CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Dani
Friday started with annoyance in the form of a text.
Ben Worthington: If you ever need a ride to school, I go in that direction so just lmk Yeah, no. The last thing I needed was for Alec or his friends to see Benji texting me, so I really wished he’d forget my number.
And then on the way to school, the day’s theme switched from annoying to
stressful.
Because my dad started texting.
Dad: Daniella Grace, I’d appreciate a call this evening. I’m out of time and patience.
Shit. I glanced guiltily at my mom, who was watching the road as she drove, blissfully unaware of my traitorous texting. I needed to respond, especially after he’d sounded so unusually… nicewhen I talked to him at Bryce’s party. He’d been impatient for my answer, of course, but he’d also genuinely seemed like he maybe just missed me.
Which stressed me out because it made the decision harder.
I texted: Okay—sorry.
My heart started beating faster when my phone buzzed and he replied: It shouldn’t be this hard.
I jammed the phone in my bag, feeling like a jerk reading his texts while sitting beside my mom. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the drive, my hands shaking and the panic clawing at my chest as I ran through the scenarios over and over again in my head.
Do what he wants and destroy my mom—and maybe myself—or tell him no and lose the opportunity to ever get close to him.
I had to go into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face when I got to school, because my thoughts were getting too loud for my body to ignore.
But every second I wasn’t worrying about my parents, I was thinking about Alec, which made my stomach fillwith butteries.
And not the fun ones that went crazy every time I thought about the kiss.
No, these were the bad ones.
Because I had no idea what was going on with us.
Or how I felt about it—gahhhhhh.
Did I have real feelings for him? That was a big yes.
Had we had the world’s most amazing kiss that denitely wasn’t fake?
Oh yeah.
Did that mean anything at all regarding my relationship with him?
No idea whatsoever.
Just because I liked him and really liked kissing him didn’t mean that (A) he felt the same, or (B) we should do anything about it. College on the other side of the country was still waiting for me, and hockey was still waiting for him.
So us = still not a great idea.
Especially when he was dealing with so much hockey pressure. The best thing I could do as his friend would be to support him and not be a distraction, right?
He didn’t need our “relationship” messing with his focus.
But even as I had these internal heart-to-heart talks with myself, there was a part of me that didn’t want to listen.
Because maybe… God, I was terried to even think it. But maybe it was okay to feel more with him. Maybe it was okay to bemore with him, because he was
the exception.
Chill out, chill out.
I was overthinking everything, my nerves shredded, because in addition to my feels for Alec, I had tomorrow’s section nals to worry about. Now that I knew how stressed he was and how much pressure he felt, the stakes felt out-of-this- world high.
He held my hand when I found him by his locker, and the look he gave me curled my toes, but nothing out of the ordinary (in our fake dating situation) transpired between us. We had speech and lunch together, but the entire day was exactly as it’d been before the kiss.
Which, of course, drove me to distraction wondering what that meant.
I was glad when the nal bell rang because I needed a break from my own head.
I rode with Alec to the Doug, where the team had a quick run-through. They went over the game plan for the next day and did some skating, but it was low- key and relaxed.
Cassie wasn’t there (she had a doctor’s appointment), so I just sat on the bleachers and watched Alec like a stalker the entire time.
His big body, skating so eortlessly; the way he could casually maneuver the puck with his stick like it was an extension of his arm; the sound of his deep voice when he yelled… would I ever not be absolutely transxed by it all?
I was already on a bit of an Alec high when he texted me while I was locking the storage room: I need your help.
Everyone else had already left, but I was used to Alec being last.
I texted: What’s up?
Alec: You know how superstitious I am, right?
That made me smile, because he was a silly little boy when it came to that.
I texted: I do.
Alec: Well, after the practice before the best game of my life, this girl stumbled into the locker room and our chains got tangled together. It was a whole thing.
I giggled, then looked around to make sure no one had appeared out of
nowhere to mock me for my idiocy.
Coast appears to be clear.
Me: Yeah?
Alec: Yeah. No one is in here, and I know for a fact the coaches have left, so… would you consider…?
I gasped, and maybe giggled, as I looked down at the message.
Me: You’re insane and NO WAY My mind went back to his bare chest and the way his neck had smelled in the stuy locker room. Like fresh soap.
Alec: PLEEEEEEEASE? You know how important this game is. I am desperate to re-create
everything from that game.
I couldn’t. I mean, I couldn’t.
So why was I walking toward the locker room? I mean, he was in there, so it made sense to go talk to him about it in person instead of texting, right? That was all I was doing. I was going to where he was to discuss how ridiculous his request was.
