Off the Ice (Juniper Falls)

by Julie Cross

  My stomach churns. I don’t want to hear any more of this. It’s too much. I knew Claire was home because of her dad, I knew he was struggling, but I had no idea how this “medical miracle” was tearing her family apart. She’s supposed to be far away having all kinds of big-city adventures.

  Since things appear to be sort of under control, Roger walks over to me and suggests we take off. My mind is far away when we climb back into the van and leave the two ladies and the sheriff with the nearly naked Davin O’Connor.

  Chapter 21

  –Tate–

  After that whole debacle and sending Claire three texts and getting no reply, I just need to see if she’s okay. I hop on my snowmobile and end up at O’Connor’s.

  A blond chick is at the hostess stand and Claire isn’t anywhere in sight. “Is Claire around?”

  The girl looks down at the menus in front of her, shuffling them into a neat stack. “She’s not working in the dining room tonight.”

  “Is she back in the kitchen?”

  “Nope.” The girl jumps at the chance to seat a family that just entered.

  I notice Petey behind the bar. He’s always been around for Sunday night football with Dad. “Hey, Petey? Where’s Claire?”

  “Storeroom, reorganizing,” he says after glancing up from the beer glass he’d been filling.

  I shrug when the hostess girl glares at Petey. From the corner of my eye, I spot Pratt and some meathead friends of his eating at a table in the back. Maybe that’s why Claire is hiding out?

  In the kitchen, Manny waves to me and lets me pass through without questions. The cold storeroom is such a contrast to the overheated kitchen that I shiver after walking in. I glance around and Claire’s nowhere to be found. I’m about to leave when I hear sniffling coming from the far corner of the room. I walk slowly past shelves of liquor and canned ingredients.

  Claire is hiding behind a tall stack of boxes. She’s sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, her apron sprawled over her legs. Her eyes are red and her face wet with tears. And she’s got a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in one hand. With a decent amount of the liquor missing.

  “Oh great,” Claire says when she sees me. She lifts the apron to her face, attempting to wipe it dry.

  I squat down in front of her, assessing how drunk she is. Her speech was pretty clear, but she only said two words. I shiver again. It’s like a fridge in here. “It’s freezing. Let’s get you out of here.”

  She laughs. “How about we go upstairs? I can give you a private showing. Isn’t that what Haley’s cheer friends are saying about us?”

  I sigh and then slide into the space beside her. Clearly we aren’t going upstairs and we aren’t going in the dining room. That would be a disaster. I touch the bottle in her hands with one finger. “Are you sharing?”

  I’m kind of over being the responsible sober one.

  She reluctantly hands it over and I take a swig. It’s bitter and burns going down. “I think today would be a great day to run away with the circus,” she says.

  I hand the bottle back and press my shoulder against hers. “I’m in.”

  She chugs another gulp of whiskey and then puts the cap on. “You want to know something?”

  “What?” There’s a case of bottled water beside me. I snatch a bottle and pass it to Claire, hoping she’ll drink some. She does.

  “You know how I’m working at the bar now?” Claire says, and I’m quickly doubting her ability to put one foot in front of the other, but I nod anyway. “Well, I’m doing the bills, too. And I keep paying and paying stuff and it just won’t end. My phone is about to get shut off. Again. Oh, the power bill is past due. I have a feeling people want heat and electricity when they go somewhere for food or drinks. And I’m too afraid to remind my parents. I mean, what the hell are they going to do that I haven’t thought of?

  “And then my dad was running around town naked and I couldn’t even go and help him because he can’t deal with me dealing with him like that. How is he supposed to deal with the money stuff? I’m so sick of nodding and smiling when people ask me how he is. I’m sick of this lie… He can’t fucking talk. He can hardly feed or dress himself.”

  She’s furiously wiping away tears. My stomach is a ball of knots. I pick up the whiskey from the floor where she set it down and take a couple more drinks.

