pulling on my pads.
“How is he?” Hartley asked in a voice too low to be overheard.
“He feels better, but the news is still shitty,” I said. “There’s nothing he can do, and his mom is, like, his permanent nursemaid.”
“Fuck,” Hartley said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. Although I would have chosen a different expression. Because fucking was off the table, apparently.
The locker room door opened and Coach’s voice rang out. “Afternoon, hooligans! Listen up, I have news.” The chatter and smack talk died down. “Now, I’m sorry to tell you that Mike Graham’s concussion is going to keep him off the ice, probably for the rest of the season. I am sad as hell to lose him. Furthermore, Davis’s tendinitis is going to keep him out for another two games. But fear not! I have I brought you some back-up. For a limited engagement only, please welcome Bridger McCaulley back to the room.”
“No shit!” somebody yelled. And then cheers and applause practically thundered off the walls as a red-haired guy appeared in the doorway, pulling a hockey bag behind him. He smiled a little sheepishly, this guy that I’d replaced in the fall.
“Suit up fast, Bridger. Ice in ten minutes!” Coach yelled. “We’ll sort out who’s switching to defense this afternoon. Everybody skate hard, and it will all work out.”
Hartley waved Bridger over, holding up a hand for a high-five. “Glad to see you here, man,” he said.
“Yeah? We’ll see if you’re still glad ninety minutes from now,” Bridger said. He turned to me and stuck out a hand. “I’m Bridger. Nice to meet you.”
“Rikker,” I said, shaking his hand.
“I know,” he drawled. “Didn’t know I was going to be replaced by a celebrity.”
“Yeah, well. It was my lifelong dream to be famous for getting kicked off a hockey team. But if you need an autograph or anything, I can probably fit you in.”
Bridger grinned. Then he glanced around the locker room. “Hartley, where do you want to put me?”
Right. I was in his spot. Whoops.
“Over here, Bridge,” Bella called, waving the guy into the corner, where she was stuffing Graham’s gear into a bag. “Sorry, we weren’t quite ready for you.”
“No biggie.” He leaned down to unzip his bag, and I turned my back to shrug my chest pads over my head.
“Hey!” Big-D crossed the room to slap Bridger on the back. “Please tell me you’re back permanently. Things just aren’t the same this year.”
My blood pressure spiked. Only Big-D would find a compliment for Bridger which also managed to put me down.
“You’re right,” Bridger said, shaking out his hockey shorts. “What’s different is that you win all the fucking time. But I promise not to wreck it too bad. You only get me for the post-season, anyway. Even playing a handful of games with you is more than I can afford. I’m going to owe my girlfriend for covering for me at home. Big time.”
Big-D snorted. “There is no way that Bridger McCaulley just used the word ‘girlfriend’ in a sentence. We have to meet this girl. I need proof.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that a lot,” Bridger said.
On his way back across the room, Big-D pointed at Trevi’s feet. “Dude, those socks are so gay.”
Everybody looked at Trevi’s socks, even me. They were striped: blue and violet. “My sister knitted them for Christmas,” Trevi said, unconcerned.
“Next time, tell her to…” Big-D cut himself off, putting one hand across his own mouth in an exaggerated gesture. “Oops,” he said, turning back to Bridger. “Forgot to warn you, man. We can’t make gay jokes anymore. Because some people might get offended.” This little performance was put on entirely to embarrass me. On a good day, Big-D didn’t go five minutes without using “gay” to describe anything that displeased him.
“Naw,” I piped up. “You go ahead, Big-D. I don’t give a flying fuck if you say a pair of socks is gay. Or Smitty’s watch, or what-the-fuck-ever. There’s pretty much nothing you can say that will offend me. It only makes me wonder if you know what the word means.”
There was silence in the locker room then.
I should have just shut up, of course. But I was just too strung out to rein myself in. “…Because it would be pretty fuckin’ hard for a pair of socks or a watch to act gay. Those would have to be some really talented socks.” I made quotation marks with my fingers. “Gay does not mean bright colors. Gay means my mouth on another guy’s dick…”
A loud groan of distress rose up in the locker room.
“Check, please!” Trevi hollered. “No thank you for that visual.”
Hartley gave me a nudge. “Cool it, will you? It’s time to skate.”
Bending over, I yanked on my laces. Usually, I didn’t bait Big-D. And Graham would probably have a coronary if he’d heard what I’d said. But today I just felt so raw. The universe was fucking with me, and I felt like fighting back.
Because that always works.
I almost had my skates tied by the time Bella rolled the hockey bag full of Graham’s gear away from the lockers. Making eye contact with me, she pointed at it, asking if I’d take it to him. With a frown, I gave her a single shake of my head. God forbid I help out Graham by bringing him his gear. He’d have a second coronary, and while they were giving him the defibrillator, he’d ask me if there were any witnesses.
“Let’s go, guys!” Bella called. “Ninety-six hours until the semifinals!”
She was right. We had more games to win. And it was a bad idea to sit around feeling confused about Graham.