I looked around when I got to the locker room, and I didn’t see a single soul in the Doug. I knew there had to be people somewhere, the people who opened and closed the place, but they were nowhere to be found at that moment.
“Alec?” I said, pushing open the door, my stomach uttery as my pulse pounded.
“Right here,” he said, and if I’d instantly fainted, it wouldn’t have been an
overreaction.
There. He. Was.
I could see this time, my eyes absent of tears, and I suddenly wondered if this was a mistake. Because Alec looked wayout of my league of knowledge at the
moment.
He looked somehow dangerous.
He was bare-chested, and this time in perfect focus. He had pecs and abs and biceps—holy shit those biceps. I swallowed and was grateful that he had on sweatpants this time, because I felt like I would have turned and run out of the locker room like a schoolgirl if he’d been wearing boxer briefs again.
I would have spontaneously combusted or melted into a puddle on the oor.
The music that was playing somewhere in the locker room wasn’t helping my calm, though.
Sweat, lose your breath Any way you move, I’m into it
“I feel like this is a stupid dumb terrible idea,” I said, walking toward him.
“Oh, honey,” he said, his eyes wild with mischief, “most superstitions are.”
I stopped in front of him, not too close but close enough. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, and I could tell he wasn’t paying attention to our words.
His dark eyes were on mine, and it felt like we were both simmering, like water getting ready to boil.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “So what exactly are we doing here specifically?”
“By ‘specically,’ are you trying to dierentiate what the goal is from the fact that we are inappropriately close in a locker room when I’m not fully dressed?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I’m looking for; thank you for the clarication,” I said around a laugh.
“The way I recall it,” he said, “I hugged you, you hugged me back, and then our chains got connected and I had to pull them apart.”
“That is how I recall it too,” I said, but my voice was almost a whisper.
“Then let’s do this,” he said.
Even though I knew it was coming, I somehow felt shocked when he wrapped his big arms around me. Butteries went wild in my stomach and adrenaline pumped through my body as I slid my hands over his skin and hugged him back, like I’d touched a live wire or something.
I closed my eyes and let the smell of him into my senses, trying to be cool about the feel of his big arms wrapped around me.
But when I pulled back, our chains didn’t get tangled.
“Come on,” he said, grinning down at me in that way that made his eyes squint. “I guess we need to try again.”
“This is ridiculous,” I laughed. “Are you sure this isn’t a ploy?”
“What are you saying, Collins?” he said, his deep voice making the irt sound dirty. “That you think I like your hands all over my chest? Do you think I like canoodling with you in the locker room?”
“I actually think it’s possible, yes,” I said, wondering why it was so hard to speak.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t hate if it took ten tries,” he said. “Come here and let’s get these chains to lock up.”
He pulled me close again, this time wrapping his arms around my waist so tightly that I almost felt crushed against him in the very best way. He lifted me a little and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and when we pulled back, our necklaces were tangled together.
I felt his grin but couldn’t actually see it because his face was down by my neck.
“Success,” he murmured, and I felt him untangling us.
I closed my eyes as his breath raised goose bumps on my skin.
“I think I kissed your neck last time, didn’t I?” he said, so, so quietly.
“Um,” I breathed, unable to form words.
“I’m pretty sure I did,” he said, and his mouth was so close to my neck I could feel the vibration of his voice. “And we don’t want to mess with the superstition.”
“Well, if that’s what you remember happening,” I managed, fully aware that we both knew that had never happened, “we denitely don’t want to mess with the…”
I trailed o when his lips touched my skin. There must’ve been a framework of nerve endings in that very spot, because every cell in my body sparked and sizzled at the feel of his mouth on my skin.
“And if I recall,” he said, his teeth dragging over the side of my neck, “I might have nibbled a little bit too.”
My eyes closed of their own accord and my head fell back. How the hell does Alec know how to make me feel this way?
“Yeah, you denitely maybe did that,” I said, and my toes curled in my shoes when he laughed a very dirty laugh against my throat.
“You like that, Collins?” he very nearly growled against my skin.
“Not sure, maybe go again,” I said on a breath, and then I gritted my teeth when he did.
Dear Lord, I thought as my hands were suddenly on the back of his head and he was doing the most incredible things to my neck with his mouth. Somewhere in my brain an alarm bell was ringing because this was a terrible idea, but it was silenced by the way his body was pressing mine against the lockers.
“We should probably stop,” I said, sliding my ngers into his thick hair,
denitely not stopping anything.
Not even slowing.