  “Claire…” I lean my cheek against the wall, waiting for her to look at me. “I have no idea what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. Why would you? You haven’t done anything wrong.” She shakes her head. “But me? What am I doing while my dad’s trying to figure out how to talk again? I’m living out my pop-star fantasies playing keyboard with the town exterminator’s band. What kind of person does that?”

  “It’s a paid gig, right?” I overheard Roger say to my mom that his band and Claire were splitting the two-thousand-dollar payment. Not exactly chump change.

  “But I don’t have to enjoy it, you know? What the hell is wrong with me?” she snaps. “And while we’re on that topic…you know what I’m sitting here thinking about? Not my dad or the bills, not completely those things, but freakin’ Luke Pratt. Why did he have to be right? You know what he told me that night when…well, you know?”

  Jesus. We’re back to Luke Pratt again. I’m gonna need more alcohol. “What did he say?” I prompt.

  “He said I’d end up wearing a sombrero and singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in Spanish.” She lifts her hands. “One look at me tonight and I knew that was what he was thinking. That he was right.”

  “I saw him out in the dining room. If I wasn’t so worried about finding you—”

  “No more fighting over me,” she groans.

  “Yeah. Okay.” I pick the skin on my thumbnail. “But he’s a prick. Forget about him.”

  There. That should work. Not.

  “I had a crush on him for years,” Claire admits, though I already knew this.

  I reach for the whiskey again, taking an even bigger drink. “You have terrible taste.”

  She glares at me and steals the bottle back. “It was the only alcohol my mom hasn’t inventoried yet. Underage beggars can’t be picky.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the booze.”

  “Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “Everyone had a crush on him. But you know what I learned about long-term unrequited crushes?”

  “What?” I ask, even though I’d love to change the subject. Especially considering what I admitted to her in the movie theater the night of the carnival. “They turn into assholes and then keep showing up for walleye horseshoes?”

  “Well, that, too. And that it’s so much better in your head, you know? I had this vision of what it would be like to kiss someone after imagining it for so long.” She leans her head against the shelf beside her and closes her eyes. “I was such a child. I wanted him to make me feel like the most important person in the world, but it was all so calculated and mechanical.”

  Her eyes are closed and I can stare as long as I want at her face. And that does things to me. My heart picks up speed. Because I’ve imagined the same thing with Claire, but there’s nothing calculated about it.

  “Before my dad…” Her voice breaks, but she swallows back the tears and continues. “Well, before that night with Luke…I didn’t really date anyone or hook up much. Everyone around here always seems to fall into this trap and get stuck in some cliché relationship.”

  “Like cheer captain and varsity hockey player?” I suggest.

  She gives me this look like, Oops, sorry. “I was talking about other people. And about my expectations. They’ve always been too high.”

  “I don’t think your expectations are too high.” I don’t know what exactly she wants or wanted, but regardless, she should have it. And yeah, I’m fucking glad Luke Pratt failed to meet Claire’s expectations.

  She shakes her head. “Maybe nobody really treats people like they’re special. Or they do but only for a little while. That’s
some idealistic version of love that I ditched last fall. But Haley…”

  “Haley?” I ask

  “Haley.” Claire opens her eyes, looking at me again. “She’s not the monster you made her out to be.”

  “I know that.” This is about as fun as talking about Luke Pratt. “I never said she was a bad person. I just can’t deal with her sometimes, and I choose to hide out instead.”

  “She loves you,” Claire says. “I heard her that night at Benny’s—”

  I sit up straighter. “You were listening? I thought you left.”

  So Haley was the barrier. The reason Claire “needed space.”

  I angle my body to face her, but her eyes are closed again. “Claire, look at me.” When she does, I take a deep breath. “Haley doesn’t— She and I—it’s not hard. It’s easy and comfortable. We’re barely penetrating the surface.” I think for a minute, digging for the right words, hopefully avoiding more unnecessary use of the word “penetrate.” Claire looks doubtful, and I’m fighting the urge to shake her and make her understand what’s trapped inside my head. For the first time since Haley and I broke up, things are making sense. “It’s like scooping a jar full of water from the top of Juniper Falls Pond and claiming to know the contents of the entire lake.”

