CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Alec
“She doesn’t suck as much as I thought she would,” Kyle said from his spot beside me on the park bench.
“Must be Mick’s genes,” I said in agreement.
“I can hear you, y’know,” Dani yelled from where she was scrambling on the ice, and I fucking loved the attitude. She was giving my friends shit and laughing, looking cute as hell in one of Mick’s old jerseys as she tore around like the scrappy little shit that she was.
“If you can hear me, answer this, Collins,” I yelled. “Why do you keep slamming into the boards?”
Since the game started, she’d be running just ne and then, boom—she’d go full speed into the boards before turning and getting back to it.
“Because I fall down every time I try to switch directions,” she said, running and holding out her stick like it was a baton and she was in a relay race. “I think it must be my shoes. So it’s easier to just slam into the wall.”
“Did Mick teach you that?” Kyle asked, laughing.
“No, but I guarantee he’d appreciate it. He’s a ‘do whatever it takes’ kind of guy, and I would rather body-slam the wall than keep falling down.”
“I actually respect that,” Richie said.
“So do I,” agreed Kyle.
“Yeah, because I’m sure that’s her goal,” Cassie said as she smacked the puck.
“To gain your respect.”
“I think everyone who isn’t playing should just shut up,” Dani said, panting a little as she straightened and leveled a glare in our direction.
“Oooh,” Richie said, giving me a grin.
Dani had, for some reason, thought that wewere going to be playing.
But it was hockey season—no waywould we fuck around on the ice when the tournament was in play. Even if we were stupid enough to wantto, Coach would kill us.
Her team got their asses kicked, of course.
But I was impressed.
Dani went hard, even if she didn’t go pretty.
When she came o the ice, she was whining to Cassie about how sore her thighs were, holding one of Mick’s sticks (which we’d all freaked out about
when she showed up).
“Do you want me to carry you?” I asked.
Her gaze shot to mine, the tiny furrow between her brows letting me know I’d surprised her. She covered it by saying, “I’m still mad at you.”
“You can’t still be mad,” I said, distracted by the way her brown eyes looked when she teased me. “It was a misunderstanding. I never told you we’d be
playing.”
“It was implied.”
“Was not,” I said.
“Fine, you can carry me because my thighs are burning,” she replied, smiling in the relaxed way that was becoming more frequent, like she was nally feeling comfortable here. “But I reserve the right to still be pissed at you.”
“Good girl.” I turned and pointed my ass in her direction. “Get on.”
“Wait, no—your shoulder,” she said quickly, stopping herself. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.I straightened and turned around to see not only Dani looking at me with worry on her face, but the guys, too.
“What’s wrong with your shoulder?” Kyle asked.
“Zeus?” Richie looked over at me with raised eyebrows, waiting.
“He hurt it in a game,” Dani explained, “and it’s—”
“Fine,” I said, cutting her o and smiling. “It’s ne.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, looking at me like I’d lost my mind. “It’s killing him —”
“Honey,” I interrupted, very aware of the way the guys were looking at me, “I might’ve been a little dramatic about the shoulder.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
I could tell she wasn’t buying it but couldn’t gure out why I was being dishonest.
“You were being such a good nurse,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t be pissed at my lie. “I maybe leaned into it a bit.”
Richie started laughing, and I just shot her a look and said, “Get on.”
“Okay,” she said, handing me her stick while eyeing me suspiciously. “But
we’re going to talk about this later.”
And she jumped onto my back.
“Must we?” I asked, which made Richie laugh even harder.
“We must,” she said into my ear, and I swear to God she touched my earlobe with her lips on purpose, sending a shiver down my spine.
“Devil woman,” I said under my breath as I grabbed her legs, which made her giggle.
“Why are you keeping your shoulder injury a secret from your friends?” she asked as I carried her toward my car.
Don’t focus on the feel of her breath on your neck.
I tried, but it was impossible.
“I’m not,” I lied, trying to sound casual. “It’s just not that big of a deal.”
She lowered her voice. “You absolutely werekeeping it a secret. You lied like it’s not even an injury. Why can’t you tell them?”
Her lips are too close to my neck.
“It’s not that I can’t tell them; it’s—”
“So it’s ne if I talk about the way you can’t lift your arm over—”
“Please let this go,” I begged, glancing at her over my shoulder, glad the group had spread out during the trek to the parking lot. “Please?”
“Alec.” Her eyes moved over my face. “Of course I’ll keep your secret. But, like, you really can’t tell me?”
She said it like it hurt her feelings, and it reminded me so much of the old her that I lost my damn mind. I set her on the trunk of my car and told her the honest-to-God truth.
“I don’t want anyone to know about it, okay?” I said quietly, reaching out a hand to adjust her (my) hat. “It’s getting better—I can tell—but if scouts or
recruiters think I’m busted up, it could aect fucking everything.”
She blinked fast, kind of staring up at me like she was weighing my words.
“Everything,” I repeated, desperate for her to understand.
“Well, then,” she said quietly, “we’re going to have to get some more patches on the way home, aren’t we?”
I wanted to hug her, but I restrained myself.
“Fuckin’ A right we are.”
