by Elle Kennedy
“I think your clothes say nothing about your intelligence, your kindness, your wit, and humor,” Mom says tactfully. “I think you ought to dress however you feel most comfortable. With that said…if you don’t feel comfortable with the way you dress, perhaps that’s a conversation you need to have with your heart rather than your closet.”
Well, that’s one vote in the bag lady column from Mom.
On the walk up to my apartment after saying bye to my mother, I decide to bite the bullet and text Conor.
ME: You home?
A ball of anxiety coils in my gut once I hit send. After ignoring him for two days, he’d have every right to have written me off by now. I was kind of a bitch the other night, I’m well aware of this. Despite his lack of social graces, Conor hadn’t meant to offend me, and there was no reason to storm off the way I did. None, except that I was feeling insecure and vulnerable and generally sick of myself, so I took it out on him rather than explaining how I felt.
The screen lights up.
CONOR: Yeah.
ME: Coming over, k?
CONOR: Yeah.
Back-to-back “yeahs” aren’t exactly promising, but at least he hasn’t ghosted.
When he answers the door ten minutes later, hastily yanking a T-shirt down over this bare chest, I’m hit with the same flutter of desire I felt during our kiss, like pin pricks of electricity zipping up my spine. My lips remember his. My skin buzzes with the memory of his hands sliding up my ribs. Oh boy. This is going to be much harder than I expected.
“Hey,” I say, because my brain is still half in the parking lot outside Malone’s.
“Hey.” Conor holds the door open and nods for me to enter. His roommates are either out or hiding as he leads me upstairs to his bedroom.
Fuck. I’d even missed the way his room smells. Like his shampoo that smells like the ocean, and whatever cologne he wore Tuesday night.
“Taylor, I want—”
“No.” I stop him, holding my hand out to keep some air between us. I can’t think straight when he’s in my bubble. “Me first.”
“Okay then.” Shrugging, he takes a seat on the small loveseat while I gather my nerves.
“I was shitty to you the other night,” I say ruefully. “And I’m sorry. You were right—I was embarrassed. I don’t like attention—good or bad. So having a room full of people staring at me is like the fucking worst. But you only did that silly lap dance because you thought you were saving me from a much worse fate, and I didn’t thank you or at least give you some credit for trying. That wasn’t fair. And then with the…” Somehow I don’t think I can say “kiss” out loud without moaning, “…the outside stuff, I panicked. That wasn’t your fault.”
“Well, except for when I started in with the fashion advice,” he points out with a self-deprecating smile.
“Yeah, no, that one was all you, jerkface. You shoulda known better.”
“Trust me, I know. I already got an earful from both Demi and Summer. Friends’ girlfriends,” he clarifies when he notices my blank look.
“You talked to your friends’ girlfriends about our fight?” For some reason, I’m oddly touched.
“Yeah.” He shrugs adorably. “Needed someone to tell me where I fucked up. Apparently the clothing critique was a crime against your womanhood.”
I snort.
Conor holds up his hands in surrender. “And it wasn’t even what I meant to say. My brain just short circuited after…” Mimicking me a little, he winks and says, “the outside stuff, and I lost all control of my better judgment or the part that stops me from making an ass of myself.” He flashes that cheeky smile that never fails to make my heart race. “Forgive me?”
“You’re forgiven.” I pause. “Forgive me for bitching out on you?”
“You’re forgiven.” Tentatively, he stands, inching toward me. He towers over me with his athletic frame. “So. Friends again?”
“Friends.”
Conor pulls me in for a hug and it’s like I never left his arms. I don’t know if I want it to stop. I don’t know how he does it, makes me feel so comfortable with just a hug or a smile.
“Want a ride to campus with me? I’ve got class in an hour. We can grab some coffee?”
“Sounds good.” I sit on his bed as he gets dressed and comes in and out of his bathroom gathering his stuff. “I was wondering something.”
“Yeah?” He stops in the doorway with his toothbrush in his mouth.
