“I told you to quit doing that shit! Listen, you gotta stop stalking me! You psycho freak! You can’t pay me enough to put my dick in you. So, stop trying.”
He put all his anger into making his words sound convincing, and fuck…it worked.
She flinched, shocked hurt widening her eyes. But instead of laughing at Keane for being poor, everyone around them started laughing at her for being a psycho.
He wanted her to protest. Maybe even hit him. He deserved that and it wouldn’t matter. Everyone would believe him and maybe he could explain in private.
But she did something even worse than hitting him. Instead of getting angry, she turned and ran. However, not fast enough for him not to see the way her eyes welled up right before she took off down the hallway. An ugly hollowness lodged in his gut and his heart pounded. Still terrified for some reason, even though he’d successfully dodged the reputation killing bullet that would have been admitting he’d been letting Lena Kumar give him “scholarship” lunch money the entire time he was here.
Band Nerd glared at him, then took off, too, calling her name as he ran to comfort her.
No, his name wasn’t Band Nerd, Keane finally admitted. It was Vihaan. And it didn’t matter how short and skinny he was or who he’d brought to prom, in that moment, he was a much bigger man than Keane.
Keane would continue to think about what happened in that hallway for years to come. Replaying it in his mind, and wishing he’d said something else. Done something else. Defended her instead of standing by while those rich assholes teased her for the rest of the year. It had become so bad, he’d never been able to figure out how to approach her privately to explain why he’d said what he had. Con and a bunch of the other hockey players even coughed, “psycho!” under their hands as she walked across the stage.
No, like the coward who figures out a comeback way too late, Keane eventually constructed the perfect reaction to that envelope moment, sometime around his first year at UBoss.
He could have kissed her. He could have kissed her there in that hallway in front of everyone, including Cordelia, and let them all figure it out.
That he didn’t want Cordelia, he wanted Lena.
That the money didn’t mean shit, it had always been about keeping Lena close, even when he thought she was with somebody else.
That they were just background.
Hockey and Lena were all that mattered.
He got to keep hockey, but he lost Lena the same spring morning he’d set out to claim her.
“Ah, Keane, I think they’re calling for you to go up on stage.”
Keane blinked out of the memory, realizing that the song wasn’t coming from the blonde. He could now see Bono on stage waving him forward while the Hawks’ unofficial victory song poured out from the speakers on either side of the stage.
“Be here when I get back,” he bit out, like the blonde was one of his minions at DGK.
Then he went to give a very short speech, which would be followed by a long night of trying to fuck Lena out of his system. Again.
He hated that this was still happening sixteen years after their eyes first clashed. Hated that it was still Lena—and only Lena—who made him feel like a victory song whenever she touched him.
Chapter Two
Some friendships fade and some friendships pick you and your son up from the airport at four in the morning.
Lucky for Lena and Max, her friendship with Vihaan turned out to be the latter. They found him waiting for them in the baggage claim area when they came down the escalator after getting off the red-eye they’d flown from California.
“Welcome home!” Vihaan gathered her and Max up in a tight hug before stepping back to watch as she lugged their suitcase off the baggage claim carousel.
He kept up a perky stream of chatter as they walked out to his car. Like she hadn’t divorced his brother since she saw him last.
Same old Vihaan, she thought later as she struggled to heft the bag into the trunk of his electric Fiat. Lucky his bubbly nature made up for his lack of chivalry.
“Want me to help?” Max asked.
“I got it. Why don’t you climb into the back seat?” she answered.
“Are you nearly as tall as me now?” Vihaan demanded as he, too, took her up on her invitation to get in the car. “I thought we agreed you were going to stop growing so fast the last time I saw you.”
“Sorry, Uncle Vi,” Max answered, his voice as good-natured as Vihaan’s had been indignant.
Vihaan was right about how too fast Max had been growing. His joggers looked more like capris these days, she noted as she watched him contort his already long and strong body to climb into the backseat. Luckily, he’d decided to start exclusively wearing hockey jerseys after his first season of house league hockey, or she’d probably have to replace all his shirts, too, this summer.
Vihaan started talking about his life, and exclusively, about his own life as soon as Lena sat down in the front passenger seat, like it had only been a few days since they’d seen each other last. Not years.
But Lena couldn’t have been more grateful for his continuous stream of me, me, me. Therapist mode was her safe space, and Lord knew she did not want to talk about herself or her failed marriage with his brother. All she wanted right now was to get home to her father and get some z’s in so that she’d be well-rested for a weekend of packing up his convenience store.
Plus, she loved hearing about the trials and tribulations of working in a swanky Charlestown digital marketing firm filled with adults—it was a nice break from the schoolyard and family drama most of her patients wanted to talk with her about. Though she was sad to hear that he’d just dumped a workplace boyfriend of “too many” years.
“Another Jonah,” he confessed with a huff. “I need to switch it up. I don’t know why I keep falling for the Jewish version of me. I should have figured out by now it starts off nice, but only ends up so effing boring.”
