Page 14

Chapter 14

Nat

Everton’s only been with the team two seasons, but his parties have become the stuff of legend. Lots of people, lots of booze, a lot of other drugs. Dancing, cards, drinking games, sex. Once, that would have been a typical night for me.

That all changed a long time ago. Now, nights out—aside from the occasional drink at Michelangelo’s or an Ice Out—are few and far between.

But when Charlie begs . . . Syd’s over at Maggie’s for the night, and I haven’t been to one of these parties in ages. Plus, the Dingoes lost, my job’s looking less certain than ever, and a major life decision hovers over my head like a black cloud.

So maybe, just for tonight, I’ll take a leaf out of the old Nat’s book and have a drink.

Or not, because from the moment I arrive I feel . . . out of place. Too old or too quiet or too straitlaced, none of which were ever my style.

The old Nat was a no-forethought, no-regrets, bottoms-up kind of guy.

It’s been so long since I’ve been him, I don’t know if I remember how. So when Dev invites me over to a flip-cup game, I force myself to accept.

Syd’s all right , I remind myself as I fill a red plastic cup with crappy beer. Not that I don’t trust her alone, but what kind of parent would I be if I left her to go party—shit. I need to stop trying to justify being here.

It’s like Charlie said. It’s okay to have a night out every once in a while.

I’ve overfilled my cup. Shit, I am out of practice. Probably going to be shitfaced after a couple of rounds; the old Nat would be so ashamed.

I set my cup down on the table, my body strangely tense, almost nervous. Someone slides up to the table across from me, and my gaze lifts like it's magnetically pulled.

I recognize the elegant brown fingers curled around the red plastic cup. Recognize the lean, corded forearms, the way the T-shirt hugs his slender waist and wide athletic shoulders, rounded deltoids.

I catch the soft scent of strawberries.

Olli James—the man who’s come to save the team, and maybe my future. The boy I kissed outside that bar, the one I should walk away from. But instead, I sat down next to him to watch a hockey game, and wound up watching very little of the game.

The boy whose poetry still echoes through my mind.

My delicate ghost, the one I should forget and can’t, won’t, even when my thoughts lead me far too astray.

Is my heart beating faster than usual?

He catches me looking, and his brown eyes sparkle as he flashes me a grin. “Going down, Taylor.”

“Sure.” My voice comes out in a dry croak. “We’ll see about that.”

The table explodes into action, and life whittles down to this game. We shout and cheer and boo and slosh beer. The girl beside me jumps up and down when it’s my turn to drink. And across the table, Olli grins as he sets his cup down the instant before I do.

Damn me for overfilling my cup.

Naturally, he flips his cup up and over in a neat flick of his wrist, and I’ve set my team up to trail.

We lose.

Olli grins even wider .

I agree to another round, because how can I resist with him smirking at me like that?

We lose again. Olli keeps smiling. I agree to another. Another. I get caught up in the excitement, or maybe it’s Olli’s sparkling eyes that catch me, inviting me to relax into the gentle hum of the booze, a music all its own.

The night flies, or time simply ceases to exist.

By the time the flip-cup game dissolves, the party has doubled in size, making conversation all but impossible. Music throbs from the open living room, where a few dozen people cram into the back corner, singing and dancing and jumping and shouting in a cacophony of noise and motion.

There was a time I’d have joined them, if only for the purpose of finding a willing partner for the night. But that was years ago.

Tonight . . .

My eyes land on Olli again, as he slides away from the table. A girl I don’t recognize nudges up beside him to murmur something against his ear. His grin widens, and something flares deep inside my gut, something out of place, something I shouldn’t be able to identify as jealousy.

I jerk away from the table.

Elbows stutter against me as I edge towards the wall. I should try to find Holls, see if we can’t dominate the beer pong table like the good old days, but I don’t see him anywhere.

Fuck, it’s been so long since I’ve been to a party, I have no idea what to do. It’s stifling, chaotic. Like instead of escaping my demons, I’m inviting them to come roost.

