Taking a Shot Read Free Page B

little bit ago. “I don’t think I’m going to prom this year,” she said quietly. She sounded sad. She always sounded sad lately.
    Most of the guys started up their own conversations, turning their attention away from her. They probably didn’t want to embarrass her any more than Razor already had. But not all of them turned away. Zee was sitting on Katie’s other side, across from Kally. He handed her a basket of bread and asked, “Why aren’t you going?”
    “Who would want to take the bald girl to prom?” She tried to laugh it off, but I could see the pain in her posture, just like I’d seen her fear through her bravery when she’d asked Webs to shave her head. She passed the bread to her father without taking any. “Besides, I’m not even going to classes right now. Out of sight, out of mind. They don’t even know I exist anymore.”
    “I’m sure that’s not true.” Kally took a sip of his water and used his napkin to wipe his mouth. She gave him a dubious look, but he didn’t let it stop him. “You should go anyway. You could show them what they’re missing. Make yourself some good memories.”
    Katie gave a tiny shake of her head. “I don’t think I have that kind of courage.”
    “You have a hell of a lot more courage than you give yourself credit for,” Kally replied. When she gave him a questioning look, he pointed at the scarf on her head.
    She blushed. “That wasn’t courage. That was fear of looking stupid with bald patches.”
    “Courage,” Zee said slowly, but his eyes were on me and not on Katie while he talked, “is doing something you know you need to do even though you’re scared to do it.”
    What was he getting at? I took another bite and stared down at my plate. That was better than looking at Webs with his ball-busting glares or at Zee and his meaningful glances that didn’t really impart any meaning, at least.
    “Yeah,” she said. “Maybe.” But then she started eating her meal and stopped talking, and that was the end of the conversation.
    After we finished eating, everyone headed home. We had a game against Colorado tonight, and most guys take an afternoon nap on game days.
    Kally had moved in with me when he’d been traded here because I had an extra room. I’d been living with Brenden Campbell—Soupy to the guys—but he’d moved across the hall to live with his fiancée, Rachel, and her two kids on trade deadline day.
    It was nice having Kally around, even if he was closer in age to Webs than he was to me. He was a quiet guy, but he could cook, which was a definite bonus for me, and he didn’t care if I had Razor over to play video games. Plus, he was a deep thinker. At first I’d thought he was a little weird, which wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary considering he was Swedish. It felt like half the team consisted of Swedes these days, so I should know about how weird some of them could be. They tended to stick to themselves and not hang out with the rest of us, and I’d never met one who didn’t have some crazy habit like sleeping naked with the windows open in January. But Kally usually had some pretty insightful things to say—the sort of things that would fuck with your head. At least he did on those rare occasions when he decided to open his mouth and say something.
    Since the three of us—Soupy, Kally, and me—were all headed the same place, we’d driven in for the morning skate together in Soupy’s SUV. When we were about halfway home, Kally turned around in his seat and looked at me with that intense stare he got when he was about to spout off something profound and life-altering and mind fucking.
    “You could give her that good memory,” he said. Okay, so maybe he really was weird.
    I had always known everyone could see straight through me, and Zee and Soupy had been giving me shit about my crush on Katie for over a year, but Kally hadn’t been around very long. How was it that he could already tell?
    “Take her to her prom?” I