Page 5

Astrid

“Admit it!”

“Okay!” I laugh, settling my soda against my stomach. Sloane and I are in the middle of her pool, floating. My floatie is a donut, hers a unicorn. “This is actually nice.”

Between Callum’s money from the Frost and Sloane’s media business, Slap Shot, the two of them have managed to get a nice house in a beautiful neighborhood. When you walk into Sloane’s backyard, the first thing you see is the huge, glittering pool, fun floaties drifting on the water. To the left is a fire pit surrounded by chairs, and under the upstairs deck is a shaded seating area with a grill and several electric coolers.

“See!” She flips a bit of water toward me, and I shield my can from the spray. “Milwaukee is perfect !”

“Okay, I wouldn’t go that far—”

“But you said you heard from so many people at the career fair. And look at this weather, Astrid!”

I close my eyes against the sun. “You know I came here from California, right?”

With my eyes shut, I can’t see her, but I can practically feel Sloane rolling her eyes at me.

“Yes, I also lived in California. Which is why I can tell you that Milwaukee is, without a doubt, better than Los Angeles.”

“That is a very bold statement, McKenzie.”

“That’s Hendricks , to you.”

“I still can’t believe you changed your last name.”

“Luca hates it. Anyway—back to the subject. In Milwaukee, you won’t have to worry about accidentally dating actresses, or actors, for that matter.”

For some reason, the first person I think of dating in Milwaukee is Grayson O’Connor. My stomach tightens and I push the idea from my head—there are very good reasons I’m not going down that road.

Sloane holds her hand up, knocking a finger with each thing she says. “We have a haunted speakeasy. Milwaukee has the oldest bowling alley in the country— also the largest Irish fest in the world .”

“Try telling that to Ireland.”

“It’s true. Don’t knock me off my groove here.”

“Are you just listing fun facts you found on the internet?”

“ My groove, Astrid. We have Sprecher, a bird-friendly music venue, a clock bigger than Big Ben!”

“I hate to break your heart, Hendricks , but you’re not really listing things I care about here.”

“When did you stop caring about birds?” Sloane sits up so fast she nearly topples herself over on her floaty, face serious like I’ve just laid out a plan to take out the entire fowl population. “Besides, I didn’t tell you the most important thing.”

“What’s that?’

“Me. Your best friend. And I know you hate Los Angeles. Just like I did.”

“You only hated it there because your boyfriend was a tool.”

“Yes, Drew was a tool. But no, that’s not all. It was too big, and so much traffic, and Milwaukee just has so much more charm.”

“Hmm.” I took another sip of my soda. I spent a lot of time in L.A., and probably didn’t explore the city as much as I should have. But Sloane is right. Milwaukee has charm—the old buildings, the plucky attitudes. A certain type of Midwest nice that the West Coast severely lacks.

“I can feel it in my bones ,” Sloane says, leaning back in her floaty and smiling at the sky. “You’re gonna move here, and we’re going to float in the pool every weekend.”

“You know, except for when it’s buried in snow.”

“Then we’ll learn how to ski.”

I make a noncommittal sound, and Sloane loops her foot through my floaty, pulling me closer. Water laps against our floaties, and when it kisses my skin, it’s cool. The smell of chlorine and sunscreen is all around us.

“So,” she says, “tell me more about the career fair.”

The sun is warm against my face, glowing red through my eyelids. It’s a nice afternoon, and the sound of the breeze rustling through the lawn and leaves soothes me. I know Sloane is half-joking in her pressure to get me to move here, but I must admit, there’s something nice about it. About the idea of living close to her like this.

“Well, I’ve gotten a few offers from different places,” I tell her. “But they’d want me to finish the counselor certification. Which, as you know, I’m not stoked about.”

“Right—you want to do research.”

“There is one psychology research center that’s looking to take on a new research leader, but when I spoke to the director, she said they’re looking for a really good case study to bolster the applicant. To hire me, fund the research, they need something more than what I have.” Sloane makes a noise, but I go on, “There was one job I thought sounded interesting…”

Sloshing as she sits up again, she asks, “What’s that?”

“It’s temporary. Just until Christmas, working at a sort of community center. It’s a place where parents can bring their kids, lots of low-income patrons. People in the system. There are case workers in the space, and counselors, but that’s not what they want me for. They want me to help implement a new mental health education program for both kids and adults.”

“That sounds fun.”

“It sounds…interesting,” I relent. I’ve never really loved working directly with people, but putting together a mental health education program might be good for my resume. And I like the idea of doing something for the kids that need help, and might not be able to get it any other way.

And I’m not that excited about going home to an empty apartment or having to see Roman across the hall. That building is cursed now, anyway—I could let the lease run out, and when I come back to L.A., I’ll spend some time looking for a new one.

“Well,” Sloane says, propping her sunglasses in her hair and running her hand through the water. “Now that I’m team manager for the Frost, I’m trying to get them to invest in an on-staff mental health person. Maybe I could put you up for that?”

“Doesn’t that seem like nepotism?”

“You’re qualified.” Sloane smiles and drops her sunglasses down again. “And besides, it would be an important job. There’s this guy on the team—I guess his best friend died a few months ago? We had no idea. But apparently, he’s taking in these two little girls.”

