“Okay?”
“Okay.” I lie back down against him, and his arm comes around me, and I let my eyes close. “But for the record. Whatever the daylight version is.” I feel him waiting. “The answer’s already yes.”
I feel him smile against the top of my head.
I hear his heartbeat under my ear, his breathing evening out, his bedroom door shut on the rest of the world, and a yes I’ve already given, waiting on the sun to rise.
Chapter 39
Stanley
I got through Monday on two hours of floor-sleep and a grin that would not come off.
Morning skate was a write-off. I couldn’t hit the net, couldn’t hold the puck, kept drifting off the play because my head was miles from my body — upstairs in a bed I’d crept out of at six with a girl still asleep in it. The boys saw straight through me in less than five minutes. Blue asked what I was on. Percy looked at me for a minute straight and went back to his stretches. And Benson just watched me float through a drill, the corner of his mouth going. He said, “Good trip?” because Benson knows exactly where my head is today, and he has the decency to say it in two words on a bench.
I didn’t tell them the rest of my plan. Some things you don’t hand to a locker room.
Aspen got through her day, too. I know because she texted me once, midmorning — a single line: the lunatic let me sleep in his bed and stole my whole Monday, I can’t concentrate. And I wrote back, till this afternoon, Linwood, and then I putthe phone away before I said the rest of it over a text message instead of in person.
I went to my classes, did everything I was supposed to do, and now the day’s done. The world insisted on being Monday, and now it’s behind us. It’s finally showtime.
I’m nervous as hell. Nervous is honest. Nervous means it matters.
The house is empty, and it’s empty on purpose.
The boys cleared out after skate — afternoon classes, the rink, a whole shootout of excuses — but I know a setup when I’m standing in the middle of one, and the proof is the sticky note slapped on the coffee maker in Benson’s blocky hand: Gone till late. Don’t be a coward about it. Under it, in Blue’s scrawl, use protection. Under that, in what is unmistakably Rowan’s hand, clean the kitchen after. Percy didn’t sign it. Percy never signs anything. But there’s a single hockey stick drawn down in the corner that I’m choosing to read as a blessing.
They gave us the house. The same four idiots who herded her up to my room last night, who encouraged an insane plane trip, have collectively found somewhere else to be for the whole evening. The brotherhood I stayed for, running the play from the bench. I stand there holding their dumb, beautiful note, and I take a second to appreciate it. Then I get to work.
And the first thing I realize is that I can’t make a pie.
I have made exactly one pie in my life, and the truth is I didn’t make it — Rowan made it, and I carried it to a Connecticut dinner table and let a whole family believe these hands produced it. Which, in hindsight, is so perfectly the entire shape of my situation that I want to lie down on the floor. Fake pie. Real credit. A lie I served warm to people who loved me.
Not this time.
This time, I am making her the pie myself. With these two hands, which have never been trained for a single thing other than a hockey stick.
It’s not going as planned, so I text Rowan.
Me:The pumpkin pie recipe, Laurens. Please.
I’ve been begging this kid for the recipe for too long.
Rowan:It’s a family secret.
Me:You found it on the internet.
Rowan:Then Google it.
Shithole.
I Google it, find a recipe that looks simple enough, and figure it out. I pull out all the ingredients, follow the instructions, and it’s taking much longer than I anticipated, so I’m starting to sweat. I have no one else here with me, so this is all on me.
Me:Will you help me?
Rowan:No.
I take a deep breath and follow the recipe. What’s the worst that can happen?