“It does sound like a pattern that’s not serving you,” she agreed, keeping any and all judgment out of her tone. Who was she to talk anyway? Kids she could handle, no problem. But it had taken her eight years to realize that no matter how much her father loved Rohan, the only real adult relationship she’d ever had was just never going to work out.
“That hair guy from that makeover show mom likes used to date a rugby player,” Max offered from the back seat.
“Yeah, I know, right? And he was smoking hot,” Vihaan said. Only a faint hint of his Indian accent still laced his speech after nearly twenty years in America. “I wish Boston had a hot pro rugby team. Most of the players on the New England Freedom look like dads.” He lowered his voice to add for Lena’s ears only, “And not the -ILFy kind either.”
“How about a hockey player?” Max asked.
“Ewwwww!” Vihaan made a dramatic gagging sound as he steered the car toward the Columbia Rd Exit. “Listen to me, bhatije. Your mom and I will never, and I mean never date a hockey player. Please don’t ever suggest anything like that again!”
“Why not?” Max demanded, sounding offended on behalf of all possibly gay hockey players.
“Trust me, if you had gone to the same school we did, you wouldn’t even be having this conversation with us. Hockey players are the worst. The total worst. Right, Lena?
Right…
Lena shifted her eyes away. College had been such a weird era in her life. For the first time, she’d befriended another biracial black woman her age, mixed with something other than white. She’d taken on a new half-Korean best friend, named Dawn. And for a while there she and Vihaan, who’d gone on to live out and proud at Tufts had lost touch.
So while the college friend who never returned her calls or texts these days knew about that summer, Vihaan didn’t. And though he obviously knew about her dating and marrying his brother, she’d never quite gotten around to tell him about that break they’d taken before she moved to California or what and who happened during the months they spen
t apart.
“Look, it’s Keane! It’s Keane!”
Her lungs nearly collapsed at Max’s sudden announcement.
But then they filled again, when she followed the direction of her son’s pointing finger to a moving billboard, just off the exit.
Not her ex…. It was just a moving billboard, featuring a black-and-white ad that Keane had done for a famous shoe company.
Vihaan pulled up to a red light, and they all watched the commercial’s camera trail down from his handsome face to his naked torso. He had a beard now and tattoos on his chest. A tree with no leaves and blackbirds.
Lena couldn’t tear her eyes away as the camera panned down the rest of his body, over a pair of black workout shorts, to his now most famous part. A custom prosthetic with a skate attached.
The words “WHAT’S STOPPING YOU?” appeared across the screen just as a hockey rink lit up behind him.
“He’s so bomb,” Max said breathlessly as the light turned green, and Vihaan drove them past the billboard. “I want to be just like him when I grow up. But not the leg.”
No, not the leg…
“His resilience in the face of great loss is admirable,” she agreed, falling back into therapist mode to find even one upside to seeing Keane big as day on a billboard. “I’m glad he inspires you.”
Lena didn’t dare look across the seat at her now former brother-in-law, but she could sense him calling her a liar inside his head. And even though she still had no plans to tell him about that what happened between her and Keane after high school, she knew he was right.
That summer with Keane had been a mistake.
But this one would go much differently. She had only three wishes for her summer in Boston. That she could transition her father out of his convenience store into the retirement he deserved. That she’d get exactly what she needed from her training apprenticeship at the Institute for Better Boys. And most of all…
That she’d make it through the entire summer without seeing the hockey player on that billboard.
Chapter Three
Spring Break, Eleven Years Ago
“Yo, look at Graham. He found a 3-pointer!” one of Keane’s teammates yelled over Fergie caterwauling from the Daytona Beach bar’s sound system about her better than yours glamorous life.
The last person Keane expected to find when he looked up to see who Graham had netted for their Spring Break Bang-Off was Lena Kumar. But there she stood, dressed in a yellow bikini. One that confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt every lewd thought he’d had in high school about what she’d been hiding under that uniform. Big hips, big tits, she’d finally let them out, and they were on full display.
Unfortunately, her big eyes were currently peeping up at Graham Diener, a mediocre second-string wing—though Keane had overheard him telling a girl he was a starter earlier that night. And Lena didn’t know the only reason Graham was talking to her was because she was fat and brown, which meant instead of the usual one point per girl, he’d start the Bang-Off with 3 points if he closed the deal.
Fuck if Keane would let that happen. He hadn’t laid an eye on Lena in four years, but a new possessiveness rushed through him when he saw her flirting with that piece of shit.
“No cock blocking, bro!”
Keane didn’t realize he’d started advancing in Graham’s and Lena’s direction until a hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.
It was Tim, the team captain and a fellow Bostonian. He’d been the one to put together the week-long Bang-Off rules, and he though he wasn’t descended from a Founding Father, he was rich enough to fund the $5000 pot.
5K Keane had been sure he would win until he saw Graham trying run his lame game to Lena.
“I know her,” Keane said. “I don’t want Graham flirting with her.”
“Know her. Like she’s an ex-girlfriend?” Tim sent a skeptical look in Lena’s direction. Probably because she didn’t fit the normal profile of a hockey player girlfriend. Which tended to lean more Carrie Underwood than brown and fluffy.
