CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Alec
I think I might have an ulcer.
I probably didn’t, but knowing how close we were to the game, my appetite was gone and my gut kind of burned all the time.
Section nals—one more fucking game—and we were going to the X.
No matter what I did, my brain couldn’t let it go.
First and foremost, of course, I was obsessed with winning because we were all obsessed with winning. This was our year and Southview was destined to bring home the trophy.
It was ours for the taking, as Coach Oz reminded us every day.
But I also couldn’t stop thinking about the rest.
Dani and I had been making strides with my reputation, but that wouldn’t even matter if my game wasn’t there. I knew scouts were going to be in the seats and writers were going to be in the box and my parents were going to be watching with their hearts in their throats, so I had to nd a way to come through for all of them when my shoulder was getting so bad that I was on a steady rotation of acetaminophen and ibuprofen, mixed in with a near-constant
dousing of Icy Hot.
But what if I didn’t come through?
How would my parents ever get out of debt if I didn’t get drafted?
I leaned into being Zeus and acting like I was unfazed (Dani called it my puckboy personality), but the truth was that I felt like a nervous kid, scared little Alec afraid to fuck up at sports.
My mom cooked my favorite dinner Thursday night—pepperoni casserole— and then my folks proceeded to be so fucking excited to talk about the game while I ate that I almost couldn’t breathe from the weight of it on my chest.
Two days away, holy shitballs.
Every hockey team in the state that was facing their section nals was losing
their shit right about now.
One more win until the X.
I was sick with want, I swear to God.
Elite play, elite hair, elite cellies—everything about the tournament was elite and everybody wanted to make it there. Add to that the lore of fucking Southview and I was this close to puking my guts out at any given moment.
“You okay, kid?” my dad asked, taking a break from his game talk to wolf down his dinner. “You’ve been quiet all week.”
“I was quiet all week,” Ashton said, mostly because she’d entered a phase where she just stole other people’s conversations, all the time. If you said you took a walk, Ashton took a walk. If you said you were tired, Ashton was tired.
Yesterday my dad said Ed had been busting his balls about selling one of his duck blinds, and she looked directly at me and said, “Ed has been busting my
balls.”
“Yeah, I’m ne,” I said. “Just tired.”
“Is it possible you’re taking this tooseriously?” my mom asked. “I love how competitive you are, Al, but you need to relax. You don’t want to psych yourself out.”
“I know,” I said, not wanting to take another bite of food.
“And the bottom line is it’s just a game, right?” My mom gave me the smile she’d always given me when she was trying to make me feel better about something, the same one she’d given me when she used to put Band-Aids on the scrapes I’d gotten from being klutzy as fuck.
“Just a game”?
I had to stop myself from laughing.
We all knew it wasn’t just a game.
Hockey was the game.
Especially in Minnesota, and especially in this household, where we were relying on hockey as a lifeline (though we’d never say it out loud).
Hell, I wished it were just a game.
But it wasn’t. That was the truth.
She said, “Of course you want to make it to the tournament, and you guys are good enough this year so you probably will, but the thing is—if you don’t,
your road isn’t ending, right?”
Right.
“Your high school career will end, sure, but this is only the beginning for you,” she reassured me. “So go hard, but remember that this game isn’t the end either way.”
I needed a lightning bolt to just come down through the roof and strike me down.
“You’ll be starting a whole new chapter,” she said.
My dad grinned and said, “God, what if one day you were in an Original Six
jersey…?”
“What?”
What the fuck is that, Dad?
That was an insane thing to say, especially out loud.
Expecting me to one day wear the sweater of one of the most legendary hockey franchises in, well, like, the history of hockey??
“I mean,” he said with a grin, grabbing the casserole and scooping out some more before setting the pan down, “I don’t want to jinx anything, but a man can
dream, right?”
Where the hell is that lightning bolt?
I didn’t get a lightning bolt, but the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” I said, nearly leaping out of my chair. “It’s probably Kyle.”
I had no reason whatsoever to think it was Kyle, but I needed to get out of there before I had a heart attack. Please be Kyle please be Kyle.
But when I opened the door, it was Dani, all bundled up in a scarf, hat and boots.
Every thought in my head immediately cleared.
“Hi,” she said with a shy smile.
“Hi, yourself,” I said, shocked as fuck to see her. “Can I help you?”
“Who is it—oh hey, Danigirl,” my dad said from behind me. “Come in before you freeze.”
“Actually,” she said, grinning like she always did at my dad, like she was genuinely happy to see him, “I was wondering if your son would want to go on a
walk with me.”
Wait, what?
“You walked over?” my dad asked. “Is your blood nally thickening?”