“Would you want to hang out this weekend? Maybe come shopping with me in Boston?”
Conor holds up one finger and disappears. A few seconds later, he returns wiping his mouth with a washcloth. “I can’t, babe. I’ve got a semi-final game in Buffalo.”
“Oh, shit, right. I knew that. No biggie. Some other—”
“Take my Jeep.” Conor tosses the washcloth in his laundry hamper.
“What?”
“Yeah, come to my game,” he says, his eyes lighting up. “You drive down to Buffalo in my Jeep and I’ll ask Coach for permission to skip out on the bus ride back. We can stay an extra night and go shopping, hang out, whatever.”
“Are you sure? I feel like that’s a big ask.”
He aims his crooked smirk at me. Pulling out the heavy artillery, I see. “If we win, I want you there to celebrate with us. If we lose, you can get me drunk and help me feel better.”
“Oh yeah? I don’t know if I’m prepared for the kind of ego stroking that would require.”
He laughs at the innuendo. It feels good being able to joke around again. All we have to do is pretend that foolish kiss never happened, and everything can just go back to the way it was before.
That is, if we both ignore the implications of spending a weekend out of town together.
“So it’s a plan?” he asks.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I say lightly.
“Nice.” He gathers his backpack and we head downstairs to the front hall. Conor opens the door and gestures for me to exit first. “So, not that I’m not grateful for the invite, but why are we going shopping?”
I wink at him over my shoulder. “I’m giving myself a makeover.”
14
Conor
The semi-final against Minnesota is a headbanger from the first whistle. Thanks to some trash talking on social media, our team goes into the game Friday night hot and ready to eat those asshats for dinner. We’re sticking to our game plan, though—high press, be physical. Minnesota is a technical team, but they won’t be able to absorb our pressure for sixty minutes. We won’t let them touch the puck without feeling us breathing down their necks. Every pass we’ll let them know we’re going to make it hurt.
We end scoreless after the first period. Then right out of the gate in the second, Hunter gets the puck on a breakaway and fires it into the net to put us on the board first.
“Atta boy!” Coach thunders from the bench, smacking his clipboard against the Plexi.
He calls for a line change, and Hunter and I heave ourselves over the wall and squirt water into our mouths from bottles brandishing the Gatorade logo. The rest of our line settles on the bench, all eyes glued to the ice. The Briar D-men are struggling to keep Minnesota out of our zone, Coach barking for them to get it together.
“Dude, you need to do that exact same move again,” Bucky’s saying to Hunter. “Deke that ginger-haired fuck and just book it—he’s not fast enough to keep up with you.”
Bucky’s right. Hunter’s the fastest man on the ice tonight. Nobody can stop him.
We change on the fly, substituting Alec and Gavin for me and the captain. We hit the ice hard, ready to extend our lead by another goal. But Minnesota must be seeing their life flash before their eyes, because the next time Hunter receives a pass, number nineteen for Minnesota slams him into the boards. I see fucking red watching my team captain hit the ice, and before the whistle even blows I’ve got that asshole against the glass.
“Get off me, pretty boy,” he growls.
&
nbsp; “Make me.”
We exchange some punches and elbows. At one point I feel someone wailing on me with jabs to my ribs as both benches clear to take sides in the fight. Ultimately, nineteen and I both sit in our respective penalty boxes for the brawl. Fucking worth it.
Minnesota ties it up with a wrist shot from one of their forwards just as the second period winds down. We trudge into our locker room feeling the heavy weight of that score, 1-1, bearing down on our shoulders.
“Unacceptable!” Coach Jensen rides our D-men the moment the door swings shut. “We let them dominate us those last three minutes. Where was our defense, huh? Jerking off in the corner?”
Matt, who was the leading scorer among the defense all season, hangs his head in shame. “Sorry, Coach. That one’s on me. Couldn’t intercept that pass.”
“We got this, Coach,” Hunter says, steel in his eyes. “We’ll finish ’em off in the third.”
But everything goes wrong in the third period.