“No, I went to high school with her…” Keane admitted, his eyes still on Lena. Another girl had joined the conversation. She was shorter than Lena but also fluffy…and falling down drunk. Lena looked concerned as she settled her friend on a stool. But drunk girls didn’t qualify for play in the Bang-Off, so Graham was ignoring her and still trying to close the deal with Lena.
Keane had never seen the drunk girl before, but he found himself feeling grateful to her for cock-blocking Graham in his stead, since Tim probably wouldn’t accept “knowing her from high school” as an excuse to go over there.
As if to confirm his point, Tim declared, “The cock-blocking rule still applies. She’s not drunk and she’s a three-pointer, so that means Graham’s free to play.”
Of course, Keane’s other teammates nodded along, like referees making an interference call. For a competition that was supposed to be fun and games, they were taking this shit way serious.
Yeah, good thing the drunk friend showed up…
But then another second-stringer said, “Fuck, what’s he doing now?”
Keane looked back over his shoulder to see Lena was no longer with her drunk friend at the bar, but hitting Graham with her purse, shit spilling out of it, as he dragged her towards the beach bathroom.
The fuck?
It would have taken a stronger guy than Tim to hold him back at that point. Keane ripped his shoulder out of the captain’s grip and rushed over to them, like Graham was trying to light a lamp for the opposing team.
“Stop. Let her go, dumbass,” he said, getting in front of Graham.
Graham and Lena stared up at him. Lena looked like a ghost had appeared out of nowhere, but Graham just looked pissed.
“No fair, Keane, I saw her first!”
Keane nearly lost it when instead of letting her go, Graham curled his hand even tighter around Lena’s wrist. “End of your life coming down in five…”
“Bro, c’mon,” Graham whined. “Fights off the ice are an automatic three-game suspension.”
“Four…”
“You’re going to risk your draft chances on this shit?”
Truth be told, Keane could barely hear him. All he could see was that little fuck’s hand still touching Lena. “Three…”
“Fuck, Keane, c’mon. Cut me a break, it’s just pussy—”
“Two…”
Like the coward Keane had already guessed him to be, Graham dropped her wrist before he could get to one. “I fucking hate you, bro. But whatever. Plenty of pussy in the sea. Bet I can find another brown one, too.”
Graham probably thought that was some kind of comeback, but Keane had already forgotten about him by the time he disappeared back into the crowd of spring breakers.
His eyes were glued to one thing and one thing only. “You all right, Lena?”
She stilled. Like a forest critter that had just been spotted by something that wanted to eat it.
Looking at her in that bikini, Keane couldn’t say she was wrong about that.
“I’m…I’m fine…um thanks?” she finally managed to say, appearing wary as hell to be talking to him after all this time.
“You’re welcome,” he answered, smirking at her questioning tone. She probably didn’t ever expect to be thanking him for anything after what went down their senior year.
But then he thought about what could have happened with Graham, if he hadn’t shown up. “You sure you’re okay? Real serious. I will beat that fuckhead into the ground if he has hurt you.”
She looked back at him with blank shock, and Keane could almost hear her smart girl mind trying to reconcile him of all people offering to defend her as she said, “I’m fine.”
Yeah, she was fine, he realized, continuing to stare down at her. Still. He’s never seen her hair out of the studious braid she kept it in back in high school. It was pretty down. Like a black cloud of curls framing her cute face. He didn’t let his eyes roam lower than that this
time.
The swim trunks he’d worn to the bar wouldn’t provide much camouflage if he sprung a boner. And that was exactly what would happen if he let himself look at her body in a bikini again, without Graham here to distract him from all of that “yeah, you know you want this, Keane.” Still.
“What’s a goodie like you doing in Daytona anyway?” he asked, channeling all his irritation at not being able to ogle her the way he wanted to into the question.
She pulled a face. And Keane wonder if she was asking herself the same question after her run-in with Graham. “Trying to blow off some steam before finals. It was my friend’s idea to come here—”
She cut off, glancing over her shoulder. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. It was…” She shook her head as if searching but failing to come up with a word to describe their unexpected reunion. “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait, hold on—”
She disappeared into the beach crowd, before he could come up with something to convince her not to leave. To stay and keep talking to him.
He thought about running after her. It felt like he had so much he needed to say. But when he tried to find the words, he couldn’t think of any.
What could he say anyway? “Sorry for ruining what should have been the funniest part of your senior year by accusing you of being a psycho. But hey, ran interference for you with Graham, soooo…wanna fuck?”
Keane couldn’t say he’d met other girls like Lena at UBoss, but he’d scoped them out from afar. Always headed in some specific direction, never wandering around campus. They didn’t flirt. Never showed up at his frat house’s parties. Always had the right answer in class, because they actually studied that shit before the test. Somehow, Keane doubted she would jump at his offer of makeup sex.
A strange disappointment swept over him as he headed back in the direction of his boys.
Graham had already come back to the three tall tables they’d claimed for themselves. To tattle as it turned out. He was waving around what looked like one of those moleskin journals and complaining loudly to Tim about getting cock-blocked.
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