I really don’t belong here, haven’t belonged here for probably a decade. A younger version of myself, a version that was a worse father, would have found more booze, more drugs, to wash away the guilt.

But I’m not that man anymore. Don’t want to be.

I should leave.

With new determination, I press towards the kitchen and the door—

“Nathaniel!” Charlie bellows across a sea of people, and my heart plummets to my shoes. He’s wedged up against the island, surrounded by pretty girls who don’t realize he’s both gay and taken.

“Charlie, I was just—”

“You need a drink!” He holds out a bottle of vodka, and his mouth slides into a lazy grin. He’s high as fuck. I don’t need to know him as my best friend to know that much. “Nattie. Girls, this is Nat. Taylor. He’s . . . a man with secrets.”

“Hey.” I offer a tight smile, strangely disinterested in more than a cursory glance at each. Why . . . Four pretty girls are smiling at me, why do I not care? And why, like I’ve lost control of my own senses, do my eyes lift past the girls, past the crowd, to the tall athletic man leaning in the doorway.

He’s smiling at the good-looking young guy beside him.

Another unpleasant feeling uncoils in my gut, and this I definitely identify as jealousy. Odd, because I’ve never been jealous over a girl or a partner this way—

My heart’s beating far too fast.

Shit.

I lift Charlie’s bottle, like drinking straight vodka isn’t an occupation I buried in the past a good ten years ago, and gulp. For an instant, I’m the old Nat, celebrating another day that the ice and the cold and the dark haven’t claimed me.

“Taylor!” A hand claps down on my shoulder, and I spin to face the new arrival. Devereaux.

“Dev?” Shit, the vodka’s already making my head buzz.

“Nat!” he hollers over the cacophony of music and voices. I feel like I’ve been pulled from a dream and plunked down in the middle of a hot, wet washing machine spin cycle.

His hand stays on my shoulder, hot and steadying, as he leans in to yell in my ear. “You gotta come . . . I think you know this kid?”

The words are like a bolt of lightning through my every sense, every nerve. There are only two kids he could possibly be talking about—Avery or Syd. The idea of the latter being involved with this party slams sobriety over me like a bucket of icy water.

“What kid?” I shout over the music and voices. The buzz of booze wars against my control. My mind yearns to float off to distant places where I can’t grab it back. “Where?”

I don’t know if he hears me or simply reads the worry etched across my face; it digs its way into my gut in sharp claws of panic.

“Over here.”

“Here?” Any traces of inebriation vanish into the ether as those words hit home.

Dev’s already walking, and I hurry to catch up. He parts the crowd with his broad shoulders, leaving me a wide wake through the kitchen.

Avery Bennett stands in the middle of said kitchen, hips leaning back against the stove. He grins at a woman beside him who I’m sure doesn't realize he’s eighteen.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter. My heart’s racing. I’ve got one eye on him and one roving the crowd like I might actually spot a five-two female. “Avery. The hell’re you doing here?”

His gaze snaps to me, and the girl turns too. Both of their eyes round with surprise, but Avery never loses his smile. “Hey, Nat.”

“Is Syd here?” I turn to the girl at Avery’s side, and I must be glaring because her brows shoot up defensively. “He’s eighteen, and he has a girlfriend.”

She backs away real fucking fast.

“We weren’t doing anything!” Avery whines, which just tells me he was probably buying something from her. “I’m just trying to have some fun—”

“Where’s Syd?” I curl my fingers around his shoulder to pull him from the stove. He sways, stumbles, so I wind my arm around him to keep him up. “Tell me she’s not here.”

Avery giggles, which is not a good sign.

At that moment, a five-foot-two black-haired green-eyed girl pops through the crowd, and my heart plummets to the floor .

“Av—” She freezes solid when she sees who’s holding her extremely intoxicated boyfriend upright.

I force a smile. “Hey, Syd.”