  Claire groans, like I’ve clearly said the worst thing possible. “Oh, is this where you justify the need to experiment with lots of girls? You gotta fill a bunch of glasses?”

  “No!” I release a frustrated breath. “Why do you keep doing that? Why do you keep assuming I’m like that? You practically predicted it for me a year ago. You’ve been gone, so what the hell do you know?”

  Okay, that came out way harsher than I meant it to. But seriously? What the hell?

  Her eyes widen and some fresh tears slip down one cheek, and I feel like an asshole again. “What did you mean, then?”

  “Haley and I…we didn’t push each other to…to…” I’m still grappling for words. What is this thing that Claire and I are doing? It’s painful and messy but also exhilarating, like seeing colors for the first time. “We didn’t rip each other open and look inside, you know? We didn’t bring all the ugly stuff to the surface.”

  “Because that’s hard,” Claire says slowly, trying each word out, picking them apart.

  I nod, relieved that she gets it. “Yeah. It’s hard.”

  “But hard is awful,” she protests.

  “The past several months with Haley,” I admit, “I had to pretend more than I didn’t. I don’t have to do that with you.”

  “Tate, I’m a sinking ship. I can’t do anything without stressing and changing my mind twenty times. Or pissing someone off. Look how much damage carrying a box of toilet paper downstairs for me has done. People expect you to be with Haley; they see you as a regular hockey player guy. I guess I want you to have it easy. Is that so terrible?”

  That’s why she pushed me away. She wanted to help me. My mind drifts back to Davin O’Connor and how lost he looked standing outside in his underwear practically freezing to death. She’s got all this shit to deal with and she wanted to help me.

  When Claire sets the whiskey and water bottles down beside her, I find myself scooting closer, then sliding a hand up her arm. She eyes my fingers, watching them slowly make their way higher. “Can I tell you something?”

  My fingers reach her neck and then her cheek. I brush my thumb just under her bottom lip. The thud of my heart is blaring inside my ears, but I watch her mouth open slowly and then she whispers, “Yeah…okay.”

  I trip over my words, too distracted by the feel of her skin beneath my fingertips. How many times have I imagined this? Too many to ever admit. Her unrequited crush theory is completely inaccurate. “I’m… I mean, this is…you and me—I’ve thought about this. A lot. For a long time.”

  A question forms in her mouth but I shake my head. I’m not done. I follow the curve of her jaw until my hand is in her hair. “And the more of you I saw, the more I wanted this. That’s how it should be. No one is perfect up close, but it’s the only way to know.”

  I lean in and touch my mouth to her forehead. I slide over and kiss her temple. Her eyes widen and she stutters out a few words. “T-Tate, what are you—?”

  “Do you remember when you stayed over with us on New Year’s Eve that one time? I think your parents went somewhere…” With my free hand, I search around for Claire’s hand near my leg. I lift it, pressing her palm over my heart. “You made Jody and me write down our New Year’s wishes, and then we sent them up with fireworks attached to the dolls…”

  “Rocket Barbie,” Claire whispers, her eyes fluttering shut.

  “I watched you writing down your wishes so carefully and then lighting them up. I remember my heart racing, just like this.” I press her palm more firmly against my heart. “It scared me. That anyone could pull those feelings out of me. I get it. The Luke thing. But if you had watched him, if you’d seen him for real…”

  I pull back enough for our eyes to meet. Claire looks like she’s hanging by a thread, no clue what she wants right now. But I’m here, tangled in her life just as much as she’s tangled in mine. There is only one way to get out of this seemingly dead end we’ve hit.

  “Remember last fall, in the car after the hospital when I said you were perfect?”

  She nods slowly.

  “This is what I wanted to do then—what I should have done a year ago.” I lean in again, her lips barely brushing mine. “This is me being a grown-up.”

