I can have a conversation.
I am not my mother.
“So, your sister and my best friend, huh?” Chase says, stealing me away from my inner thoughts.
“I guess so,” I reply. “How long have you and Brodie known each other?” I ask. The look he gives me shows me he’s surprised I’m talking to him.
Yeah. Me too, Hockey Boy.
I appreciate that he doesn’t tease me about it.
“Since I was four. He was new to the neighborhood. My childhood home is right next to a big public park. The year he moved here, it was covered in the most snow I’ve ever seen. That year we built Raphael.”
“Raphael?” I ask, and he shoots me a grin.
“I was obsessed withTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
My lips twitch as I try to imagine this six-foot-four giant of a man as a tiny four-year-old obsessed withNinja Turtles.
“We built a kick-ass snowman, then went home for lunch only to come back an hour later and find Raphael brutally violated.”
“Someone kicked him down?”
“Worse. Carrot nose—stolen. Button eyes—gone. The signature red mask—nowhere to be found,” Chase deadpans.
“Hooligans.”
Damn it. Why do I keep smiling?
“Singular. It was only one hooligan—Brodie Emerson. My older brothers declared war and gave Brodie’s snowman boobs.”
I snort. “How do you do that with snow?”
Chase shrugs.
“I’m assuming he retaliated?”
“The little shit decapitated poor Raphael withmyhockey stick.”
“Ouch.”
“The next time I saw him,” Chase continues. “I showed no mercy. Pelted him with snowballs. I spent two hours crafting and hiding them all over the park. He found some of my stash. There was an epic snowball battle to the death. We’ve been best friends ever since.”
“That is pretty adorable,” I say, picturing the two of them laughing and screaming with joy as snow flies everywhere.
“Jack was too sick to come out and play that year, but when he kicked the flu, I introduced him to Brodie, and they clicked. It’s been us three against the world.”
I hold on to those four familiar words—us against the world—the same ones Bella uses with me so often. They wrap around me, creating a cocoon that offers me a quiet moment of solace.
Chase’s longstanding friendship with Brodie makes me think about my childhood. I had friends from school in Crescent Creek Lake, but they never invited me over to their houses for sleepovers or parties, and my mother never let them come over when I asked.
The school I attended when I lived with Roger and Griff in Charlotte was its own experience. I spent most of my time in the library rather than on the playground, too scared to be around people in case they asked questions. Roger always told me not to breathe a word to anyone about what it was like living with him.
Heat covers my hand, centering me. I flinch the second I realize it’s Chase’s hand on top of mine and pull away, as if his touch is scalding stone just pulled out of a furnace.
“Sorry,” he says, his voice taking on a grounding tone that draws me in, despite wanting distance. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You just stopped responding all of a sudden. Are you okay?”
“Sometimes, I just, um…zone out,” I say, hoping he won’t push. Thankfully, he doesn’t.