“Um.” Her face pales, and her hands swipe down the thighs of her jeans, like she’s wiping sweat from suddenly clammy palms. “Hi . . . um, Dad.”

“Shit.” Half draped over my shoulders, Avery giggles again. “This is awkward.”

“Have you been drinking too?” I demand, my eyes never leaving my daughter. “Jesus, do you have any idea the kind of fucked-up shit people do at these parties?”

“How else’m I s’posed to find out?” Avery mutters. Syd, to her credit, doesn’t appear to be stumbling or swaying. She curls into Avery’s other side.

“Christ.” I nudge through the throngs of people, headed towards the door. I have no idea what my plan is. “I can’t drive you home. I’ve been drinking.”

“Then let me stay.”

“No. Fuck.” I bite down a groan, my head spinning too fast because I’m fighting hard for sobriety. Critical thinking isn’t a drunkard’s strong suit, is it? “I’ll have to call Brenda.”

“No.” Avery groans, and then promptly adds. “I’m gonna puke.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Our meander across the kitchen turns suddenly frantic as I hurtle towards the door, my arm still wrapped around his shoulders to drag him with me. On his other side, Syd stumbles after us.

He’s swaying, barely keeping his feet, but we make it.

I shove through the front door, and Avery goes to his knees on the edge of the wide front porch to upend his stomach in the snow. Syd kneels beside him, rubbing his shoulder.

I pace back and forth, hands clasped over my backwards cap, while I think about what the fuck I’m supposed to do. We can't take a cab with him puking like this .

“How did you get here, Av?” I murmur, my voice barely audible over the sound of his violent upheaval. “Syd, how’d he get here?”

“People . . . told me . . . fuck, this sucks.” He sits back on his ass, propping his shoulders against the side of the house. “Just trying to make friends.”

I groan, tilt my head up towards the sky. My breath clouds in the frigid air, blurring the splattering of stars overhead. “Syd?”

“Uber,” sighs Syd, still crouched at Avery’s side. “I don’t know who told him about the party, though.”

“I’m calling Brenda,” I say. “We need to get you home.”

“Please don’t.” He’s back on his knees, bent over, heaving. “Don’t, please. She’ll tell Mary ’cause they’re like best friends . . .”

And Mary would tell his dad . . . Shit.

“I can drive.” A third voice behind me joins our conversation. Another set of shoes taps the wooden porch, and I turn, like the world’s been softened into slow motion, every action such deliberate precision.

Olli steps up beside me, his long, lean form throwing warmth against my side. His eyes find mine, his mouth tightened into a sympathetic smile. “I haven’t had a drink in a few hours.”

“What? Really?” My brain’s fuzzy—fuzzier than it was—like him stepping out onto this porch shorted out any connections I had to sobriety. I’m too buzzed to understand why.

“Yeah. I don’t drink much.” His eyes skim from my face to Avery, leaning back against the house again, and Syd beside him. What the hell must he be thinking, about me out here with two teenagers?

“You don’t?” Why has my vocabulary been relegated to such simple verbiage? Why does that knowledge, that morsel of him, stick to me, like I can’t quite absorb it but I know it’s important or interesting, know it’s something I’ll want to unpack later. “But . . .”

“We should get him moving while he’s not puking.” Olli starts across the porch to Avery’s side—the one Syd’s not on—leaving me standing alone, my mouth hanging open, as he crouches. “Hey, I’m Olli. ”

“Avery.” Avery tilts his head up towards Olli, but it’s Syd who makes the connection.

“Shit.” Her green eyes bulge with surprise. “Olli James?”

“You know me?” Olli asks, grunting as he shoulders Avery’s weight, trying to get him to his feet.

On his other side, Syd struggles too. “Yeah! I’m Sydney, by the way. Avery’s girlfriend.”

Those words, at least, jerk me back down to planet Earth . . . Girlfriend . But I choke down the groan. Instead, I nudge Syd out of the way and wedge myself beneath Avery’s arm, taking half the weight of his six-foot frame from Olli’s shoulders. Avery’s eighteen, but he’s well on his way to pro-athlete size.