“I mean,” I managed, even though I didn’t make a move to untangle myself from him, “we don’t want the mojo to swing too far the other way.”
“Collins,” he murmured against my skin before lifting his head to smirk down at me with sleepy-sexy eyes. “Will you stop talking if I kiss you?”
“Only one way to nd out,” I said, feeling daring all of a sudden.
“Hell, yes, there’s my girl,” he murmured as his smirk disappeared into something hotter and his lips slid over mine and then he was kissing me, kissing me like he appreciated my boldness, like he was fucking enthralledby it, like he wanted to devour every bite of it.
Oh my God, he kisses like he plays hockey.
His mouth was hot and wild as he released my waist and pressed his palms against the lockers on each side of me, caging my body between his and the lockers, leaning into me in a way that made me dizzy.
I gripped his hair, chased his kiss, but then a noise outside the locker room reminded me.
“Also, someone has to be coming soon to lock up the locker room,” I said, knowing it was true but unable to move.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said against my mouth, and then he pulled back. His dark eyes and dirty grin didn’t help with the dizziness, especially when he leaned down and dropped the sweetest kiss on my neck—where it’d all begun—before straightening.
“Um, okay,” I mumbled, tucking my hair behind my ears and feeling out of it —is this what drunk feels like—as I looked at a spot on the lockers.
“Okay,” he said, sounding amused. “Give me ve minutes to throw on a shirt and I’ll be out.”
“Perfect,” I said calmly, somehow managing to exit the locker room on legs that were weak and wobbly.
I didn’t see another person as I paced in the cold arena, waiting for him, and when he came out, Alec gave me a smile and grabbed my hand.
What the hell are we doing? I thought as I linked my ngers between his.
And yet all I wanted was for him to hold my hand.
The team dinner was at Alec’s house that night. The second I walked in, it felt like coming home, especially seeing Sarah and John in the kitchen with my mom there beside them.
“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I said to her as I dropped my coat on the bench.
“Sarah asked me to help and it sounded like fun,” she said with a smile.
“Except you forgot to bake a cake,” Connor’s dad said. Connor was the freshman goalie who never played but seemed very nice.
“Is it someone’s birthday?” I asked.
“No, but your mom used to bake all the time in high school. Her German chocolate cake was always the best.”
“You baked cakes for people in high school?” I asked, shocked. As far as I
knew, my mom didn’t bake.
Like, at all.
But now I was picturing high school Hannah with a cake-baking business, like a lemonade stand but with German chocolate cakes.
That couldn’t be right, could it?
It seemed far-fetched, but so had a freaking Fricklinhauger Fellowship.
“Sometimes,” she said with a shrug, and something in her smile told me it’d mattered to her.
“I’m starving,” Alec said, and I felt his big hand on my arm. “We should eat.”
“Dani!” Cassie yelled from where everyone was eating in the living room.
“Get in here!”
And then Richie yelled, “Yeah, Collins, get your ass in here and bring your oversized man with you!”
Mom’s face was full of happiness as she laughed, and part of me wondered if this was where she’d always belonged.
In her hometown, in her best friend’s kitchen.
Maybe baking.
Guilt suddenly hit me hard, because what would she have become if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with me? Apparently she had a genius IQ, in addition to culinary talent, yet she’d spent eighteen years being an Air Force wife.
Because of me.
God, how could I even consider ruining her brand-new happiness by leaving?
“I need food,” Alec said, giving me a playful nudge. “Can we pleasego eat, Collins?”
“Fine,” I said, and I let Alec lead me out of the kitchen and into the other room.
And thankfully, the team dinner shook me out of that depressing headspace, as I realized that I didfeel comfortable on my own with those people. In this town, sitting next to Alec, and stressing about a hockey game I desperately wanted my team to win.
It felt like it was real, and I realized I kind of wanted it to be.
“Okay, listen up!” Coach Osman climbed on top of the kitchen table, and I ohandedly wondered if he’d asked Sarah or John for permission rst. “I don’t need to remind you what tomorrow is or what it means.”
He started talking, and the house was dead quiet as every eye and ear in the place was on him. Including mine. “Southview has wanted the championship for longer than I’ve been alive,” he said. “Yet we’ve come up short every time.
But not this year. This is our fucking year, boys. We’ve put in the work and done the time, and you arethe personnel to make it happen. So let’s nish our business, okay? Let’s show up tomorrow, punch our ticket to the X, and get this history-making started.”
I had literal chills as he wrapped it up, because somehow this meant everything to every soul in that house. In that town. They had the chance to change history, to get the trophy that would match the pride of that massive wall mural, and it felt huge.
