by Sara Ney
Cecelia: Heads up, Matthew was reading that over my shoulder and he says he’s coming with…
CHAPTER 30
Abby
I can’t stop watching out the front window of our crappy student rental, waiting anxiously for that familiar white Tahoe to pull into the gravel driveway.
“Watching out the window on the couch like a damn cat isn’t going to get her here any faster,” Jenna points out sympathetically from the kitchen while wielding a cast-iron pan. She’s been frying up pot stickers for the past twenty minutes and is totally stinking up the joint.
My nose scrunches up as I sniff the air. “Can you light a candle or something? It’s starting to reek in here.”
Rolling her eyes, Jenna goes back to her task, unscrewing a bottle and shaking a generous helping of soy sauce into the pan. It sizzles and sears, and I can see the steam rising from my spot by the window.
A popping sound whizzes.
“Oops,” I overhear her mutter. “I don’t think that was supposed to happen.”
I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of her at the stove, waving a hand in front of her face. “What are you doing in there? You’re going to burn the house down.”
“Then I would be doing our landlord a huge favor. And don’t come in here!” Jenna sticks her head in the living room from around the corner. “Um, incidentally, where do we keep the fire extinguisher? A friend of a friend wants to know.”
I roll my eyes and look back out the window. “Cabinet under the sink.”
“We’re going out tonight, right?”
“Yes!” I shout, pulling back the curtain again and flying off the couch when the familiar white SUV appears around the corner.
“Was that a yes, we’re going out tonight—or a yes, hooray, my friends are finally here?” Jenna questions over the loud hissing of the pot stickers. I hear coughing and watch as she flaps a kitchen towel through the air and the smoke alarm begins blaring. “Crap!”
“Both!” I laugh. “Yes to both.”
***
There are no words to accurately articulate how jazzed/elated/pumped/excited I am to have my best friend in town. Granted, she’s dragged her overbearing, vulgar, live-in boyfriend along, but beggars can’t be choosers, and occasionally, Matthew Wakefield isn’t all that bad.
Except for one small fact: like his UW-Madison Alma Mater progeny, the hulky professional hockey player loves Lone Rangers.
So that’s where we end up.
And instead of it being a Girls’ Night Out or a reunion between two best friends, the night has inexplicably transformed into a hockey player reunion between Matthew and his buddies.
Messages sent out. Texts exchanged. Statuses checked-in. Tweets Twittered. What do you get? A crap ton of people piled into a tiny, dilapidated dive bar, probably violating thirty different health codes and restrictions.
The elation I felt having Cece and Matthew in town has turned into reticence because I know with certainty, just like I know Caleb’s hair is black and the sky is blue, that I’m going to see him tonight.
Full disclosure: I don’t just know I’m going to see Caleb tonight, I hope I’m going to see him. Call me a glutton for punishment, but I would never—in a million years—have slept with him if I didn’t care about him.
And you don’t just stop caring about someone overnight. Or because they mistreat you. Emotions aren’t just a switch you turn on and off.
I stare at my reflection in the woman’s bathroom mirror at Lone Rangers from my place in the tiny room as I wait for Cece to pee, holding the stall door closed for her because it doesn’t latch.
“Stop fidgeting. I can see you through the crack. Quit playing with your hair,” Cecelia teases from inside the stall, and I hear the toilet paper dispenser rolling.
It’s incredible to have her back in town, even if she is scolding me.
“Sorry, I can’t help it,” I say, turning to peek at her through the gap. She sticks her tongue out at me as she zips up her jeans and buckles her belt. I twist my body, leaning my back against the stall door. “Did I tell you that Cubby Billings sent me a message?”
“What?” Cecelia’s surprised gasp wafts over the top of the stall. “No way!”
“Yes way. It was actually kinda funny, sort of. He texted saying he was sorry for invading my privacy and his mama raised him with better manners. But in his defense, the door to Caleb’s bedroom was unlocked.”
Cecelia snickers, chagrined. “Okayyyy.”
“He went on to say next time he needed Caleb, he would knock first. Then, of course, he ruined the apology by telling me I shouldn’t be embarrassed because I have a really nice rack.”
