Page 30 of Fake Skating

I cleared my throat and forced myself back to the present, because revisiting all the crap never helped anything.

It was a good reminder, though, that all these people I was suddenly spending time with were wrapped up in our fake arrangement and not real at all.

And right on cue, I heard Alec’s voice. “You ready to go, Collins?”

Right. Relationships hurt, and I wasn’t about to let Alec—and the toe-curling smile that dared me to answer—make me forget that.

“Sure.”

Alec pulled up in front of a cute yellow house and put the car in park. There were a lot of cars lined up on the street, so we definitely weren’t the first ones to arrive.

I took a deep breath through my nose, wishing I’d just said no to this. I was new enough that no one would’ve missed me.

“So what do I need to know about this dinner?” I asked, my stomach filled with butterflies at the thought of walking into a house full of people I didn’t know.

“You eat,” he said, shrugging. “That’s it.”

“Wow, you’ve really illuminated what I can expect from this experience, thank you.” I pushed open the car door and stepped out, wondering if I’d ever stop gasping at the wicked snap of the cold on my skin.

And it was snowing hard now, big, fat flakes that slapped you in the face.

“It’s just something the parents do to make sure we have a good meal the night before a game,” he said as we both walked toward the driveway. “Nothing to overthink.”

He didn’t know that was all I did.

Overthink.

“I feel like my sandwich might’ve ruined other meals for you, though,” I said, filling the quiet of the night with rambling to cover my nerves.

“For the record, today’s sandwich was actually not bad,” he lied. I was sure of it.

When we got to the front door, Alec didn’t knock or ring the doorbell—he just walked in.

I followed, having zero idea what to expect as we stepped inside.

Ahhhh, warmth.

“Alec!” A woman, presumably Vinny’s mom, looked over from where she was standing in front of the sink and smiled before she set down the towel she was holding and came over.

She was wearing jeans and a Packers crewneck, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she smiled like she loved us.

“The guys—and Cassie—are out in the garage already. You must be Dani.”

“Hi,” I said, nodding, a little surprised she knew of me when I’d only just found out I was coming.

“Are you adjusting to the weather yet?” she asked. “Big John said you’re not a fan.”

She knows Big John and they’ve discussed me?

I was so confused by this place. Why in God’s name would I ever come up in conversation?

“I mean, it’s brutal, right?” I said. “It’s snowed every day since we moved here.”

“Believe it or not, you’ll adjust,” she said warmly, like she really wished the best for me. “So what do you think of hockey so far?”

“She thinks I look hot in my breezers,” Alec said with a grin, and then he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer. “Right?”

I rolled my eyes while every nerve ending in my body shorted out. I was impressed by how chill I sounded when I said, “No one has ever looked hotter in tiny padded pants.”

That made Vinny’s mom laugh, and before I had a second to say anything else, Alec’s hand slid down to mine and he was pulling me away from her and toward what looked to be the patio door.

Now he’s holding my hand in front of adults.

He’d held it at school, but this felt like more somehow.

Tighter. More physical.

I said, “Don’t you think this is a bit much—”

“Hard launch for the over-eighteen crowd, baby,” he said in my ear, his voice deep and quiet and for some reason making my heart beat just a little faster.

Probably just because he’d startled me.

But… baby .

“Oh,” I managed, looking at his face while my brain just kept repeating, He’s holding your hand like that he’s holding your hand like that Alec Barczewski is holding your hand.

Like that.

“Come on.” He opened the sliding glass door, then let go of my hand the minute we stepped outside in the cold, dark, snowy evening. The snow seemed to insulate the world, making it strangely quiet as he closed the door behind us.

It was freezing, so I cleared my throat and said, “Are we seriously going to eat in the garage? Won’t we freeze to death?”

“Oh, Dani,” he said, shaking his head like I was a ridiculous child. “It’s like you’ve never seen the inside of a Minnesotan garage before.”

I followed him through the backyard and out to the detached yellow garage that matched the house. When he pulled open the door that was right beside the two-car overhead door, I was shocked to feel warmth.