Gavin crumples to the ice out of nowhere with a pulled hamstring and has to exit the game. Matt then gets tossed in the sin bin on a major penalty. We manage to kill it, but with the clock winding down it seems Minnesota is picking us apart. They’re catching their second wind while half of us are gassing out. Maintaining the high pressure becomes more difficult and cracks form in our defense. The offense can’t find any openings to force turnovers or break away.
The game turns into an uphill, brutal battle for us. Our opponent is now faster and more aggressive, and that’s when it happens. Minnesota strings together four uninterrupted passes and catches all of us a step too slow. Their left-winger slaps the puck past our goalie Boris’s glove to put Minnesota up by a point.
It’s one point too many.
We can’t claw our way back. The buzzer goes off to signal the end of the third. The end of the game.
We’ve been eliminated.
Back in the locker room, it’s like a fucking wake. No one says a word or even looks at each other. Gavin, with ice taped to his thigh, launches a trashcan across the room, and the resounding crash makes everyone flinch. As a senior, this was his last chance for a championship, and he couldn’t even finish the game. No matter what anyone says, he’ll be convinced for the rest of his life that he could’ve made the difference. Same for Matt, who will torture himself with the guilt that taking that penalty cost us the momentum we might’ve had to tie it up.
When Coach Jensen walks in, the room is silent but for the rotating fan whirring in the corner.
“This one hurts,” he says flatly, rubbing his jaw. He’s sweating nearly as much as the rest of us.
Negative emotions pollute the air we’re breathing. Anger, frustration, disappointment. And the exhaustion of playing at such a high level for so long is slowly seeping into our bones, causing shoulders to sag and chins to drop.
“That’s not how we wanted to go out,” Coach continues. “For the seniors, I wanted to get you guys to the big dance—we just didn’t have it tonight. For everyone else, we do it all again next year.”
Next year.
Hunter and I exchange a determined look. As juniors, we have one last shot to leave a legacy at Briar. Gold and glory and all that.
Straying from his usual short-and-not-at-all-sweet style, Coach goes on to say he’s encouraged by the way we played tonight, by the progress we’ve made since the start of the season.
I choose to believe better days are ahead, because right now the feeling in this room is miserable. A dream died tonight. And it’s only now, I think, that most of us are realizing we were entirely convinced we had this title in the bag. It never occurred to us we wouldn’t be playing in the final. Now we just go home and pretend it doesn’t gnaw at our insides.
I fucking hate losing.
15
Taylor
Friday night was rough. After Briar’s epic loss, the guys hit the mini bar hard and then crashed until noon the next day.
I’m not entirely sure why Conor wanted me to drive all the way to Buffalo, seeing as how I spent the hours after his game having drinks with Brenna Jensen and Summer Di Laurentis, two of Hunter Davenport’s roommates, and Demi Davis, Hunter’s girlfriend. The four of us had a proper girls’ night. We had a great time at the hotel bar, and I won’t deny how helpful it was to sit with them during the game, as they were able to explain the rules when something happened that I didn’t understand.
Although, to be honest, I still couldn’t tell you what offsides means or what constitutes icing. Conor getting a timeout for tackling a guy, I figured out on my own. But the rest of the hockey lingo Brenna was throwing out like a pro went right over my head. As I understand it, hockey is basically a bunch of first graders fighting over a little black puck while the referee tries to keep them from killing each other. It’s cute.
Coach Jensen gave anyone who wanted to permission to hang back in Buffalo, a consolation gift of sorts, so several of Conor’s teammates paid for an extra night at the hotel. I’ve got my room till Sunday, on another floor than the Briar players, thankfully. I ran into Demi in the tiny hotel fitness center this morning, and according to her, the entire fifth floor was hoppin’ from last night’s depression binge drinking. She said she and Hunter hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep.
Despite Conor saying the other day that he was going to need consoling, we barely exchanged ten words after the game. He was commiserating with his teammates, which I understand. But I’m grateful the girls were around to keep me company.