“You look so righthere,” my mom said when we pulled into my grandpa’s driveway afterward. “I know I’ve been driving you crazy, pushing everything, but it’s only because I want your face to look like it did tonight.”
She sounded like she might cry, in a good way, which made my throat a little
tight too.
She said, “I know I’m annoying—”
“You’re not,” I interrupted.
“No, I am about this,” she admitted as she put the car in park. “But I want you to have friends who care about you. Friends who yell when you walk into the room and are sad when it’s time for you to leave. You’re only seventeen, so I don’t really care about your love life, but if you’re going to date, I want it to be someone like Alec, who looks at you like he knows how lucky he is.”
I looked at my grandpa’s house through the windshield as her words warmed me.
I wish that were true.
When we walked through the kitchen door, Grandpa Mick was running the blender.
“It’s about time,” he said, giving us a weird look over his shoulder. His eyes were kind of twinkling, like he was up to something.
“Were we supposed to be home earlier, Dad?” my mom asked, giving me side- eye like What the hell is wrong with your grandpa? “Did I have a curfew I didn’t know about?”
“Shut up and sit down, wiseass,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“All right,” I said, dropping my backpack on the oor and sitting beside my mom at the table. “Is this like a family meeting or something?”
“Okay, don’t ruin my moment of wonderfulness by being a little shit, Dani,” he said with dancing eyes.
“Your constant ability to notcensor yourself in front of your granddaughter is always astounding to me,” my mom said.
“I didn’t censor myself around you, and you turned out okay,” he said.
“You didn’t always think that,” my mom replied.
“Yeah, so maybe I’ve come around,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe now I
think you turned out a little okay.”
“Gushing praise.”
“This lovefest is disgusting,” I said.
“So what are we waiting for here, Pop?” my mom asked, trying her best to sound like a smart-ass, but her entire face was just happy.
“Milkshakes.” My grandpa turned o the blender, and I wanted to cry.
Milkshakes.
He was giving me a full-on, ear-to-ear Grandpa Mick smile, the smile that had been mine every summer when we visited him.
The smile he’d always saved for his Danigirl.
His Danigirl who’d been obsessed with his chocolate milkshakes.
“You made milkshakes?” I very nearly yelled, out-of-my-mind excited about this throwback surprise. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“No, I’m not kidding. You’ve got a game tomorrow, so I thought we should celebrate.”
“You do know I’m just a manager, right?” I asked.
“I do, but the manager is very important. So important that I made milkshakes and bought you a present.”
“You bought me a present?” I pretty much didscream that time.
“Here,” he said, grabbing a box and tossing it onto the table in front of me.
“Open it.”
“Really?” It was a medium-sized brown box, the same kind of box that usually delivered something boring like a refrigerator lter or a carbon monoxide detector.
I opened the box and pulled out what appeared to be a burgundy article of clothing. But when I lifted it up, it was a Southview hockey jersey.
“It’s stupid that you didn’t have one before now, so I had to make it right,”
Grandpa Mick said.
I was speechless for a moment as I caught the emotion in my grandpa’s expression, like he was nervous.
“I love it so much,” I said, my chest full and warm as I looked down at the heavy fabric, because it occurred to me that Southview kind of felt a little bit like home.
No, no—that wasn’t right. “Home” was too strong a word.
It was more that I felt at home in Southview.
That Packers bull on the front made me think about my school and the fake friends I had there, fake friends that felt a lot like actual friends. It was stupid, the feeling in my chest as I looked at the jersey, but I hadn’t felt at homeanywhere in a very long time.
“Now look at the back,” my grandpa said excitedly, and it was obvious he was more in love with this gift than even I was.
My throat was so tight as I looked at Grandpa Mick’s stupid grin.
I ipped over the jersey, only to discover that the back was customized.
It had Grandpa Mick’s number—nine—stitched on the back, and my last
name.
Next to his last name.
BOCHE COLLINS.
He still hadn’t apologized for what happened after my grandma’s funeral, but when I wrapped my arms around him and he hugged me as tightly as he ever had, I knew we’d nally moved on.
It took me hours to fall asleep that night because my brain was so muddled.
It rotated between happiness from the moment with my grandpa, confusion because my friends and Alec also made me happy and I’d never expected that, and terror as I realized that in less than twenty-four hours, the section nal would already be over.
I prayed like a monk as I lay there in the dark, praying for hockey players who wanted to win their future, grumpy old guys who I loved with my whole heart, and messed-up shoulders that made strong boys weak.
Please, God.
