Prologue
Willow and Dean
“Hey! What the fuck, Will? You’re not dressed yet.”
I turned my head to glance over my shoulder at my best friend—okay, one of mytwobest friends. Cindy was standing in the doorway of the room she and Vi usually used as an office, her shoulder resting on the jamb and her arms crossed over her chest as she mock-glared at me.
“What?” I shifted carefully on the futon, all too aware of its instability, especially since I was perched on a corner of it. “I’ve got clothes on. In what world am I not dressed?”
Cindy rolled her eyes. “In the world where we are leaving for a party in half an hour. Old jeans and a T-shirt that’s seen better days will not cut it, girlfriend.”
“Eh.” I waved my hand. “It won’t take me long to get ready. I was just—” I lifted my phone up. “Answering some stuff.”
At that moment, the screen lit up again with a new text notification, and I grimaced.
Mom: So what time should we expect you tomorrow? Daddy and I can’t wait to hug our girl!
Cindy smirked as she sauntered into the room and dropped down onto the futon next to me. I’d been sleeping on this monstrosity—borrowed from Vi and Cindy’s upstairs neighbor—for the week that I’d been here visiting them in Crowder, PA. The futon wasn’t comfortable in any sense of the word, and it took up all of the available space in the already crowded office, but at least I’d had a tiny bit of privacy and a place to lay my head each night.
“Is that Mom?” Cindy said, gesturing to the phone. “Asking when you’re getting home?”
“Yessss.” I sighed, scrolling through her other messages. “She’d never admit it, but I think she and my dad were mildly annoyed that I got home from Europe and didn’t go directly to see them. She’s spent the past year raving to me about how much they love living at West Point, and she just cannot wait for me to fall in love with the place, too.” I snorted. “As if.”
“Aw, c’mon, Will.” Cindy nudged me with her elbow as she winked. “You mean you’re not dying to get up there to see those fine college guys, all built like gods and marching around in their gray uniforms? With the super-short haircuts and all of theyes, sirsandno, sirs?”
“It’s a college, Cin. Just one more in a series of colleges and universities where I’ve lived out my life. This place might be old, and the students might dress all the same, but at the heart of it, West Point isn’t different from any of the other places where my dad’s coached over the past twenty-plus years.”
“Ooooh, do I detect a tinge of resentment in that tone, young lady?” Cindy teased. “Are you saying you’re not looking forward to living with Mom and Dad again?”
“I’m not going to live with them. Not for long, anyway. I’m just going to stay there until I find a program that works for me. Oh, and that accepts me.” I looked down at the unanswered text on the screen of my phone. “Which hopefully will happen before football season begins.”
“That’s doubtful. This is the first weekend of August, and colleges start playing football over Labor Day weekend. You haven’t really started looking for where you want to get your doctorate yet, have you?”
“I have some ideas,” I hedged. “But I haven’t had much time to figure it all out.”
“Because you dawdled around Europe for a couple of months after you graduated,” Cindy reminded me. “And then when you got back to the US, you came here.”
I frowned. “I thought you and Vi wanted me to visit. You said we should all hang out before real life begins this fall. You guysbeggedme to come. We’re having a good time, aren’t we?”
“We are. And we did. We’re both thrilled that you came to stay with us this week. I’m only pointing out that you haven’t exactly been in a hurry to see your parents or to figure out what comes next for you.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I wrinkled my nose. “It’s not that I didn’t miss them. My mom and dad, I mean. I think I know that once I get to West Point, I have to get used to a whole new place, and it’ll probably only be short-term because I’ll move to wherever I decide to get my doctorate.”
“Do you think you’ll go someplace close to your folks, though? Maybe New England?”
I shrugged. “Possibly. Actually, quite a few of the schools I’ve looked at are in the Boston area, or around New York City. I know they’d be thrilled to have me closer. Particularly after I spent the last year in Amsterdam.”
“But?” Cindy cocked her head. “Are you saying maybe you wouldn’t be quite so thrilled to live near the parentals?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I’m not saying it would be horrible, but on the other hand, living with a body of water between us has made me a little more independent. Not sure how I’d feel about having my mom and dad putting in their two cents on every decision.”
“I guess I understand.” Cindy sounded less than convinced. “But your parents are awesome, Willow. I always loved when they came to visit us here.” One side of her mouth curled. “Which was a lot more often than my mother ever made it from two towns away. And even Vi’s mom and dad only came over a couple of times in the four years we were all in school here.”
“Well, I’m the oldest in my family, so going away to school was kind of a novelty, I guess. And my dad combined visits to see me with work stuff, too. He and Mom stopped here on their way to or from scouting trips or interviews with other football programs. Matter of fact, their last visit was on their way back from his interview at West Point.”
“The point is that theydidcome to see you. I get that you still have some resentment over how unsettled your childhood was, Will, but you’re old enough now to see that there were some advantages. From a certain perspective, you lived a pretty sweet life.”
“Wisdom from the newly minted psychology major?” I teased.