“Yup, that sounds like pure Cubby.”
“It was nice to get a message from him though. Totally unexpected.”
“At least he’s trying?” Cece raps on the door with her knuckle, and I release it, stepping back so she can exit the stall and head to the sink. She glances at me over her shoulder as she scrubs her hands and pulls down a piece of brown paper towel. “You know, many a relationship was solidified in this seedy establishment, and the night is young.”
“Is that… some kind of code talk?”
Cecelia laughs, her merry green eyes sparkling with mischief. Or from the beer she drank before. “No. I just meant this is the place where Matthew and I finally, you know. Had our first real kiss. It feels lucky.”
“Erm, yeah. I remember. I also remember the crowd and the jeers because you and Matthew took so long to do the deed.”
Just to clarify, when I say “do the deed,” I’m not even talking about sex. Cecelia and her boyfriend didn’t even kiss each other for the first few months they knew each other, and when they finally did, it was because Cecelia lost a bet.
It drove everyone around them crazy. The sexual tension was off-the-charts, through-the-roof ridiculous.
My best friend tips her head back, laughing, long brown hair spilling down her back in a silky cascade. “Well, I couldn’t seem too eager. Have you met the guy? He was so full of himself I had to keep him in check. Still do.”
She reaches for the door, hand grasping the cool metal handle.
I stop her from walking out. “Do… do you think that maybe Caleb and I… that we moved too fast? Should I have waited? To sleep with him, I mean.”
What I need right now is some reassurance, and Cecelia is ready to give it. She takes her hand off the door, resting it on my shirtsleeve. “Abby, don’t have regrets. This thing with you and Caleb—it isn’t over. In fact, if you want my opinion—and I think you do—it’s only the beginning for the two of you. I get that you’re freaking out, but these things have a way of working out.” She gives a short laugh. “God, listen to me, talking like I know what I’m doing. Remember how I questioned myself and my relationship with Matthew every day? I questioned my choices forever, texted you constantly. Giving up everything to move in with Matt—hardest decision ever. But I did it, and eventually I stopped worrying about it. So don’t do that to yourself. Please.”
My arms open wide, and when she steps into them, I rest my chin on her shoulder, our arms enveloped around each other as she whispers in my hair. “It’s not just going to be okay, Abs. It’s going to be awesome.”
A throat clears in the bathroom, and both our heads shoot up. A redhead just exiting the other stall, wearing a tight silver midriff top and an even tighter smile, grimaces at us.
She is so not amused. “Uhhhh, am I interrupting something?”
Cecelia laughs and releases me. “Nope. Not anymore.” She gives the girl a wink, and a blush creeps up my neck before she clasps my hand and pulls me out the bathroom door.
Music assaults us when we enter the bar, and the crowd immediately swallows us up as we walk with the flow toward our group. Toward Matthew, Jenna, Molly, and Weston. Lone Rangers is nothing but deafening music blaring from its speakers and wall-to-wall people—drunk students and students looking to get drunk. Guys trying to get laid, surroun
ded by an unlimited supply of girls who’re going to let them. Tight groups of cliques. Singles ready to mingle.
Cecelia is still firmly grasping my hand as she pulls me through the throng, her mere presence here comforting. We get jostled, bumped, and smacked in the butt a few times as we weave through, the smell of sweaty bodies and stale beer lingering in the musty air.
Or it is stale bodies and sweaty beer?
Same thing.
“This way.” Cecelia nods toward Matthew’s tall form, visible in the back corner where we’d left them twenty minutes ago. Yes. It took us twenty minutes to go pee.
It’s déjà vu over and over again—this crowd of people, in this place. Same faces. Same music. Same crappy lighting. Same sticky floors. Same, same, same.
The only difference is he wasn’t here when I walked away to use the bathroom, and now… he is.
Six days. One hundred forty four hours. One thousand, four hundred and forty minutes. Eight thousand, six hundred and forty seconds.
But who’s counting?
~ Caleb ~
“Dude, incoming!” Blaze announces at the top of his voice, hands cupped around his mouth to create a megaphone. “Girlfriend rapidly approaching,” he says to Matthew. “And she’s got Walk of Shame hot on her heels, bro.”