“Shit, you’re Olli James .” Avery’s head rolls, like it’s too heavy for his neck to support, as we stand him upright. “I don’t wanna barf in your car.”

I really don’t want him to either.

“I have a bucket, actually,” Olli says as we shift down the first step, Avery staggering between us. “I have this paranoia about vomit . . . well, nobody needs to know the details or anything, but let’s just say nobody yaks in my car.”

“I will do my best,” Avery promises solemnly. “I have good aim.”

Trailing behind us, Syd giggles.

“Yeah, that’s not true,” I grunt as we ease him down another step. Would be so much easier if this whole fucking city wasn’t covered in an inch of ice like some kind of ice-age apocalypse. “But I’ll hold the bucket under your face, so it’ll be fine.”

“Perfect.” Olli’s shoes hit the paver bricks at the bottom of the porch, and our pace increases under the more solid ground. “Oh, also, you’ll have to decide if you wanna sit in the jump seats in the back or squish into the passenger seat. It’s an access cab.”

“Squish,” Avery groans, right before he doubles over. Luckily I recognize the warning and tug him away from Olli in time. We make it to the snow-covered flower beds before his stomach stages another violent protest. It reeks of straight booze.

“How the fuck much did you drink , kid?” I ask, pinching my nose. On Avery’s other side, Olli tips his head up towards the sky. Syd lingers behind us, staring at the toes of her pink Converse.

“Oh, like we’ve never been here before,” Olli says, still staring into the sky like the splatter of stars that pokes through the city smoke is terribly fascinating. “I know I have. You gotta live the mistake to learn from it, right?”

I grunt in reluctant admission. “Yeah, fine. I have. But it’s different—”

It’s different when it’s your kid , I don’t say. Because Avery isn’t my kid.

“I get it.” Olli slips back under Avery’s arm as Avery straightens. “I don’t have siblings, but I totally get not wanting to watch them live through our mistakes.”

I wince. He thinks Avery’s my brother, even though we look nothing alike. I guess we’re molded from such similar clay—such matching character archetypes—it’s natural to assume.

“Actually,” I say, and my breath catches as Olli turns. His eyes meet mine behind Avery’s tilted head. “Syd’s my daughter. Avery’s her boyfriend.”

His eyes pop in surprise, so wide that white shows all around the brown.

But he doesn’t stumble or falter or exclaim in shock. All he says is, “Truck’s right here.”

The silver Tacoma at the edge of the yard beeps as Olli unlocks it. Syd climbs wordlessly into the back, and Olli and I heave Avery into the passenger seat. I squish in beside him, and Olli hands me a bucket.

“I’m fine,” Avery insists, but I settle it on his lap anyway.

“Do you even know how to drive on this ice, Florida?” I ask as Olli puts the truck in gear.

“I’m Canadian.” His words are serious, but his mouth twitches with amusement .

“Oh.” Why the hell does that surprise me? I knew on some level that he wasn’t actually from Florida, right? That was his most recent team before this one. I knew that, right?

I guess I’d never thought about it. I’ve been too caught up in myself, in how his presence makes me feel, to wonder about the real him—the man beneath the pretty face.

“You’re gonna tell me which dangerously icy roads to take, though, right?” he asks, jerking me out of my thoughts. “Since I’m so bad at driving them.”

“Right. Yes. So, probably easiest to get on the highway from here. You know how?”

“Left?”

“Yeah. There.” I point towards the ramp, and in no time we’re zooming along a nearly abandoned stretch of darkened highway, heading into the city.

“Please don’t bring me home,” Avery groans, tilting his head back against the seat. “Mary will kill me. And then Dad will legitimately whoop my ass.”

I wince, because he probably does mean that. I don’t know Avery’s dad, but I’d bet there’s a reason Avery’s so much like me. My dad was an asshole too.