“Taking in?”

“Like, his best friend died in a plane crash. Whole family was on that vacation, coming home in that plane, and he was listed as a godfather, so he can take them. But that’s a lot, you know? So, wouldn’t it be good to have someone on the staff who can be there for the guys to go to? I have this idea that if it was more like a trainer, and less of this stigmatized thing, that some of the older guys on the team might be more likely to take it seriously.”

“Who is it?”

“Who is who?” Sloane’s face is tipped up to the sky, golden hair trailing in the water.

“The player? Adopting the kids?”

“Oh.” Sloane takes a sip of her drink. “I think you danced with him at the wedding, actually. Grayson O’Connor? He’s the goalie. Nice guy, really quiet. Luca and Callum were telling me he’d been doing really well this summer for training and stuff. I hope this whole situation doesn’t mess with him too much.”

“Huh.”

Sloane keeps going, talking about all this money the Frost has, now that they’ve locked down a wealthy investor, and how that money would help her expand the positions and support for the players. But I’m only half paying attention. Because most of my focus is faced backward. Thinking about Grayson O’Connor at that wedding. How there was something different about him. How my gaze just kept snapping back to him wherever he was.

How I’d quickly picked up my things and darted out of the guest room at the moment he fell asleep, far too embarrassed to stay after what happened.

“Oh my god ,” Sloane says, breaking me out my memories. This time, she actually moves too quickly, and her soda sloshes into the pool. “What are you thinking about? What is that look on your face?”

She’s known me for over eight years. Of course she sees the look on my face, and of course she can read into it perfectly. I’m great at hiding from everyone else—Sloane, not so much.

“There’s no look,” I say, desperately trying to school my features. The way I change my expression might actually make me look more suspicious.

“No—oh my god, what is it? Did something happen while you were dancing with Grayson? At the wedding?”

I was there when Sloane switched her major to journalism, and I remember thinking that was the perfect choice for her. Now, leaning forward, looking at me, she has that hungry I-want-the-scoop look on her face.

After that night, I decided I’d keep this firmly to myself. Telling even Sloane felt grimy, like a kind of gossip I wasn’t interested in. Grayson was sweet and gentle. Kind and alluring. What happened may have been his fault, but it didn’t make him a bad person, and talking shit about him felt like a low blow.

I bring my drink to my mouth, giving myself more time to think. The straw makes a noisy sucking sound at the bottom of the nearly empty glass.

“Just tell me,” Sloane pleads, grabbing my floaty and pulling me toward her roughly so they bounce off one another, creating ripples in the water. “Please, Astrid, whatever it is—I swear I won’t tell a soul.”

I blink at her, raise my eyebrows, and she mimes zipping her lips—something so cartoonish that only Sloane could pull it off without looking ridiculous.

“Okay,” I sigh, letting out a long breath of air. “Nothing happened while we were dancing.”

“Then… oh my god , Astrid. No . Are you serious?”

Sloane lets out a string of long giggles, bouncing a bit, her golden curls jostling over her shoulders. It should be annoying, the fact that she still acts like this, even though we’re nearing thirty, but there’s something weirdly comforting about it, knowing Sloane is the same as she’s ever been.

“I…am. Serious.”

“When? Tell me all the details.”

“After your send-off, I went back to my room—”

“No, wait—I mean, like, I didn’t even see you interacting! It was just the dance, right?”

“I mean.” I clear my throat, looking up at the blue sky for help, realizing how weird this sounds. “It was like, there was some…connection between us. Like I couldn’t stop looking at him all night, and he couldn’t stop looking at me.”

“And when you went back to your room?”

“He was waiting for me.”

“Holy shit ,” Sloane says, fanning herself. “That’s hot . I didn’t know Grayson O’Connor had it in him!”

I flush and she stills, eyes moving over my expression like she can read something there.

“What? What is it? You got back to your room…?”

“I let him in.”

“You let him in.” Sloane circles her hand in the air as if to say get on with it .

“And we had sex,” I say, shrugging like it doesn’t matter and leaning back in my floaty. That is not even close to being enough for Sloane, who seems like she would happily watch while I did a charade performance of the night.

At the look she gives me, I say, “I wish you never lost your virginity. You were easier to handle back when you were all nervous about sex.”

She waves her hand, like she’s swatting the thought from the air. “That’s it? What about the details, Astrid?”

“Don’t you get enough of this with Callum?”

“Come on, you just said it yourself: I was a virgin before he and I got together.” She takes a loud sip of her soda. “I’m fine only having him, but I also think it’s fair to live vicariously through you.”

I bit my lip, mind racing through the actual experience, then dialing in on the moment he’d kissed my forehead so gently before tucking my body into his.

“Grayson’s a good guy,” I finally manage to get out. “But not…good at sex.”

Sloane sucks in a breath through her teeth, opens her mouth like she’s going to say something else—more than likely, ask for the minute details of what helped me to form that opinion. But at that moment, Callum and Luca come charging through the back door, talking a million miles per minute. Sloane fixes me with a look that says, we will finish this conversation later.