When the seventh pancake falls onto her plate, the room erupts.
“What are you going to pick? Taylor Swift,” Tristan, the sophomore I spent all last year training one-on-one under Coach’s request, speaks up. The disappointed tone leads me to believe he was the one who caught six.
“Pick 1989, please. That’s my favorite album,” Jaxon adds. Of course it is.
Sutton laughs. “I’ll let your captain pick.”
Tristan eyes her up and down. “Fine. At least he has good taste.”
I chuck a pancake at him.
The guys make room for us at one of the folding tables set up. There are four of them that run from our kitchen into the living room.
I inhale my breakfast, one arm tossed around the back of her chair.
For the first time in what feels like forever, I feel completely light. Present and engaged. Like the guy I want to be, who I really am.
Our front door opens, and a leggy blonde flounces in.
“Good morning, hockey boys.” Elliot coos. “Ooo, pancakes.”
“Who invited you?” Chase asks.
“Did I need to be invited? I’m Elliot Jones.”
THIRTY-SIX
SUTTON
“You are goingto have to tell Mom.” Meave bumps my shoulder as we peruse a new romance-only bookstore in Chicago. We’ve already been to two art stores, and are going to her favorite thrift store after this. “She’s been planning your wedding to Cooper for years.”
“We aren’t even dating, Meave.”
“Does he know that?”
She pulls a book from the shelf and adds it to her pile. I run my finger along another shelf, reading titles to distract from answering her question.
“Sutton…”
“No, I suppose he doesn’t. We aren’tnottogether. I like how things are going. There’s no pressure. No…” It’s barely two weeks, ten days to be exact, but each day feels like a year. In the best way possible.
“Do you love him?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions, Meave.”
“So that’s a yes.” She rests her chin on my shoulder and leans her head into mine. “And now I can finally admit, while you are good at a lot of things, sis, you are a terrible doodler. The doodles you did of you and Cooper are hideous.”
“How does that have anything to do with this?”
“I’ve just needed to get that off my chest for about fifteen years.”
“I was six!” I interject.
We head to the checkout desk, arms stacked with books. “But this is it for you two, yeah?”
There are still unspoken truths that sit between me and Cooper. High school lingering like the ghost of Christmas past. As good as things have been between us, there are moments it’s as if there is another person in the relationship, a hurdle we haven’t jumped yet.
“I hope.”