“No way.”
Richie looked down at my phone and started laughing as we walked around to the back of Bryce’s house. His dad was ice shing at Mille Lacs, so he was having a few people over. “I didn’t know Mick knew how to smile.”
The picture of Dani and Mick was so fucking funny that I couldn’t stop looking at it and showing it to everyone I knew, even a day later. Dani looked cute as hell, laughing in her fuzzy hat and long braids, and it felt like the perfect shot of the Dani I used to know.
“Normally I’d agree,” I said around a laugh, “but he’s dierent around her.”
We went in the back door and straight to the basement, because that was the only place we hung out when Bryce’s parents were gone. And holy shit—the party was in full swing already, looking like a fucking casino with all the card games going on down there. King’s Cup at the table by the laundry room, Fuck the Dealer (my favorite) at Bryce’s dad’s bar, and some variation of beer pong on the Ping-Pong table.
Everyone not engaged in a game was standing around, talking and watching the Minnesota Wild on TV. “Sleep When We’re Dead” was booming out of a speaker somewhere.
Richie grabbed beers for everyone but me, and I’d just taken a sip of my water when Kyle said, “Oh, it looks like Dani’s already here.”
“What?”
“Over there, with Lillie and Cassie.”
If we were in a movie, I would’ve done a spit take when I turned around. I followed his gaze over to the corner, and sure enough, there was my Dani,
smiling at something Lillie was saying while holding a red cup.
And she looked fucking hot that night.
Her long hair was down, her lips were red, and she was wearing a crop top under her annel shirt that exposed a few inches of bare skin between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her jeans, bare skin that my eyes didn’t want to look away from.
There was nothing wild about her clothes and she was barely wearing makeup, but to me, she looked insanely gorgeous.
Because Dani seemed to be coming alive, more and more every day. She laughed as Lillie spoke, and the sound of her laughter made my ngers ex. This hybrid version of Dani Collins—part who she used to be and part something new—was someone I wanted, God help me,someone I suddenly felt panicked for, like I needed to get to her immediately before someone else beat me to it.
I didn’t even realize I was walking in her direction until her eyes met mine, like I’d made it impossible for her not to see me because I was suddenly there, in front of her.
“Al!” she yelled, grinning at me and launching herself into my arms.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and said into her ear, “Are you drunk, Collins?”
She pulled back and gave me a irty grin. “Just because I’m happy to see you
doesn’t mean I’m drunk.”
“It usually does for me,” Richie said.
Richie, who I’d forgotten even existed.
“But I’m assuming you’ve never kissed him,” she said, smiling at my friend like she meant it as she pulled out of the hug. “That’s what bumps him from whatever to I am so happy to see you status.”
Wow, she was turning it all the way up.
My girl was denitely buzzed.
“Gross,” Richie said, but I could tell by the way he was looking at her that he was surprised she was being so outgoing. “I’ll just take your word for that.”
“By the way, I meant to tell you after the last game, Richie,” she said. “Great job. I saw you smacking that stick around lots of times, so… y’know… go, hockey.”
He shook his head, but he was laughing when he said, “I swear to God there must’ve been a mix-up in the hospital. Mick Fucking Boche’s ospring would never.”
“But she does… and she just did,” Dani said with a smirk. “And, oh yeah— nice apple.”
“What?” he said, looking at her like she was nuts.
“You had an assist,” she said. “Which in hockey is sometimes referred to as an apple.”
“Oh, we’ve got a hockey expert right here,” Richie said, fully laughing with her now.
“That’s right, Richard,” she teased, and something in my chest was warm as she messed with my best friends. I felt happy or proud or just relieved that she was nally being herself around them.
“Although you didn’t exactly look like an expert at the park today,” Vinny said as he joined the group. “How sore are you? Crashing into the boards so many times had to sting. You pretty bruised, Boche?”
I thought she might correct him on her last name, but instead she grinned like he’d complimented her and said, “Probably not as bruised as your ego after betting against me, Vincent the Flow.”
I lost it at that, reaching out to grab the back of her shirt and pull her a little closer as I laughed my ass o.
“Funny girl,” Vin muttered, shaking his head, but he was smiling.
“Did you tell Mick you scored?” I asked, lowering my head so she could hear me while trying not to breathe because her perfume always made me drunk.
“Did he lose his shit?”
“As much as my grandpa can lose his shit,” she said with a laugh. “I believe his response to ‘I scored a goal’ was ‘congratulations, but how many did you stop?’”
“Fair point, though,” I said. “Smart man.”
“Hey, c’mere,” Dani said, grabbing my sleeve. “Let’s take a sele.”
She stepped closer to me and held out her phone to take a picture. She was grinning as the phone captured us, her tucked in front of me with the party in our background.
“You know you can’t use this because of the beer,” I said, trying not to focus on the smell of her hair.
“Then I guess this one’s just for me,” she said, holding out the phone to show
me the photo.
I really fucking likedthat picture.
I liked us in that picture.
And I liked her, right now. Whatever distance had been between us since the mall seemed to have disappeared, and she looked downright irty at the moment. It was probably the result of whatever she had in her cup, but I wasn’t hating it.