“We’ll go back to my house,” I reassure all the current occupants of the car. “Exit four.”

“Brenda is really the scary one, though,” Avery moans. “Because she’s nice.”

“My stepmother,” I inform Olli. “Syd’s step-grandma, Avery’s unofficial aunt-mother . . . We have sort of a wild family tree.”

“Like a venus fly trap,” Syd offers helpfully from the back seat. “Watch out or we’ll suck you in!”

“Thank you for that, Sydney,” I sigh.

“Ooh!” Syd chirps. “We’re like the Cullens! Picking up strays. Just, you know, without the fangs and animal blood and shit. ”

Behind the wheel, Olli’s laughing. “I can totally see Nat being like Carlisle. You know . . .”

Syd and Olli both dissolve into giggles, and I want so badly to be annoyed, but—“What the fuck’re you two talking about?”

More laughter. Avery groans. “Fuck Twilight.”

“So. Brenda.” Olli schools his features back to sobriety. “Super-stepmom?”

“Definitely,” I agree, though I’m still watching Syd smile. “She’s the reason I’m not more of a mess.”

“Amen,” mutters Syd, and I give her the finger.

“She’s a badass. And a hard-ass.”

“Fair.” Olli tosses a glance over his shoulder as he swings onto my exit. “My mom’s the opposite. Which is why I’m, well, you know.”

“My opposite.”

“Zactly.” He aims a finger gun across the center console towards me. “So Avery. You got a stepmom and a surrogate stepmom. So, basically two moms.”

“Twice as many judgy looks,” Avery sighs, and both Olli and I chuckle. “And verbal abuse.”

“Don’t listen to him,” I say, pointing at the windshield. “Left up here. He loves them both, and they love him. For some reason.”

“Says you,” Avery mumbles, so I pinch the back of his arm.

“That’s my house. You can pull into the driveway.” I pinch Avery’s arm again, a little softer this time. “You good, kid? No puking on the way out?”

“I don’t think there’s anything left,” Avery admits, which I’m sure will be a nice set of famous last words. But he follows me out of the truck and onto the driveway. I still curl my arm under his to ensure he stays on his feet.

Sydney climbs out after me, which means now I have to give her a very stern look . “He’s only here because he’s a fucking mess. You will go directly to your room. No passing go or collecting yogurt from the fridge. ”

“I can help—”

“Nope.” I point towards the townhouse. “You’re in. Avery’s my problem now.”

Syd grumbles something suspiciously sweary—I’ve never been one for filtering language, and it shows in my teenage daughter—but marches off through the cold.

And then I’m peering back into the truck at Olli. “So. Um. If you want to come in . . . I mean, Syd’s in her room, and Avery will be in the bathroom, but I have . . . It’s a big townhouse.”

Olli’s face softens, and I recognize the dismissal the moment before the words tumble out. “It’s okay. I was gonna leave anyway.”

“You were?” I ask, surprised. “Why?”

He ponders a moment, like he’s running through a list of excuses or reasons, but finally settles on what must be the truth. “’Cause parties burn my social battery out. I’m a wicked introvert.”

“An introvert?” My brows lift in quiet surprise. “Really? But you’re so . . .”

“Bubbly?” He grins, as if in demonstration. He does smile a lot. “I’m sort of an outgoing introvert. With ADHD. So I like to talk and laugh and expend a whole bunch of energy, and then I go crash in a heap in front of the TV to recharge for a bit.”

“So.” I lift a brow, teasing. “You’re ditching the party for Netflix and chill . . . with yourself?”

“I’m gonna just assume your mind was not in the gutter on that one”—his grin widens impossibly when I wince—“and assure you that I am actually just going to bed. I’m tired. All the, you know . . . bubbling around.”

Am I blushing? My cheeks feel strangely warm. “Fair enough.”

“So thank you for the offer.” He flaps a hand to shoo me away from the truck. “But, go. Take care of your kids, and sleep off the hangover. I’ll see you Monday.”