“No, I’ve got three pairs of socks under these boots and pants under my pants.”
My dad started laughing, and she gave me an eyebrow raise. “So? Do you want to take a walk or not?”
I was pretty sure I’d never wanted to do anything as much as I wanted to go for a walk with her at that moment. Not only was she rescuing me from that dinner conversation, but she looked cute as hell all bundled up.
And it’d been a long-ass time since I’d gone for a walk with Dani Collins.
Fuck, this is a terrible idea.
Because as much as I’d been denying it, things with Dani were starting to feel
way too fucking real.
They had been for a while now.
Whether I liked it or not.
That didn’t mean I had any clue what I wanted or what the hell to do with the realization, but it was suddenly my reality.
“Count me in,” I said, slipping on my shoes and grabbing my coat.
As soon as I stepped out on the porch and shut the door behind me, I asked,
“Where do you want to go?”
“Maybe the old route…?”
When she used to stay with us in the summer, we walked the “old route” so many times, just wandering around away from our parents, talking about nothing and everything. We always walked to the end of the block, took a left into the loop by the elementary school, then went the long way by the big park before coming back.
“That works for me,” I said. “But stick to the grass for traction.”
It was a cold night, but not as bad as it’d been for the past couple weeks.
She might not freeze to death.
“So what is up?” I asked, pulling my gloves out of my pockets and putting them on. “As much as I’d like to think you couldn’t live without seeing me tonight, something tells me there’s more to it than that.”
“Wow, you’re so intuitive,” she said, bumping her shoulder against mine.
It was a buddy move, something that was so fucking nothing, yet the way she was always leaning into me just did something to my insides.
Because she didn’t do it to anyone else.
I knew because I watched her way too fucking much.
“I know I am,” I said.
“I actually wanted to swing by because you’ve seemed very stressed the past few days,” she said, pulling her hat (my hat) down a little, “And I don’t like it when you’re stressed.”
“You don’t?” She doesn’t like when I’m stressed.“What is this, like, you worrying about my soft little squishy former self or some bullshit like that?”
“Sort of,” she said around a laugh. “I mean, you’re kind of the same person.”
“Asshole,” I said, bumping hershoulder with mine. “Calling me soft and
squishy.”
“Missing the point, Barczewski.”
“No, I’m not, Collins,” I said. “And I’m ne. My mind is just on the game.”
And on you and what you said at the party and that I’m starting to want to spend every second of the day with you but I can’t because what the hell is going to happen in the future and I don’t even know if you like me and what the fuck what the fuck?
“I get that,” she said, shoving her hands into her coat pockets. “But, like… that’s it? Every time I look at you this week, it’s like the weight of the world is sitting on your shoulders. Am I wrong?”
I looked at the quiet street in front of me, urries falling, and I wished I could tell her she was wrong, that I was handling it all.
I glanced over, and it must have been the way she was looking at me, that old familiar expression, because I heard myself say, “I’m just really feeling the pressure this week.”
Instead of looking at me like that was shocking information, she kept her eyes on the path in front of her and asked, “The pressure to make sure the team
wins?”
If it were anyone else, I don’t know that I would’ve been able to say it out loud.
Explaining it to someone who wasn’t me would be impossible.
But as I looked at Dani, I heard myself say, “The pressure to be Zeus.”
Her eyebrows screwed together and she did look at me then. “Explain.”
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look at her, especially when she looked at me like that, and tell her all my insecurities. I couldn’t.
But then she slid her ngers between mine, linking our gloved hands as she patiently looked at me like she had all the time in the world to wait for me to
muster the courage to say it.
So I did.
“I love the game, but there are so many people counting on me that I’m scared—all the fucking time—of letting them down,” I said, and once I started talking, it was like I couldn’t stop. “And, like, they’ve never said it directly, but my parents need me to go to the NHL so fucking badly. They still owe a fortune to the hospital for all the surgeries and rehab, so if I don’t make it big, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel for them. It’s going to be all foreclosures and bad shit.”
The words came out of me as we walked down the block, they kept coming when we turned the corner, and I was still talking when we turned around by the elementary school. It was like the freedom to actually say out loud what’d been in my head for months now was fucking intoxicating.
“I hate that so many people are counting on me to x everything, because what if I don’t?”
She didn’t say anything for a minute after I stopped ranting. She just walked beside me with the snow softly falling, and I wanted to le this image away
because it felt important.
So very, very us.
It was the winter version of what we’d done so many summer evenings, walking around and talking.
“You have to know your parents will be ne, right? I mean, they love you and want you to be happy,” she said. “I don’t think you have to win a state hockey
championship and go to the NHL in order for them to survive.”