Stephan bumps me with his hip. “Showtime, your lover looks like she’s about to puke her guts out. What’d you do to her, man?”
As if he didn’t already know.
“Hey!” Matthew’s sharp voice cuts in, stopping Stephan from continuing. “Guys, enough. If Cecelia hears you talking shit about those two, she’s going to take it personally, and I’m the one who’s going to hear about it when we get home. And I didn’t drive all the way here to get my damn ass chewed out at the end of the night.”
Everyone looks at him, trying to determine if he’s serious.
“Did I stutter?” he asks, holding his empty cup out. “Someone top me off.”
“Man, you sure turned into an ass when you went pro,” Miles mutters, grabbing the beer pitcher off a nearby table and tipping it over Matthew’s outstretched beer cup to fill it.
Matthew Wakefield raises his eyebrows sardonically. “Since when does not wanting my girlfriend to be upset make me an ass? Grow up.” His arm goes around Cecelia when the girls join us, and he plants a kiss on her temple as they turn toward me, giving me my first real look at Abby’s best friend.
Wakefield’s girlfriend is really good-looking, but not at all what I expected the girlfriend of a professional athlete to look like. For one thing, she looks normal. Low maintenance in well-worn jeans, a threadbare gray Blackhawks sweatshirt, its sleeves pushed up to her elbows and neckline slouching across her shoulders. Her long hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail, and sparkly studs adorn her ears.
Cecelia extends a delicate hand toward me, the silver bangles on her wrist jingling. “Hi. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Cece.” Her pretty green eyes assess me, but not in an overly critical way, and my shoulders sag from relief, knowing I’m not about to get the third degree. At least I hope not.
Not surprisingly, Abby stands timidly behind Matthew Wakefield’s opposing form, using him as a shield and eluding my gaze.
Alrighty, then.
I clasp Cecelia’s fingers, pumping them up and down once before she releases my hand. She looks me in the eyes, unblinking, when I introduce myself. “Caleb.”
I’m expecting her to respond with a snarky quip like, Yeah, I know all about who you are, or Oh, Caleb the Liar? Or even something catty like, Trust me, she’s told me all about you, as I imagine most best friends of a slighted girl would. But she doesn’t.
Instead, she shocks the shit out of me by smiling, her bright white teeth bending into a sincere curve. “It’s good to finally meet you.”
“How you been, man?” Wakefield asks. “Your stats are ri-motherfucking-diculous. Any teams trying to get you into bed yet?”
I look down into my beer cup at the white foam drifting on its surface, then glance up, shrugging. “A few, but…”
Wakefield cocks his head. “But what? What’s the hesitation?”
The hesitation is the decision I’ve never voiced out loud to any of them: that I have no plans to enter the NHL draft after graduation. That ultimately, I intend to get my law degree and become Chief Council for a mergers and acquisitions firm. A lofty position defending small companies that won’t have me standing in a courtroom.
That’s the plan, anyway.
Clearing my throat uncomfortably, I look around at the curious, watchful stares of my teammates. Everyone seems riveted, waiting for my response, and I reach my hand up to readjust my ball cap self-consciously. “I, uh…”
As if sensing my distress, Cecelia removes her intuitive gaze slowly from mine and gives her boyfriend’s meaty bicep a squeeze, leaning in to whisper in his ear. His eyes widen and shoot to mine, and he gives her a stiff, jerky nod. “Okay, okay, I’ll change the subject. Sorry,” he mumbles, both of them pasting on fake smiles.
Wakefield surges on. “So, what else is going on? How’s everyone behaving in that hockey house of yours?”
I glance behind them to catch a glimpse of Abby, her teeth biting down on the plastic rim of her cup as she tries to fade into the background and become unnoticeable and avoiding my stare. The hopes I’d been harvesting for the past few days that she and I would get the opportunity to talk tonight begin to rapidly fade before bursting into flames.
I pry my eyes away. “I’m sorry?”
Matthew Wakefield raises his eyebrow and repeats the question, glaring at me impatiently like I’m dumb as a box of rocks. “I asked how everyone is behaving at the hockey house.”
