Page 50 of Your Kiss Is On My List

“I’ll need to work double-triple-time this week to get my profile piece done. Most of it is filmed—except you.”

“That right?” My nerves flare up.

“We need to schedule your interview this week—on camera. You up for it?”

Fuck. I’ve been dreading this. I nod because I promised her I would do it. Promised myself I would do anything for her. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it as my insides roil at the prospect. Sharing the whole bloody story of the worst nightmare of my life is hardly something I look forward to—especially not on camera.

We schedule a date and as we get to the Connecticut state line, she falls asleep. The sight is beautiful and comforting and I put a hand on her leg, just to be touching for the rest of the drive.

The prospect arriving at the rink and joining the team meeting late starts coiling tension in my shoulders so that by the time I drop Dani off at her house, I don’t bother getting out of the car. I run inside. Nate texts me they’re wrapping up the meeting and where the fuck am I. I don’t bother returning his text as I sprint down the hall, my SPU hockey hoodie still on and burst in the back door of the conference room where we hold team meetings.

Coach glances up for a microsecond, but says nothing as I take a seat in the back row.

“You have your assignments. We’ve talked about their weaknesses. We’ll exploit our speed and their lack of goaltending. I want us to take fifty shots at their net and I want at least five of those to go in. We do that and we win. Got it? Let’s hear it?” The room responds with a loud “yes, sir.” He nods. “Back at the rink for drills at three pm. Sharp.” He looks up at me then and glares. Then he points in the direction of his adjacent office and I get the message. Fuck.

I missed everything.

Nate shakes his head as he passes me on his way out. “Later, man.” He gives me a pat on the shoulder for encouragement. No one else says a thing to me as they file out of the room murmuring whatever. I head to the side door at the front of the room where coach disappeared and push inside the small office. He’s sitting on the desk, arms folded and I stand just inside the door. No need to take a seat for this.

“We have a god damned important game on Tuesday night, two days away. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I got stuck in a snow storm in New York—”

“New York City?” he shouts. “You had no fucking business being in New fucking York in the middle of the season for whatever the hell reason because it wasn’t related to hockey I’m fucking certain about that.” I’ve never heard coach rage like this before. It feels like it’s about more than me being late for a meeting.

“What the fuck is so all important that you had to go to New York City? No—don’t tell me because I don’t even want to know.” He heaves a breath and lowers his voice and points a finger at me, nudging my chest. Fuck. “But it better not fucking have anything to do with a fucking girl—you hear me, Eagleton? Because the last thing you need at this point of the season in your senior year is that kind of fucking distraction—the kind that’ll make you go to fucking New York City when you have too much going on right here. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” I don’t bother trying to explain because he’s right. Fuck.

* * *

Dani meets me at the rink later the week, at night when there’s no one there but the Zamboni driver to put the lights on for us to do the interview. It’s eerie and she has me dressed in my uniform and stands at the net with me and asks me.

“Tell me what happened that day.” She has the camera on a tri-pod to keep it intimate, just the two of us and I talk, keeping my eyes on hers, compelling me to speak, to relive that fucking nightmare for the camera, for her. And for me, to finally purge the secret, to let it out, to force it out of hiding and into the stream of my life where I can pass it by and let it go.

I finish with the moment I lock eyes with her nine-year-old self as they’re half carrying me off the ice and I’m groggy and I tell her, my voice broken, that the blood was on my skates. That it was the blade of my hockey skates that cut Corey, that killed him.

Leaning against the net, I bow my head, covering my face with my gloved hands and let out a strangled sob. Then she comes to me and wraps her arms around me, barely coming up to my shoulder. But she takes my face in her hands and kisses the tears on my face, making me forget, forcing the bad memories to disappear into the icy cold air. I heave a shaky breath and wrap her in my arms, breathe in her essence, bury my face in her hair and repeat her name, over and over.

“I need you so much. You have no idea how much.” I don’t know what I’m saying only that it comes from deep inside me and I feel like I’ve been relying on her strength all this time, not realizing it, not realizing it, even when she wasn’t around, she was always in the back of my mind and in my dreams.

* * *

The Frozen Four is coming up and Dani’s project is wrapped up, two days from submission and she has me to the studio for a showing. Summer is there and wants to see it and Dani says no, it’s a private showing.

He sees it, panics because it’s too gritty, too revealing and personal and she promises to edit it and he leaves, wondering if it was a mistake, and whether he can ever purge the experience without purging Dani too because she’s so inextricably connected by the worst thing that ever happened to him.

“I have to go,” I say, my jaw clenched, trying not to hold it against her because it’s really not her, it’s me, but she’s forcing me to deal. So I need to deal. Whether I like it or not.

“I’ll fix it, Trey. I swear I will. If I have to stay up all night editing it.” I nod, grab my jacket and push through the door. She follows me grabs my arm, looks up at me, her eyes begging.

“I’ll … call you,” I say.

Chapter 19

DANI

Though I try not to, I cry off and on as I lock myself in the production room of the campus studio, and staying up all night going over the entire project, editing out the gritty parts. I spend all the next day after a brief sleep and a pot of coffee back at the studio, skipping classes. The only thing I pause for is to check for calls or texts from Trey. Nothing.