“Dani, they have spent half their lives—and their income—supporting me.
Now they’ve been dealt this shitty hand where my dad can’t really work even though he wants to, and the twins want to play hockey, which costs a fortune, and, like, I need to deliver this for them.”
“I know,” she said with a soft smile. “And you will—I can feel it. But if you don’t, everything is going to be okay. It will.”
“How do you know that, though?”
“I don’t,” she said with a shrug. “But I do.”
“Genius,” I said with a laugh, teasingly squeezing her ngers a little too hard.
“That’s really fucking genius, Collins. You don’t but you do; that is a brilliant Harvard mind right there.”
“Kiss my ass,” she giggled, hard squeezing back.
“The perfect ass I’m not allowed to talk about?”
The giggles slid into laughter. “Kiss my ass, Vinny’s ass, Oz’s ass—just kiss an ass, Barczewski.”
“Did you seriously come over here just to take me on a walk?” I asked as I noticed we were back on my street.
She shrugged. “It always worked when we were kids. It felt like we could talk about anything when we were doing this route.”
“You’re very wise,” I said, swinging my left arm wide and hard to shoot her body a little forward, ahead of me, the way I always used to when we walked.
“A brilliant Harvard mind right here,” she laughed, stumbling and squeezing my hand, jerking her right arm to bring me right back up with her.
Only she slipped on the dusting of snow, losing her feet entirely. She let out a squeal as she went down, landing on her ass in the snow, and I would’ve laughed at her but she pulled me down with her.
“Shit!” I managed as I landed right beside her (half on top of her), and I laughed while she cackled.
Thank God we had so much snow that it didn’t hurt.
“You okay?” I said, pushing myself up on my arms, leaning over her. “Dani?”
She nodded, laughing as she propped herself up on her elbows. Her eyes were crinkled as she grinned and said, “That was very on-brand for the old Dani and
Alec.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” I said, looking down at the face that was justunderneath mine, upturned almost as if waiting for me.
The world went still, so quiet that all I could hear amid the dark and snowy night was my own heartbeat.
All I could see were brown eyes, staring up at me.
All I could want were those shiny lips, turned up in an amused pout, her soft breath so fucking close it gave me goose bumps.
I watched her eyes slide over my face, searching, questioning, and I no longer gave a shit about anything other than this moment. I didn’t care about the past or the future, because nothing mattered but the present.
Her.
This.
Fucking us.
I lowered my head and took her mouth, needy. Greedy.I didn’t give a shit about what was fake and what wasn’t, because it was all real to me. This wasn’t part of a game, and it wasn’t for anyone watching.
No, this kiss was ours.
She sucked in a shaky breath, like she was about to dive in, and that sound was the ash point. It felt like something detonated, like the wick that’d been lit a long time ago had nally sizzled up and blown my fucking head o.
“Fuck, Collins,” I said against her lips, but how could I not curse her when she was so fucking perfect?
She angled her head, my genius, drawing me in deeper, and I was instantly lost in her sweet mouth. My hands found her waist—hate gloves, want skin— while I attempted to consume her. Gluttony wasn’t my goal, but once I had a taste of her kiss, I couldn’t get enough.
More more more more.
Dear God, the way I want her.
Her lips, her tongue, and her apple juice smell were my world as I threw every molecule of my being into the kiss. Not because I was trying to prove something, but because I’d never wanted anything in my life the way I wanted her mouth at that moment.
Give me everything, honey, please, God.
I chased her tongue, nibbled on her lips, fucking ateat her mouth because I just needed more. I felt insatiable, ravenous, feral as she kissed me back, like I’d do anything not to have to stop kissing her.
Because Dani kissed me back like she felt the same.
Her gloved hands weren’t just resting on my face; no, they were purposeful, holding me in place so she could kiss the ever-loving shit out of me, praise Jesus.
“Alec,” she whispered, still kissing me.
“Hmmm.”
“Porch light,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Hmmm?”
“Alec,” she said with a giggle, pulling back. “This house just turned on the porch light.”
I opened my eyes, and the sight of her drowsy grin made me smile. “So?”
“So your neighbor is essentially turning the hose on us,” she said, still giggling as she removed her hands from my face. “We have to go.”
“But I don’t want to,” I admitted, because I was scared that if we moved, we’d never come back to this place again.
“Come on.” Dani scooched away from me, climbed to her feet, then held out her hand. “Let’s go, Barczewski.”
I let her pull me up and lead me over to my door, but I realized when she left me on the porch that I still knew nothing. I watched her walk away under the streetlights, looking like everything I’d ever wanted, but I had no idea what the kiss meant—if anything—or where in God’s name this left us.
