“I’ve got nothing to hide,” I say with a shrug and glance down. “And that’s not half. It’d be bigger if it was half. You should know that now.”
I grab her hand and spin her around right next to the door, pressing her against the wall I kiss her again. I can’t get enough of her, the softness of her lips, the warmth of her mouth, the eagerness of her tongue. It’s more intoxicating than alcohol.
But she breaks the kiss before it can develop into anything more. I know it’s for the best but I still frown and try to pull her mouth back to mine. She laughs softly and slips away, grabbing the door handle, ready to make her escape.
She pauses and looks up at me. “I’m sorry I acted like you were a cocky playboy, incapable of serious feelings,” she tells me quietly with the hint of a smile. As the knob turns in her hand, she adds, “Because you’re more than that, and you might not truly believe that yet, but I do.”
With one more soft, quick kiss, she’s gone.
Chapter 18
Brie
Four days later I wake up and the first thing I do is check my phone. Alex is on a road trip playing Vegas and Seattle so I knew I’d be asleep by the time he got back to the hotel and we wouldn’t be able to talk like we did the last two nights. But there’s no text. No missed call. No email.
I have to put aside my disappointment and pull on my big-girl pants here. I know this. He’s not ignoring me. He’s not used to being in a relationship and I’m not used to being in one that’s long distance every few days. Maybe I’m expecting too much. He’s home today and I’ll get to see him again and that’s what counts.
I sigh and get out of bed, wandering into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee and some toast before work. Mac grumbles something and sits down beside me with a bowl of Cheerios and begins to cut a banana into it. Her eyes seem barely open, but she doesn’t sever a finger and manages to pour the milk in the bowl anyway.
I keep quiet and stalk Alex on Instagram. He’s posted two photos since he’s been on his road trip and neither are the usual hotel bathroom towel selfie. The last time he posted a selfie with a hot girl hanging off him was before he moved to Brooklyn, before I met him. His two shots from this trip are caption-less artsy photos he’s taken. One, a cityscape shot of Seattle at night and the other a black-and-white of a cactus in Vegas. The comments under them are mostly complaints he isn’t posting half-naked selfies anymore, and proclamations of love and offers for a good time. He never responds. This morning there’s a new post. It’s in black-and-white and it’s of the light I gave him. There’s a caption: My new favorite thing.
I smile so big my face hurts and Mac gives me a weird look, like she thinks I’m insane, but I ignore her as my worries disappear and my heart catapults itself back into my chest.
Four hours later I’m sitting behind my desk going through paperwork and still feeling awesome when there’s a knock on my door. I wasn’t expecting him to come straight here from the airport, so seeing Alex standing there in a suit and tailored wool coat is pretty overwhelmingly awesome. The grin on my face must make me look insane it’s so big, but I can’t contain it. A slow smile starts to spread across his face until it’s almost as big as mine, and as he walks into the room, he pulls the door closed behind him.
I stand up and walk around my desk.
“Hey,” he says simply, his French accent thicker than normal.
We’re standing so close I have to tilt my head back to look at his face. “Hey.”
“I have a work thing I have to go do, but I wanted to swing by and see how Mac’s doing,” he says.
Oh.
“She’s at school. She skipped again yesterday, so I grounded her,” I explain and take a step back. “She was pissed but didn’t run away. At least not yet…”
“I think her birthday is coming up,” he says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. I take another step back. “She mentioned something about it being this month when I met her.”
“Yeah. It’s Sunday,” I reply. “I asked her if she wanted a party and she said no, but that it would be cool if you and maybe Len came over. Are you in?”
“Of course,” he says. “Great. I’ll get her something too.”
“Is there something else?”
Please let there be something else.
He clears his throat. “I missed you. Like crazy.”
“I missed you too.” I bite my bottom lip, feeling light and coy and kind of giddy.
He reaches up and gently holds my chin using his thumb to pull my lip from my mouth. “Do you want me to talk to Mac? Like back you up or something?”
“Right now all I want is for you to kiss me.” My voice is barely a whisper because he’s dipping his head and our lips are closer and closer, and then he kisses me. It’s as passionate and carnal as I remember.
There’s a knock at the door and we leap apart. I run my fingers gently over my lips and call out. “Come in!”
Rose Caplan opens the door and steps inside. She smiling warmly but does a stutter step when she sees Alex on the other side of the room, rubbing the back of his neck and staring at his feet. I can feel the heat in my own cheeks so I know they’re pink…maybe even red. We not only look guilty, there’s an air of guilt in the room.
“Hi. Sorry,” she says awkwardly. “I didn’t know you were busy. I just wanted to say hey. I’m here for the tutoring session with the kids. I’m early but I thought maybe you’d want to grab a coffee.”
“Yeah. Sure,” I reply casually, like I didn’t just have my tongue in her friend’s mouth.
Alex strides to the door, freezes, and comes back to me, cupping my face and kissing me hard on the mouth. “Bye. I’ll call you later.”
He walks back to my office door, right by Rose, who is grinning like a love-drunk fool. “Bye, Rose,” he mutters, not making eye contact.
“Toodles!” Rose sings.
