Sam laughed as he threw the pillows back at his unsuspecting face.

***

He didn’t call Leila. He was a chicken. A big, fat, clucking chicken. And Sam reminded him of that fact every chance he got. The next night at dinner, when the waiter asked for his order, Sam interjected, “Chicken.”

When the coach asked what game they’d like to play during warm-ups, Sam called out, “Chicken!”

Every time Austin mentioned his sister, or Sam saw him with his phone in his mere vicinity, he’d start clucking and flapping his wings.

The little smartass was earning himself a car full of packing peanuts when they got back to New York, but Sam was right. He needed to talk to her. The team had the night off before their game against Montreal the next day, and he knew it was the perfect opportunity. He grabbed his cell phone, and then whacked a sleeping Sam over the head with a pillow. “Get out.”

Barely conscious, Sam sat up. “What?”

“Get. Out.”

Sam looked around, and then spotted the cell phone in his hand. He grinned. “Well, look who found his balls.”

Henrik whacked him over the head again. A little harder this time.

“Okay. Okay.” Sam jumped up, laughing. “I’m going. Geez.”

Henrik waited while he gathered his stuff, and went to camp out in Jiri’s room. Austin’s room was off limits. He didn’t want to raise any red flags.

He paced from the window to the door, reciting what he would say in his head, but it was nothing more than gibberish. He’d never told a girl he had feelings for her before…and meant it. He ran through his contact list and found her name. Then he just stood there and looked at it. Then he looked at it some more.

He was shocked he didn’t sprout feathers.

He clicked on her name without thinking about it, and held his breath as he listened to it ring. He almost lost hope after the fifth ring, but then she finally answered.

“Hello? Henrik? Is something wrong?” Her voice was groggy and full of panic. He glanced over at the clock, noticing it was after eleven and she had probably already been asleep.

“No,” he told her quickly. “Nothing is wrong.”

“Oh,” she breathed, sounding relieved.

“I thought—maybe—I would tell you goodnight.”

“Oh,” she repeated, her concern turning to surprise.

He gauged her reaction for a moment, coming to the only logical conclusion. “Derek never called you on road trips, did he?”

“No,” she replied honestly, her voice barely a whisper. “Never.”

His free hand balled into a fist. “Well, I guess that’s something you’re just going to have to get used to, then,” he replied, holding back the curses about her ex.

She was quiet, and that worried him. “Leila?”

“You didn’t go out tonight,” she commented, more to herself than to him.

Tonight was their only night off during their road trip, and she knew it. “Not going to lie. The shock in your voice is a little hurtful.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s okay.” Keep calm. Be honest. “I understand that with my reputation and track record, I don’t automatically get the benefit of the doubt.”

“It’s not that.” Her voice was weak, burdened. “I shouldn’t care. That’s what I was trying to tell you the other day. We’re friends, and that’s great. I shouldn’t care whether or not you go out, and you should go out and not care what I think.”

“Is there some kind of friendship rule book I don’t know about? Because that sounds like total bullshit to me.”

“Henrik.”

“Well, it is,” he rushed, “because I promise you, Leila, I’d care. If you bring some guy over and parade him around in front of me, I will make a complete ass out of myself. Guaranteed.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Now he laughed. “No. What’s ridiculous is how bad it bothers me that you sleep half naked in my brother’s bed every night.”

“It’s just Drew.”

“I fail to see your point,” he droned. “Is he there now?”

He shoved his ear harder against the phone, waiting for Drew’s maniacal laugh.

“No, he’s still out, but it doesn’t matter, because friends don’t think that way. If we’re going to try and make this work—”

“Maybe we’re not friends,” he cut in before he could stop himself.

He paced the room again, his hands in his hair. He would be bald before the end.

“What?” Her voice was hurt, and he knew he had to act quickly.

“Maybe,” he started, his mind racing to figure out a way to explain himself, “we should be friends who would eventually like the option of possibly being something different in the future, which means different rules apply to us.”

There was a long pause. “Are you high? Did the doctor give you some kind of new pain medication for your nose?”

“I’m being serious.”

“You obviously don’t have any idea what you’re saying right now.”

“Yes,” he gulped. “I do.”

Could he do it? Say he had legitimate feelings for her, and he wasn’t going to sleep with anyone else? He’d already said it. Actually, he was already doing that. Now he just wanted his grand gesture returned.

She’d gone quiet again. The buzz on the other end of the phone was prominent as he waited for her to finally answer. She’d have to answer eventually.

“You would do that?”

A gush of relief fell out of him. “Again. A little insulted by the shock in your voice.”

“I’m not shocked, Henrik, it’s just—we barely know each other.”

“You’ve known me since you were eighteen.”

“Yeah, but how much of that time did we actually spend getting to know each other, or even spending time together? We hated each other, remember?”

“No. You hated me. I was under strict instructions to stay the hell away from you.”

“That still doesn’t mean this is a good idea.”

“You’re right,” he breathed, unwilling to recall all the times he had to force himself to turn and walk the other direction when he saw her coming. “I may not know your favorite color yet, or even how you take your coffee, but there are some things I’m certain about when it comes to you.” He checked the door again, just to be safe. “I know you’re an amazingly loyal friend, because you and I both know Drew doesn’t trust easily. You’re supportive and caring, because I’ve watched you cheer on your brother too long. I know I’ve never felt comfortable enough to talk about my mother with anyone else.”

The sound of shocked silence was deafening.

“I’m not asking for some kind of commitment in stone, Leila,” he continued. “I’m just saying it’s obvious that both of us are harboring some more-than-friend type feelings about one another that we don’t know what to do with right now. We owe it to ourselves to have time to figure it out.”

Silence. Dead, suffering silence.

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t want you hooking up with anyone,” he blurted out. “The thought bothers me to an extent that is embarrassing. On occasion, you’ve implied that you feel the same about me. I mean, honestly, do you want me bringing girls back to my apartment? You running into them in the hallway in the morning?”

There was a pause, and then an audible, annoyed huff. “No,” she said stiffly, “I would prefer not to have that happen.”

“Then we have an understanding.”

She let out sigh, obviously overwhelmed. “This is crazy.”

It was more than crazy. It was real.

“Maybe, but if it helps us sleep at night…”

She scoffed. “I highly doubt you were losing any sleep over whether or not I’ve been hooking up with random guys since I’ve been here.”

“You’d be surprised.” It had crossed his mind more than a few times. “Check my game stats for that night you gave your ticket to Drew’s friend. Zero points. Zero hits. All I could do was sit there and think about whether or not you were out with some random guy.”

“I spent the evening in my pajamas combing through ads for a job,” she said, chuckling.

“Now you tell me.”