  Chapter 22

  –Claire–

  I’m not only caught off guard by Tate’s mouth touching mine, I’m surprised by how warm his lips are. The room is spinning around me, even with my eyes closed. But this, this is frozen. Suspended in midair.

  Just the slightest brush of his lips against mine and my insides thaw. I hold perfectly still, releasing a much-too-enthusiastic sigh. “Tate, I don’t think…”

  But my argument fizzles out when his fingers grip the back of my neck so gently it makes me want to cry. My heart flies, my stomach cartwheels. His mouth moves to my cheek and then my neck.

  And then he holds my face in his hands, his lips returning to mine, his tongue teasing my lips until they open. His mouth moves slowly with mine, his fingers wandering aimlessly, touching any skin they can reach. My own hands drift to Tate’s back, gliding under his shirt, feeling the shiver that runs down his spine when I touch him.

  God, this is so…so…more. It’s more. It’s everything. It’s never going to end. I won’t let it.

  Slowly, with such ease, he pulls his mouth from mine. One hand drifts from my face to my hair. He touches his forehead to mine, both of us breathing hard.

  Something twists inside my chest. My own heart is breaking. No, it’s gluing back together. It’s doing both. I don’t know…

  I just know that I got my wish. I got the kiss I’ve been dreaming about for years.

  “Claire?” Tate still has his arms around me. He might be holding me up. I’m not sure. “You’re freezing.”

  I lean in, wanting nothing more than for my lips to touch his again. “No, I’m warm.”

  He pulls back and looks me over. “Your teeth are chattering.”

  They are? God, the whiskey must be kicking in.

  “Come on, I’ll take you home,” Tate says, his eyebrows pulling together. “You don’t mind snowmobiles, do you?”

  “I was planning on crashing upstairs tonight. I open in the morning.” I touch my thumb to his forehead and rub the wrinkle that formed between his eyes. “You look so worried, like I’m gonna get hypothermia. It’s fifty-five degrees in here. You can’t get hypothermia in fifty-five degrees.”

  “Actually, you can.” He tucks the whiskey bottle behind a box and stands up, pulling me to my feet along with him. The room spins, and I reach out for something to hold onto, but after a second, I’m reoriented and balancing on my own. “I’ll walk you upstairs, then. I promise I’ll leave as soon as you’re safely deposite
d inside, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, meeting his green eyes. “But don’t leave.”

  I lean in, wanting—no, needing—to kiss him again. But far in the distance, practically miles away from this cold storeroom, I hear my mother’s voice.

  “Claire!”

  Maybe not miles away. Maybe from inside the kitchen.

  Tate jumps, his eyes wide with panic. My heart sprints again for an all-new reason. I don’t want my mom finding us back here together.

  “What should I do?” he whispers.

  I shove him behind the boxes. “Stay here. I’ll drag her out the door and then you can sneak out.”

  I’m about to run for the door, but Tate grabs my hand. “Claire…”

  My eyes meet his again and we’re both full of hundreds of words, all forming sentences ending with question marks, but there’s no time for that. “I’ll text you when it’s all clear.”

  He gives me one quick nod, but I can see he’s afraid I’ll retreat back into that place where I need to push him away to help him. Maybe I will. Probably I will. When the whiskey is out of my bloodstream.

  But still…that was the best freakin’ kiss ever. Can’t deny that.

  I hurry into the kitchen, my phone already in my hand ready to text Tate an “all clear” message so he can leave me to replay that kiss alone upstairs.

  But the second I step into the kitchen, I get a glimpse of Mom’s face and release my phone, letting it fall down deep into the pocket of my apron.

  Oh no.

  No, no, no…

  Chapter 23

  –Tate–

  I never got an “all clear” text from Claire last night. Eventually, I stacked up boxes near a window, propped it open, and climbed through. I tried to call her a dozen times. It went straight to voicemail.

  While lining up for the winter parade at seven o’clock this morning, I’m shifting between pissed off at Claire and hurt, and then I’m calling myself an idiot for kissing her when she’d obviously had a ton of whiskey. It was too much, too soon.