Silas looked for an outlet to plug his phone in while they waited for the flight to start boarding. He’d forgotten to charge it the night before, and it had died sometime during their game. He was eager to talk to Miriam, to know if she’d watched the game tonight.
Finn flopped down beside him. “Great job tonight.”
Silas wasn’t sure what to make with Finn’s sudden desire to be near him twenty-four seven. He jerked his chin at him. “You too, man.”
“I don’t think I would have blocked so many goals without your help.”
A corner of Silas’ mouth lifted in a disbelieving grin as he shook his head. They both knew that Finn didn’t need Silas’ five-minute breakdown of the Wolves’ offensive players to block their shots on goal. The keeper was a brick wall.
That said, Silas took the words for what they were—an olive branch.
They might not get that friendship they once had, but once Finn stopped antagonizing Silas over every little thing, the rest of the players would be quick to follow their captain’s lead. Or so Silas hoped.
Finn’s phone dinged, and he pulled it from his pocket. His mouth turned down in a frown when he looked at the screen.
“Everything okay?”
Finn nodded. “Just some drama at home.”
“Emmeline?”
Finn gave him a warning look. He may have extended the olive branch, but apparently Silas talking about Finn’s baby sister was still off-limits. He walked over to one of the giant glass windows overlooking the runway.
With Finn now gone, Silas continued his search for an outlet. He found one under his seat and plugged in his phone. The reboot screen came up only moments later. Now he could do what he’d been thinking about ever since the final goal had been made: talk to Miriam.
When his home screen finally appeared, there was a notification that he had a text message from Miriam. She’d beat him to it.
Miriam: Great game tonight.
Silas smiled as he started typing out a reply, but decided he wanted to hear her voice. It was a much better option than holding his breath while he waited for text bubbles to turn into messages. He hit the call button.
His knee bounced quickly as the phone rang. Once. Twice. It felt like an eternity between rings, and Silas wondered if Miriam was ever going to answer.
Her voice interrupted the third ring. “Hey.”
Silas let out a shaky breath and leaned back in his seat. “Hey.”
“Great game tonight.”
He smiled to himself. “You already said that.”
There was a short pause, and Silas could hear some music in the background. “I guess I did.”
“Are you still at City Bar?”
“Yeah. They did one-dollar draft beers after Cardosa got the winning shot, so people are still hanging out. When I saw you calling, I stepped outside.”
She hadn’t been debating whether or not to answer his call. Miriam wanted to make sure she could hear him. “That’s awesome.”
“The fans are pretty happy.” There was another pause. “Y’all did so great. Your goal in the second quarter. Then that assist to Barros in the third. Oh, and when you cleared out the ball and it went past, like, three of the other players.”
This was the Miriam he remembered—the girl who got excited about games. Back when they’d been dating, she’d watch all the Storm’s away matches, the MASL highlights of the week, and on occasion, other teams play. Silas hadn’t seen this girl at all since his return to Florida.
Silas chuckled. “It was a good game.”
“It was,” she said loudly. Silas had to pull the phone away from his ear. “You guys won against the Wolves in their home arena.”
Silas wished he could see her face right now. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine it. Her blue eyes would be bright, her smile wide. Miriam was probably walking back and forth outside City Bar waving her free hand all over the place. It was the way she always used to act when she was talking about the Storm wins—which, admittedly, were few and far between two years ago.
He ran a hand through his hair. “I wish I was there.”
There was a soft gasp on the other end of the line. Silas clamped his lips together. They were having an easy conversation, and he’d gone too far. He hadn’t planned on saying the words aloud and held his breath as he waited for her reaction.
“Me too.” The words were a whisper he barely heard over the background music.
“Yeah?”
“Silas, I—”
Shouting in the background stopped Miriam from continuing. Silas wanted to crawl through the phone to tell whoever was interrupting to be quiet—just long enough to hear what she was about to say. Then they could get back to whatever dumb games they were playing. Silas strained but couldn’t understand what the other person was saying.
“Harris, I’ll be right there. I’m just finishing up a call.” Of all the people it could be. Silas was really starting to hate that guy. “It’s just Allie. I’ll be back inside in just a second.”
Allie? Silas’ heart sank. What did it mean that Miriam was lying to Harris about who she was talking to?
“Hey.” Her voice was slightly breathless. “Sorry about that. What were we talking about?”
“Actually, the plane is about to board.” He looked at the other players sitting around the terminal. They still had at least another forty-five minutes, but he didn’t think he could have the conversation he wanted to have knowing that Harris was waiting for Miriam inside. Not when Miriam was pretending that he was Allie.
“I, uh, said you were Allie because—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “I really gotta go though.”
“Oh, okay. Can we talk when you get back?”
“Sure.”
“Silas…”
“Finn’s waving at me to hurry up. I don’t want to piss him off.”
He hit end before Miriam could argue. When he looked up from his phone, he noticed
