Page 52

Tobie

Hallie drops into the seat beside mine in the arena. “Caleb looks happy.”

I glance at her, then focus on the men on the ice. “He looks the same as he always does,” I deny.

“Oh, he’s definitely happy.”

I squint at him. “How can you tell?”

He’s serious and focused the way he always is on the ice. Not a hint of a smile to be found anywhere on his gruff exterior.

But he was smiling with me last night.

He laughed when he nearly fell out of my bed and took me with him. And later, after we made another floor bed, I discovered that beneath that serious disposition lies the heart of a serial spooner. And he didn’t just read each page Max helpfully tabbed. He memorized it.

“You’re grinning like an idiot,” Hallie tells me.

“I know.” I’m stupidly happy and can’t help it. “You know, I would have accepted your apology when you said it if you hadn’t rushed off,” I tell her, still watching the practice.

“You’re a better person than I am,” she says softly. “I can hold a grudge like no one’s business.” She bounces her shoulder against mine. “But thanks.”

I nod. “You were looking out for your brother, and…” I’m not sure what compels me to say, “It’s not real. You were right when you said I was a puck bunny. What we’re doing is just pretend.”

Maybe I’m hoping she will chase me from the arena with a hockey stick because I have tried to end things with Javier, Caleb, and Reid, and I couldn’t do it. I don’t want to. I have never been happier than when I’m with them. Even my dad has picked up on it.

“I know,” Hallie says.

I snap my head toward Hallie. “You know ?”

She smiles as she gets to her feet. “But I think you’re wrong. It looks pretty real to me. See.”

I turn back to the ice.

Caleb isn’t looking gruff or serious. His eyes are soft and warm, and they’re focused on me.

I have a feeling that if someone were to take a picture of me and show it to me, I’d be looking at him the same way.

Coach blows his whistle, and Caleb skates away, breaking eye contact.

I can’t help but notice that Reid is studying Caleb curiously. Javier’s expression is knowing. I haven’t told them about sleeping with Caleb. Since Caleb was nearly late getting to practice because neither of us wanted to get out of bed, it looks like they’ve worked it out.

I keep trying not to think about the future, but I can’t help it.

They’re heading into the NHL after graduation. I don’t know what team or even what city they will go to. If, by some miracle, I get into the grad school of my dreams, we could be on literally opposite sides of the country.

And then what?

How could we get things to work when we might not even be living in the same city?

My phone vibrates, and I answer it with a smile when I see who’s calling. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hey, Junebug. You still coming home for spring break?”

I’ve been Junebug since I tried to take a bite out of one of my dad’s records when I started teething. He’s loved the B-52s longer than I’ve been alive, and “Junebug” is one of his favorite songs.

“Sure thing. I’ll be on campus for the first couple of days, but I’m definitely coming home.” I need to speak to Javier about whatever it was he wanted me to stay on campus for.

To talk about our future?

“Is Marc staying with us or going to be with his family?”

My smile slips off my face.

I haven’t told him we broke up. I kept meaning to tell him, but it never seemed like the perfect time. And I know Dad. He loves me so much. If I told him on the phone, he’d get on the first plane to Pennsylvania and punch Marc in the face for hurting me.

“Junebug?”

I get to my feet.

Javier is frowning at me from the ice. For that matter, so is Reid. And Caleb has stopped listening to whatever his coach was telling him.

I grab my bag and try to give them a reassuring smile as I leave the arena. “It’s just going to be me, Dad,” I tell him as I walk out.

“Is everything okay?”

“Fine.” I smile as I lie. “We can talk when I get home.”

“Or I can get the first plane to Pennsylvania.”

“I’m fine, Dad, and you have to work,” I say a little too loudly, drawing attention from the students I pass on my way to the quad.

“That’s what PTO is for.”

I nearly tell him that paid time off is not for getting on a plane to punch your daughter’s ex-boyfriend in the face, but that really will ensure it happens.

“I’m fine, Dad.”

“You think I can’t tell when something is wrong with my little girl?”

And there it is.

The overprotective ‘will do anything and everything to protect his little girl’ dad that I know. Nothing stirs his rage like the thought of me hurting.

I didn’t have cousins like the rest of my school friends. Christmases and Thanksgivings were always small. That was fine when Mom was alive. I didn’t care about having big family get-togethers or anything like that.

I had Mom and Dad, and that was enough.

When Mom died, the house felt empty in a way it never had before. I looked at my dad, and he seemed older. More tired.

I envision him in his garage office, a coffee drop or two on the short-sleeved pale blue shirts he likes to wear, his tortoiseshell glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, and a little more gray in his brown hair and beard than the last time I saw him.

“I’m okay. We’ll talk more when I come home. Have you started dating yet?” I ask, more to throw him off the scent of my breakup than because I believe he’s finally decided to change his ways after eight years of being single.

He chuckles. “Dating? Me ? Everything is online now, Junebug. That’s hell for nearsighted people like me.”