As soon as he’s out the door, I reach for my purse. When I turn around, Rose is still standing there grinning at me. I blush. Again. She laughs and hooks her arm through mine as we start down the hall. “I’m going to buy you coffee and you’re going to pretend it’s truth serum and tell me everything.”
“There’s not much to tell.” I shrug and try not to grin. “My boyfriend just stopped by to say hi.”
She rolls her big brown eyes. “Honey, don’t even try to downplay this. I want all the details and I’m going to squee like a total fangirl.”
“Wow,” I huff and I can’t help but smile in awe. “You’re intense, Cupid.”
She pats my arm as we step out into the chilly fall afternoon. “I know they’re the picture of wedded bliss now, but both Jessie and Callie were their own worst enemy when it came to true love. So yeah, when love happens easily, I’m going to bask in it like a warm summer day.”
I find that hard to believe. Both her sisters are madly in love—and are loved madly—it’s obvious. But Rose isn’t a liar, so there must be one hell of a past I’m unaware of. We reach the corner and wait for the light so we can cross to the Dunkin’ Donuts across the street. “I don’t know Alex really well, but I know him well enough to know he likes to pretend he’s undatable. Obviously you busted through that bullshit.”
“I think he still believes that, but he’s willing to try with me anyway.”
She waves her free hand in the air, waving away my concern. “Pish. Nobody is undatable. Love is something every person on this planet wants…whether they know it or not.”
“You are quite the lover of love,” I remark.
“Yup!” she says with a shameless grin. “So details please! When did it start?”
I laugh. “I guess technically the night of the housewarming.”
“I knew it! I thought I saw you guys checking each other out.”
We order our coffees, and as we wait for our orders she leans close to me and asks, “So how’d you handle your first road trip as a girlfriend?”
“I missed him.”
&n
bsp; “Not going to lie, it can get hard. Especially on the long ones or when they’re in playoffs,” Rose confesses and sighs before leaning closer again and flashing me a devilish grin. “Skype sex helps.”
I laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
They call our orders and we grab them from the counter.
“Does Luc get banged up a lot?” I can’t help but ask as we make our way out of the coffee shop. “Alex seems to have a lot of scars.”
Rose’s smile slips a little. “Yeah, the injuries can be brutal, and Luc isn’t exactly a passive player. He likes to get into it. He kind of has to because he’s a defenseman. He’s had pucks to the face, fists to the face, a stick to the face. Luckily nothing has left too big a mark.”
“What would cause scars on the back? A skate or something?” I didn’t mean to say it aloud. I just couldn’t help it. Rose looks at me, puzzled. “Alex has little scars on his back. He’s covered them with a tattoo but you can feel them.”
Rose’s grin is back and she wiggles her dark eyebrows almost frantically. “You’ve felt his back? Shirtless back?”
I know I have to be the shade of a fire engine right now. Ugh. I cover my face with my hands. Rose takes pity on me and hugs me quickly as the light changes and we start to cross the street. “Okay, okay, I won’t press for details…right now. But I don’t know anything in hockey that would give him a bunch of scars on his back. They wear pads and jerseys and maybe once, if he was really unlucky a skate might pierce all that but I doubt that would happen more than once. How many does he have?”
“Umm…like seven or eight.” I feel kind of guilty bringing this up with her because I doubt Alex wants me to talk about him, or this, with anyone. Especially if he lied to me about the origin of the scars, which it’s definitely beginning to seem like he did. “Forget I said anything. It’s not my place to talk about this, you know.”
Rose nods and brushes back her long black hair as the cold wind whips it across her face. “Jordan played on the same team as Alex for years and didn’t know his background. He knew his family never came to games, but Alex never told anyone why. He recently opened up a bit to Callie and admitted his parents have died.”
“I know.” I sip my coffee and leave it at that.
“Jordan was shocked Alex never told him, but I think Alex picked Callie because she was the most like him before she finally admitted she loved Devin. Dear God, that girl tried so hard to keep herself from happiness it was maddening.”
She proceeds to tell me a brief summary of Callie and Devin. It’s a wild, heartbreaking tale. Callie, I can tell even from the brief time I’ve been around her, has a giant heart and is fiercely in love with her family and Devin. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree when she told me about her stepson at Alex’s party. It’s almost impossible to imagine she’d have tried to walk away from that.
“Callie was hell-bent on spending her life alone,” Rose says as we cross the street and head back toward Daphne’s House. “Look at her now. She’s happier than she ever thought possible.”
“I don’t know them well, but it seems impossible that Callie or Jessie would ever have been like that,” I confess as we reach Daphne’s House and start up the steps. “It gives me hope that if they can end up in love and happy then maybe Alex can too.”
“Good. It should,” Rose says as I unlock and open the front door. “Happy with you.”
That additional statement makes my heart skip. Rose freezes and her face lights up like she just remembered something. “I think this means you’ll be coming to my wedding!”
“What?”
She’s absolutely glowing. “He’s invited, obviously, and you can be his plus one now! I was going to invite you anyway, but thanks to Cupid I won’t need to. I love love!”