To see bright lights.

To hear noise.

We walked in, and the garage barely resembled a garage at all.

It had shiny floors and finished walls, so the space felt more like a basement rec room than a place to park cars. There were three TVs mounted on a wall covered with sports posters, and two refrigerators sat underneath them.

Neon beer signs hung on the other wall, above a line of tables that were set up as a slow cooker–rich buffet, and I half expected to see servers and bartenders milling about the place.

In the center, a bunch of rectangular multipurpose tables had been shoved together to form a supertable (with PACKERS HOCKEY tablecloths, of course), which was where the team appeared to be sitting.

Coach Osman was standing next to the refrigerators, talking to the other coaches and some guys who I assumed were team dads, and I felt like they were all looking at us as the door closed behind us.

Probably just paranoia.

“Danigirl!”

Big John stood on the other side of the garage with a couple of the guys I’d met at his house during dinner my first night in town.

Just seeing him made me feel a little more comfortable as I waved back.

I heard multiple people shout “Zeus!” but Alec was looking at me when he said, “Should we get some food?”

I nodded, eyeing the three different kinds of casseroles, four different types of pasta, three different sauces, and the two lasagnas displayed on the table.

Oh—and three kinds of bread.

These moms were not playing.

We filled our plates and sat down at a table beside Cassie just as Kyle said, “No, they’re my dad’s venison meatballs.”

Venison meatballs?

I didn’t say anything, but I must’ve made a face because Alec said, “I promise they’re good.”

I shrugged like I had no issues with Bambi meatballs because I knew it was technically the same, right? Cow or deer, either one had me eating an animal. “I’m sure they are.”

But something about the cuteness of deer messed with me for no good reason whatsoever.

“If they’re your dad’s,” Cassie said to Kyle, “then my dad helped.”

“True,” Richie agreed.

“They cook together?” I asked. “That’s really nice.”

“That’s not exactly it; it’s not that sweet,” Alec said, smirking.

“Yeah, no,” Cassie interrupted, shaking her head. “Our dads all have this little… shit, I don’t know what you’d even label it. Call chain, maybe…?”

“On-call group,” Kyle corrected, nodding.

“Yeah,” Alec agreed.

“During hunting season, if one of them bags a deer, they put it out on the group text so by the time they get home, each person in the group is already there and waiting to help break down the deer,” Cassie explained.

“Big John still tells the story,” Richie said, “of the time Cassie came out to where they were breaking down a deer, and peed her pants.”

“Shut up ,” she said, but she was laughing. “First of all, I was three. Second, no one warned me I’d be walking into a scene from a horror movie or I would’ve hit the bathroom first.”

“Mm-hmm,” Kyle said with a grin.

“Third,” she said, flipping him off, “Big John gave me twenty bucks to stop crying, so I think I was actually the winner.”

“Are you saying twenty bucks can erase childhood trauma?” Alec said.

“I’m saying twenty bucks bought two kick-ass Barbies.”

The four of them started laughing—I mean, I did too—but I felt a pang of envy in my stomach for what they had, what I would never have. There was this long-game history between all of them, a braided-together past that made them more like cousins than friends.

I wondered what that felt like.

Everyone smiling and reminiscing about the collections of stories they didn’t run out of telling—it was warmth and sunshine, and I was jealous.

Just as I was thinking that, the basket holding the plastic forks toppled over as Big John stumbled into the table, grasping his knee and grimacing in pain.

“Dad!” Alec jumped out of his chair and was at his dad’s side in an instant, joining another guy in helping Big John right himself. He hadn’t gone all the way down, but it’d been close. They each grabbed an arm, and my heart sank as Big John plastered a smile onto his face, dismissing their help.

“Damn leg keeps locking on me whenever I stand up. I’m fine,” he said, as if it happened all the time.”

Wait. Did this happen all the time?

“Give us the word and we’ll get one of the boys here to give you a piggyback ride,” Vinny’s mom said.

And she laughed.

And Big John laughed.

Everyone laughed.

Everyone except Alec.