CASS: Yeah, well, I finally watched The Departed. And Leo, yeah, uhm…I’m a fan. Does that sway things in my favor?

ME: I think you may have taken this Leo thing too far, it sounds like you like him not in the ‘bad-ass’ way but in the ‘hot for his bod’ way.

CASS: Your fault. You made me look.

ME: I think that’s enough Leo.

CASS: Too late, already started Gangs of New York. I’m marathoning. Gotta go.

ME: K I don’t like this.

“Dude, move your ass,” Nate yells the second he sees me.

“Are you seriously pretending you have any power over me?” I say, eyes back to my phone, waiting for Cass. I think she was serious, and I may have created a monster.

“I’m parked weird. That’s all, and what’s up your ass?” he says, grabbing my bag and swinging it over his shoulder.

I look up with my lips pushed into a half frown. “I think I may have pushed Cass into Leo’s arms,” I say, and Nate pinches his brow.

“Good, you and Cass can share your man crush then. Come on,” he says, leaving me behind. I push hard to catch up.

“I don’t have a man crush,” I say in defense.

“Yeah, sure you don’t. Saying every one of his lines along with him is totally normal. Totally,” he says, laughing over his shoulder.

Damn. I do have a man crush.

“Yeah, well…shut up,” I say back, and his cackle echoes into the elevator.

Chapter 30

Cass

My bags are packed. Paige’s bags are packed. My cleats, my old knee braces, my shin guards, my ball—I packed it all. I know I have new things, but sometimes I like the way my old equipment feels. My parents and I haven’t talked about it. There’s nothing to talk about. I’m playing.

I’m about to zip the bag closed when my dad walks in, a large envelope in his hand. His focus goes right to the bright green ball I’ve managed to wedge into my suitcase, and he smiles tightly when he sees it, then nods.

“I have to play. I need it. I just…I need this,” I say to him, and inside I say please, please, please over and over again, praying we don’t make this a thing—that they don’t try to take this away.

“I know you do,” he says, tossing the envelope on top of my things and helping me to zip my suitcase the rest of the way. “You’re going to need those. They’re medical forms, judge endorsed, explaining your treatment, any steroid injections. There are three copies, and there are two doctors’ signatures—Peeples and one of his colleagues.”

“Dad—” I start, but my breath leaves me quickly. His warm arm wraps me from the side, and he pulls me to him tightly, kissing the top of my head. “We still worry. Just promise me one thing, if you feel something…if you feel off…at all? You’ll talk to someone and listen to your body. It doesn’t mean you have to quit, it just means…we modify. Can you do that?”

“I can do that,” I say, pulling both of my arms around my father’s chest and holding him tight, my cheek resting against the wool of his suit jacket. “You’re off to work?”

“Time to make the donuts,” he says. He’s been saying that to me since I was a kid, when I used to get up early just to see him before he left for the office. He kisses my head one more time, then turns to leave through the door, his hand knocking once on the frame as he passes.

My phone buzzes, and I sit at the edge of my bed to answer. It’s Rowe. I’ve texted her a few times, but we haven’t talked. I’m afraid to talk to her, afraid she’s mad that I kept this from her.

“Hey,” I answer, my heart beating fast with my nerves.

“Hey, when do you get in? I just got here. Our room…Cass,” she’s talking a million miles a minute, and I fade out for a second as she goes on, awed that our friendship is somehow just the same as it’s always been. No MS. No questions, no mention—I’m just still Cass.

“What about our room?” I ask, smiling nervously, for a different reason now.

“It’s…brown. Like…I’m sorry, but it’s caca brown. Maybe a little orange? No, it’s brown. Definitely brown. And not a cool brown, like taupe or chocolate. It’s awful, like that burnt sienna color you get in your box of crayons that you never wear down because you don’t use it, because it’s seriously the ugliest color ever made,” she says, breathless by the end of her panicked speech. “Cass…we can’t live with this. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think they had it in them.”