Selena walks into the hall from the classroom. She claps her hands excitedly. “Kids are all set to go, and the other teachers are here if you’re ready.”
“Yeah. Of course!” Rose says excitedly and hugs me before disappearing into the classroom. I peek in and am pleased to see five kids there, including Mackenzie. She glances up at me and gives me a hard smirk as if to say Happy now? because I’m making her attend. I smile back at her because yes, I’m happy now. In more ways than one.
Later that night, as I watch Mackenzie’s favorite show, Riverdale, with her, my text message alert goes off.
Rose: Hey. Know you said to forget it but mentioned the scars to Luc.
He said Alex got them when he was a kid. Fell on glass or something.
I read the text over and over. I can’t pull my eyes away. All the words circle around in my head, swirling and banging together. He fell on glass. When he was a kid. The story isn’t complete by any means, but there’s enough of it for me to make the connection to my own life. And the similarity has me dazed.
“It can’t be…”
“Who cares? It’s Archie. I only watch this for Jughead,” Mackenzie replies, her eyes still glued to the television. She thinks I’m talking about the show. My phone buzzes again with another text.
Rose: Anyway, I won’t bring it up again. I promise.
Unless you change your mind and want me to.
See you Thursday!
I text her back with a simple “okay” and then stand. Mackenzie looks up. “I need to grab something of mine from the closet in your room. Okay?”
“It’s your room, your house. You don’t have to ask me,” she replies quietly. “Do you want me to pause the show?”
“No. Keep watching.” I start toward the hall but stop. “And it’s your room. Okay?”
She nods cautiously like she doesn’t believe me, but I know that will only change with time, not with words, so I leave her to her show and head up to her room. It’s a bit of a disaster with her clothes in random piles and the bed unmade, but I don’t care. It’s actually nice to have her here. Her mess is somehow comforting. I didn’t have a messy room as a kid because we had a maid that came three times a week. I always wanted a messy one though. It seemed like a “normal kid” thing to have and I was always struggling to feel normal. I head to the closet and the small filing cabinet I wedged in the back corner when I moved in. I pull open the top drawer and it only takes me a minute to find the file.
My parents gave it to me when I really started hounding them with questions when I was fourteen. I always knew I was adopted and what had happened to my birth mom, but eventually I started to ask a lot of questions about the time between my birth family and my adoptive parents so they gave me my file from the social worker.
I move Mackenzie’s backpack off the corner of her bed and sit down with the folder in my lap. I haven’t opened this in years. I don’t like revisiting it; besides, once I read it at fourteen the information was seared into my brain. I flip it open and scan to the section that Rose’s texts made me think of.
I read the words over and over and over. Removed from home when it became apparent that children were being physically abused. A child found locked in a closet in the basement. Another child had been pushed through a window.
I must’ve been staring at it for a long time because Mackenzie appears in the doorway. “You okay?”
I blink and nod. “Yeah. I just…Something made me think of my childhood and I wanted to look something up.”
That couldn’t be vaguer if I tried but she doesn’t question me. Her pale eyes fall to the folder and she narrows her eyes on it. “Gabrielle Laflamme. Is that you?”
I nod. “It was before I was adopted. When I was in foster care like you.”
“How did you end up there?” she asks, leaning against the door frame. “Was your mom a selfish crack head like mine?”
I try not to frown. There is work to be done on her outlook on her mom, who died of an overdose two years ago, but now is not the time. I shake my head. “My mother was a single mom, like yours, but mine was older. She was forty-one when she had me, by herself. No husband.”
“On purpose?”
I smile at that. “Yes. On purpose. She wanted a family so she had me on her own. But then she got cancer and died before I turned two.”
“Holy shit,” she gasps. I glare at her and she covers her mouth but argues. “Come on. If ever there was a legitimate holy shit moment, it’s now.”
“No swearing,” I reply sternly.
She walks into the room and plops down next to me, her eyes back on the file. I slide it over so she can see it. “She was an only child. Her mom had already passed away and the only family left to take care of me was my grandfather. He took me in until he had a stroke and had to go into a home. So that’s when I ended up in the system.”
“When were you adopted?”
“At four,” I reply and smile. “Well, at four I was placed with my parents, but the official adoption happened when I was almost seven.”
“You’re so lucky,” Mackenzie comments. “People like the little ones. They have a better chance because they’re usually less fu—messed up.”
I smile because I appreciate her stopping herself from swearing there.
“I wasn’t exactly unscathed.” I sigh and look down at the file. “This file says some pretty bad things happened, but I just don’t really remember.”
She glances down again and begins to read the file. I let her, watching her eyes flare. “Some kid went through a window?”
I nod. “It was on the news. I guess the place they put me after taking me from my grandpa was a really bad home. The other kids there were being abused. I was only there for less than a week before the kid went through the window and they figured out what was going on.”
“It’s screwed up, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Mackenzie replies. “That kid going through the window was probably the best thing that could have happened to you because you got out of the house quickly.”
I nod and close the file. “I think you’re right.”
God, how absolutely crazy would it be if Alex was that same kid? It can’t be…the chances are one in a million.
Game On Page 17