appears, blocking much of the wind with his frame. I start by walking too slow and then have to speed up to match his pace, which is surprisingly quick, as we trek the couple of blocks to where the Trailblazer’s play. It’s a huge building, the top glowing red with the words ‘Rip City’ glowing at the side.
We make it through the front doors, where they search through my purse and send me through a metal detector while Arlo is scanned with a wand, and then we’re directed to the left.
Arlo’s face is that of a child’s in a candy store, every light and poster making his smile even brighter and broader. “Wait. Wait,” he says, coming to a stop.
“The game is about to start,” I tell him as he moves to an empty merchandise station.
“I know, but we need to commemorate this moment and look the part. Come here.” He scans the items and points at a black tee. “Can I get that in an extra-large, and the ladies in a…” he looks at me. “Small?”
“I don’t need a shirt.”
Arlo nods. “You’re getting a shirt. She looks like a small, right?” he asks the guy behind the counter.
The guy looks at me. “You want to try it on?”
Arlo nods again. “She does.” He reaches for the shirt the man offers and takes my purse and then my jacket as I peel it off. He hands me the shirt that I slide over my sweater-tee.
“Perfect,” Arlo says to the guy. “We’ll take them.”
The guy hits a few buttons on his register and accepts Arlo’s credit card. “You guys want a bag?”
“Yeah. That way we have something to put this stuff in.”
The guy nods again. “You from Jersey?”
Arlo glances at him. “North Jersey.”
He flashes a smile like the name brings pleasant memories. “Good man. Same here. What brought you out this way?”
“School.”
“School,” the man repeats. “What are you going to school for?”
“Football.”
The stranger’s face puckers. “What kind of injury do you have?”
“Blew out my ACL.”
“Ohhhh.”
Arlo nods.
“You’re good? Are you going to be able to play next year?” He hands Arlo a large plastic sack that he, in turn, shoves my coat into.
“We’ll see.”
The man behind the counter grabs a couple of long blow-up sticks and hands them to me. “For my North Jersey brother.”
Arlo reaches across the counter, and the two share in a man handshake-high-five-thing that looks like it took years to perfect and is pulled off seamlessly. “You guys have a good night and have fun.”
Arlo still has my things and his new shirt in his hands as he holds his crutches and navigates his way toward the area we were directed at the entrance, while my thoughts run in the opposite direction, back to the single question I hadn’t thought about that has me wishing we were back in the car with another full hour in front of us.
“You might not be able to play next year?”
Arlo glances back at me. “Usually, they want athletes to wait a full year with a full ACL reconstruction.”
“You’ll miss your senior year. Will that make your chances of being drafted more difficult?”
His gaze departs from mine, rising several inches over my head. “It’s all going to be fine.”
13
Arlo
“Liv! Smile!”
“Olivia,” she corrects me again as she leans into the picture, her cheek near mine as she smiles.
“We’re so close that we’ll be able to smell their sweat.”
She wrinkles her nose. “That’s gross.”
“It’s fucking fantastic.”
She laughs as I’m taking another selfie of us, and then another when she gives me the side-eye for taking more pictures, which I also capture.
“I can’t believe we made it for tip-off,” I say, watching the teams clear the floor so they can prepare for being announced. The music so loud it vibrates through the seats and into my body like a second pulse.
Olivia smiles as she scans over the raucous crowd holding signs and noisemakers as they cheer. “This reminds me of being at a football game in Texas.”
“Portland fans are known for being loud. This is going to be awesome. Do you want some cliff notes for the game?
“I understand the gist.”
“Did you play?”
“When I was in grade school and middle school, I did, but not in high school.”
“How come?”
She winces as though hesitant to tell me initially. “I went to the first day of tryouts, and the coaches were super intense—yelling and talking about how it was going to be a four-year commitment.” She swallows, her eyebrows dropping with a new wave of hesitance. “I