Everyone seems to be in better spirits this morning. In the hotel restaurant, I meet Conor for brunch, along with a few of the others who stayed behind.
“Where’re Brenna and Summer?” I slide into the chair next to Conor’s and set down the plate of food I just gathered at the buffet. And by food I mean brown toast and one hard-boiled egg. Yum. “And Demi,” I add when I notice Hunter is sitting alone.
“Brenna’s Skyping with her boyfriend,” Bucky supplies. “She’s in the room next to mine and I heard them through the wall.”
“Perv,” Conor says while chewing on a piece of bacon.
“Hey, not my fault this hotel has paper-thin walls.”
“Summer dragged Demi on some errand,” Hunter tells me. “No idea where.”
“What’s ’a matter?” Foster grins at me. “You don’t like being the only chick at the sausage party?” To punctuate that, he picks up a greasy sausage from his plate and takes a comical chunk out of it with his teeth.
I burst out laughing. “There is so much subliminal shit going on with what you just did, I can’t even begin to unpack it.”
Across the table, Hunter raises his coffee cup and takes a quick sip. “So what are we doing today?”
“T and I are hitting a mall,” Conor answers in that lazy drawl of his.
“Sweet. Can I come?” Bucky pipes up. “I need socks. Already lost all the ones my mom got me for Christmas.”
“I’m in too,” says Hunter. “My girlfriend abandoned me and I’m bored.”
I slowly chew and swallow a piece of toast. “Um.” Feeling awkward, I glance at Conor, then his teammates. “This isn’t exactly a group activity sorta thing.”
Hunter lifts a brow. “The mall isn’t a suitable group activity?”
“They’re going to buy sex toys,” Foster announces. “Guarantee it.”
“We’re not buying sex toys!” I sputter, then turn redder than a beet when I notice every head at the neighboring table swivel my way. I glower at Foster. “You’re the worst.”
“Or am I the best?” he counters.
“No, you’re the worst,” Hunter confirms, grinning.
“If you must know, I need some new clothes,” I reveal with a sigh. “Conor’s going to help me pick some out.”
“What, and we can’t tag along and help too?” demands Bucky. I can’t tell if the wounded look on his face is for real. “You saying we have no style?”
“Oh, I got style,” Hunter declares, crossing his
arms over his chest.
Foster dons the same macho posture. “I’ve got so much style, you don’t even know.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” I say dryly, shooting a pointed look at Foster’s T-shirt, which appears to feature a cartoon image of a wolf riding a dragon over a sea of fire. Whether it’s dragon fire is undetermined.
Foster polishes off the rest of his sausage. “All right, crew. Let’s do this shit.”
And that’s how I end up at the mall a couple miles from the hotel, with four towering, imposing men standing outside my dressing room at Bloomingdale’s throwing clothes at me like it’s a timed collegiate event.
I barely wiggle out of one pair of designer distressed skinny jeans before an avalanche of shirts and dresses come cascading over the door.
“I think we’re reaching the singularity here, guys,” I call out in dismay.
“Change faster,” Conor shouts through the door.
“Foster just found a whole wall full of sequins,” Hunter adds like a threat.
“I don’t think I have much need in my wardrobe for—” Another tidal wave of dresses falls to the floor. “That’s it. We need to lay some ground rules.”
I step out of the dressing room in a long-sleeved plaid shirt that cinches under my boobs and flares at the waist and a coordinating pair of dark wash skinny jeans. It’s not a bad look, managing to hide the parts I’d rather not share, without looking like I hopped out of bed wearing my duvet.
Conor pops an eyebrow at me. Hunter and Bucky give polite golf claps. The three of them are standing there in full albeit ill-fitting tuxedos.
I gawk at them, too stunned to even laugh. “Wha—why—why the hell are you wearing tuxedos?”
“Why not?” is Bucky’s response, and this time I can’t stop the gales of laughter that pour out. Jeez. How did these clowns even have time to change clothes while burying me in fabric?