I smile into the distance as I near my dorm. “Nancy from the diner always liked you.”

“She likes everyone because it’s her job. I can pick you up from the airport, and we can talk on the drive back.”

He knows something is wrong and that I’m not ready to talk about it yet. And he’s telling me he’s ready to listen whenever I’m ready to talk.

I curl my fingers around my cell as the back of my eyelids prickle. “Sure thing, Dad. I better go. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Back in my room, I wince as I scroll through flight prices on my laptop and mentally curse myself for not buying tickets home before prices doubled.

My phone vibrates across my desk. Caleb.

I answer it, still distracted by my task.

“You left practice in a hurry,” Caleb says.

“My dad called, wanting to know about spring break.” My finger hovers over the buy button.

Caleb’s sigh is barely audible, but I hear it. It sounds like relief. “We thought…”

“You thought what?”

“Nothing. Do you have a dress?” Caleb’s question throws me for two seconds.

I sit back in my desk chair, closing my laptop lid before I can finish buying my plane tickets home. “A dress? For what?”

“Coach told us there’s a party in a downtown hotel. A big sponsor is throwing it, and we’re all the guests of honor.”

“To celebrate the championship?”

“To celebrate themselves, most likely. It’s tomorrow. Are you up for it?”

“Um, that’s really soon.” Too soon to invent a reason to get out of it.

“I know, sorry. I was hoping we could skip it, but the whole team has to show their faces.”

I frown. A frat party is one thing. There are plenty of dark corners to hide in so someone else can be the center of attention. But this? “Which hotel?”

“The Westlake-Carlton.”

I break out in a cold sweat.

A five-star hotel. Literally the best hotel in the city.

“I don’t know about that,” I say, sweating more as I think about it.

“Coach says it’s not an all-night thing. As long as we show our faces and shake hands for pictures, we can leave. And there’s something we wanted to talk to you about.”

I sit up in my seat. “What?”

“It’s about spring break. And… well, something else.”

“I usually go home for spring break, but Javier asked me to stay on campus for a couple of days. Is it about the same thing?”

“It is.”

“And the something else?”

“The fake-date agreement,” he says.

Does he want it to continue? Is that what this is about?

“If you don’t have a dress, Javier says he can get one for you in a couple of hours. The party isn’t until six tomorrow, but we have to practice late tonight. It’s our last one before spring break, and Coach is determined to kill us.”

I briefly smile. “And Reid’s paper?”

After our all-nighter, he asked his professor a couple of questions and said he could handle the rest on his own. He just needed to read it until he hated it, then he’d know it was good.

I can tell Caleb is smiling when he says, “Submitted it. He’s feeling hopeful, which is something he never thought he would be.”

“That’s good.” My smile fades. “Can’t you tell me that thing now instead of during spring break?”

His silence stretches out so long that I get nervous.

“I could, but it wouldn’t be right to do it any other way than face-to-face.”

Dread forms in my gut. They want to end things with me. I should be glad it’s this way instead of me walking in on them cheating on me like Marc.

I tell myself I’m wrong. Last night with Caleb was amazing, and Javier wouldn’t be offering to send me a dress. They wouldn’t be inviting me to this fancy party at all. But doubt has a way of polluting the things you were so certain about a second before.

“Okay.”

“To the party?”

“Sure.”

“And the dress?”

“Javier will do better than I ever would.”

“I better go. Coach wants me back on the ice.”

“And you’re sure you can’t tell me what this is about now?” I ask, my fingers tightening around the phone.

“It’s a good thing, Tobie,” he says softly. “Well, I hope you think it’s a good thing. Reid, Javier, and I have been talking, and it’s important for all of us.”

We say our goodbyes and hang up.

I stare into space, trying to convince myself that things will be okay.

And I can’t even talk to Max about it. I guess I could, but she’s finished with her classes and left to go home for spring break early.

There’s no one else’s opinion I would trust other than hers, and this isn’t a conversation I would want to have on the phone. I wish she were here.

When someone knocks on my door two hours later, I’m still at my desk.

I get up to answer the door and can barely see around the large white box someone is holding in their arms.

“Miss Myers?”

“That’s me.”

“If you could sign here?”

I sign where the delivery guy tells me to sign and carry the box into my room, closing the door with my hip.

I set the box on my bed, open it, and want to cry when I take in the most beautiful dress with matching heels and a bag inside it.

Color always scared me.

When you’re a girl with big hips, you quickly learn black can cover a multitude of sins. It becomes a shield.

This dress is a deep, rich, vibrant emerald green, Grecian style with a deep V and braided straps.

It’s full-length with a deep slit in the front.

Two weeks ago, that slit on the front would have made me want to throw this dress out my window.

The heels are gold, platform style with a strap around the ankle and the toes, giving me height with support.

It’s the sort of outfit that belongs on a goddess. Not me.

Definitely not me.

So who is this girl giggling as she eagerly snatches up the dress? Because it sure as hell can’t be me.