“Are you having fun, Collins?” I asked, also liking the way she was still leaning back against me with her head under my chin.
“I am,” she said with a smile in her voice, and I swallowed hard when she
turned around to look up at me.
I am in too fucking deep.
“So Alec.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and nibbled on her bottom lip, like she didn’t know what to do with herself, before she came up with, “Do you want to go watch Dumb Drink Dares?”
“Sure,” I said, knowing it was fucking stupid the way I liked how nervous she looked. Because I felt the same way and had felt that way since she’d taken o my shirt in that bathroom at the mall. The memory of her soft ngers on my shoulders wouldn’t go away no matter what I did, and the crackling electricity that’d been there in that tiny room had stayed with us ever since we’d left.
And for the next hour, everything was pretty fucking perfect.
I sat on a chair, soberly judging Dumb Drink Dares, and she sat on my lap because there weren’t any other chairs. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take advantage of the opportunity, snaking an arm around her waist to pull her closer, anchoring her to me so her back was leaning against my chest.
She turned her head a little to look up at me. “You’re kind of handsy, Zeus.”
“Are you complaining?” I asked, wondering what she’d do if I kissed the side of her neck. I’d been obsessed with that particular spot since I’d been up close and personal with it in the locker room.
Her eyes roamed all over my face. “Nah, just stating a fact.”
“Fact noted,” I said with a wink, which made her laugh and pinch my thigh.
My heart might’ve stopped a couple times, but all was well.
But then her dad called.
She stared at the phone, biting her lip like she was nervous before she said, “I should probably just take this.”
“Now?” I asked, selshly not wanting her to get up.
“I mean, it’s like ve a.m. in Germany, and he’s… y’know…” she said,
shrugging.
“Your dad?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be right back.”
She took the call upstairs, but she was gone for a longtime. So long that I started to worry something was wrong.
But when I went up to check on her, she was o the phone and talking to Cassie and Lil in the empty kitchen.
I swear to God I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I was stunned into silence as soon as I stepped into the foyer.
“So I don’t know,” Dani said, sounding like she wanted to cry. “Like, I don’t want to move again, but maybe I should go, y’know?”
“No way,” Cassie said. “You can’t leave; it’s your senior year.”
“I mean, I probably won’t,” she said, “but there only a few months left and I just got here. A school’s a school at this point, right?”
I went back downstairs because I wasn’t some asshole who was going to creep in a corner, listening to conversations that weren’t meant for me. But I was confused as hell, wondering what her dad was up to now.
She might move again? Already?
I pretended to pay attention to the guys and the game, but every part of me was in a holding pattern as I waited for her. I needed to know what was going on.
How could he even consider doing this to her again?
She had to be freaking the fuck out.
But when she came back a few minutes later, she smiled like nothing had
happened.
And she lied to me.
“Everything okay with your dad?” I asked, wanting to ditch the party so we could gure everything out.
She nodded and rolled her eyes. “He needed my Social Security number for Air Force stu and couldn’t remember it.”
And…?
I waited, but she didn’t say anything else.
“That was it?” I asked. “At ve a.m.?”
She nodded again. “Typical Dad, too impatient to wait. So what’d I miss?”
You’re seriously not going to tell me?
“Vin did a back handspring and broke the card table,” I said, but my mind was running, because what the fuck?
She wasn’t going to tell me that she might be leaving?
I mean, she didn’t owe me shit, right? This was just a fake relationship, so she didn’t have to trust me with everything going on in her life. That was what people in actual relationships did, and I needed to get my head right.
She’d tell me if she wanted to tell me, and hopefully this was just the colonel being his normal asshole self.
It was ne that she was keeping it to herself.
But when I heard her talking to Cass and Lillie over by the keg a little later,I got a whole lot less understanding.
Because Lillie asked her about us, about the history of us.
“So you guys never dated or anything before now? It was strictly platonic?”
“Yes and no,” I heard her say, but I refused to look. “We were always just friends, but he was my rst kiss.”
I was a big fan of the way her voice sounded when she said that, like it’d meant something warm-and-fucking-fuzzy to her, because, well, hard same. I focused on the hockey game playing on the TV as intently as I could—quit eavesdropping, you pathetic fuck—but then I felt gut-punched when I heard her giggle and say the most fucking ridiculous thing I’d ever heard.
“But we’re together now, which is surreal because I thought I was still mad at him for what he did back in the day,” she said with a laugh. “But how can I hold a grudge when he looks so good in a hockey jersey?”
What?
What the fucking fuck?
She was still mad at me for what I did?
Was she serious right now?
What the hell did I do, exactly?
I wanted to confront her, to nally have that conversation, because we probably needed to discuss our “back in the day.”
But when I casually glanced her way a few minutes later, she gave me a conspiratorial grin and a motherfucking wink.
It was the smile of my partner in crime.
My fellow participant in the fake dating games.
She appeared to be having a blast, rewriting history while playing our game.
So fuck it, I thought.
Doesn’t matter.
She could rewrite history and keep secrets all she wanted.
Hell, she wasn’t my girlfriend, and I needed to remember that.