“Good.”
His dark eyebrows go higher into his hairline as he waits for me to elaborate.
I don’t.
Curling his lip, he addresses Cecelia, who is still sidled up next to him. “Wow,” he adds flatly. “I can see what the appeal here is for Abby. What a deep conversationalist.”
Heat rises from my neck, and I can feel my cheeks warming considerably. Shit, just what I need—I’m fucking blushing.
“Babe, would you do me a favor and grab me a water from the bar?” Cecelia cuts in, stroking his triceps with lazy fingers. He looks down at her hand then up into her face, the scowl on his face replaced by a relaxed, easy grin.
He leans in and kisses her on the nose. “Sure. Want lemon, too?”
“Um, sure. And take Abby with you.” Cecelia gives me a wink.
“One water with lemon coming right up,” Wakefield says, grabbing Abby by the elbow and dragging her through the crowd to the bar. I track their movement as the crowd parts to let them through.
Cecelia is on me like flies on shit.
“Okay, we only have a few minutes, so listen up.” She gets in my personal space, rises to her tiptoes, and talks close to my ear, comparatively. “What’s your plan?”
“Uh…”
She throws her arms up in frustration, and I can hear her exasperated groan over the blaring music. “Ugh! This is the problem with you two. You’re both so awkward.”
Words fail me, but I manage to respond with, “Uh, yeah.”
Cecelia glances over her shoulder. “Shit, they’re already being served. Look, I know you didn’t keep the ring on purpose. Abby knows you didn’t keep the ring on purpose. And all this crap with your friends being rude isn’t anything I didn’t experience myself. I mean, Matthew’s friends are—ugh! Awful.”
She’s babbling, but I’m hanging on her every word.
“So the way I see it, you’re just going to have to suck it up and take one for the team. She obviously blew this whole thing out of proportion—and don’t you dare tell her I said that or I’ll kill you—but there’s no way she’s going to admit it. She’s way, way too embarrassed to approach you. So, you have to be the one to make things right. I see no other way around it.”
Abby’s best friend grips both my shoulders, b
ears down, and gives them a firm shake. “Are you listening to what I’m saying? Blink once if you’re getting this.”
I blink once, afraid she’ll whack me, and add a curt nod for good measure.
Cecelia smacks my right arm anyway, then releases me, smoothing down the rumbled sleeve of my long-sleeve tee shirt. “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear.” And just when I think she’s done with me, Abby’s best friend levels a finger in my face, her pointed fingernail hovering dangerously close to the tip of my nose. “You better not disappoint me, Caleb Lockhart. I know where you live.”
Shit, she’s kind of scary.
~ Abby ~
I wish I could tell you that before leaving Lone Ranger’s tonight, Caleb and I had the courage to talk.
That I had the courage apologize.
That I had the courage to look at him.
But I didn’t.
CHAPTER 31
Caleb
I stand in the dark, surrounded by thick, overgrown hedges that rise to my waist, and study the window before me. Flashlight app illuminated on my phone, I shine it directly on the eyelevel casement window.
Somehow, before I can swing it open, I’ll have to lift the pane until it’s off the lock. Only then will I have access to the dark room inside.
I dig into the pocket of my track pants for my pocketknife, flip open the bottle opener, and wedge it securely into a crack at the base of the pane, giving the knife a firm tug.
Only the echo of splintered wood and rustling bushes fill the quiet void in this space of yard I occupy.
Ignoring the recognizable cracking sound, I make a mental note to come back and calk it, my deft fingers grab hold of the window base, and I push up. The pane gives a loud creak, then a moan, and I hear the telltale give of the lock coming undone before the crank moves the window forward.
Grunting, I pull, and the window eases opens. A tad too accessible for my comfort level, but I’ll have to deal with that later.
Once I have the glass all the way open, I close the pocketknife and stuff it back in my pocket, along with my phone, and crack my knuckles. Bracing both hands on either side of the window, I stiffen my arms and upper torso, then bounce on my heels, warming up my body and preparing to hoist myself five feet off the ground and up into the window from a stand.