by Maya Hughes
Emotions swirled around my head so quickly it was hard to catch one, but the overall suffocating truth of my high school career I’d been trying to avoid all day sat right in the middle of it.
“I’m not going to be valedictorian or salutatorian,” I said with numb lips. I’d thought that maybe drinking might help me numb the reality of it, but it couldn’t.
“You’re already in at Stanford. What does it matter? Relax, have fun. You’ll have plenty of time to study your ass off and be first in your class in college.”
“You don’t get it. I don’t give a shit about being first or second, I care about the scholarship that comes with it and the promise I made.”
“I thought you got a full ride?”
“I got a full tuition scholarship.” Drinking seemed like a good idea because it was bringing out all those ugly feelings I’d tried to bury deep down and pretend weren’t there. The feelings that that one cup of booze threatened to unearth and explode all over a party of people who already thought I was an uptight bookworm—and they were right, but not for the reasons they thought.
“It doesn’t cover living expenses.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What good would it do?” I glanced up at her, and she swam in front of my eyes. I blinked back the tears that tried to form.
“Oh, Mak!” She wrapped her arms around me and rocked me for a bit. Someone jumped into the pool and splashed us with a wave of water. We both yelped and jumped up.
Shepherding me inside, she grabbed some towels from one of the bathrooms, and we tried to dry off. The numbness was gone, and I almost wish it had stayed. Now the panic settled in.
“Don’t you have a college fund? I feel like my parents have been talking about mine since I could walk.” Kaitlin was me before. Me before I realized that money troubles existed for most people. “And you’ve been saving, right? The coffee-shop job thing. It’s not like you go anywhere. I’m sure you’ve been saving.” Someone knocked on the door. “Give us a minute,” she called out and stared at me.
“I haven’t been saving enough for four years of California living expenses.” I finished drying myself the best I could and folded the towel neatly before hanging it back up.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“I know. I haven’t exactly been open about this stuff. If you haven’t figured out already, I’m not exactly big into sharing.” I peered up at her and let out a small smile. Whoever was out there knocked again.
“You don’t freaking say.” She bumped me with her hip. “Come on, let’s head out. We’ll have some fun tonight and figure something out tomorrow.”
I loved the way she said it, like it was all so easy, and maybe for her it was. Maybe if I wasn’t me, it would be too.
5
Declan
The party seemed like a great idea at the time. Still did, I just wasn’t into it. My wet hair dripped all over Emmett’s bedspread, but I didn’t care and I knew he wouldn’t. He’d probably fall asleep on one of the inflatable pool floats like he did at the last party with Avery trying to lug him out of the pool.
Driving bass vibrated the bed even this deep into the house. Every so often a peal of laughter would shoot straight through the place. This was supposed to be our final blowout.
In only a few weeks I’d be up against guys who hadn’t made it onto the development teams by the skin of their fucking teeth, and I wasn’t going to come out anywhere near the bottom of the pack this time. If Archer was there, I’d flip him off and keep skating.
Drive. Intensity. Nonstop balls-to-the-wall ferocity was what I needed to have on the ice. I wasn’t losing my spot. I’d show him that we didn’t need him and I’d made it on my own.
“If I’d had another week, I know things would have gone down differently,” Heath said, climbing in through the open window, leaving his perch on the roof outside Emmett’s bedroom.
“How long have you been out there?”
“An hour or so. I had to make a call.”
“You’re going to get her fired.”
Heath held up his hands in mock surrender. “I can’t help it that I’m attracted to a hot woman all buttoned-up like that.” He walked to the mini-fridge in the corner of Emmett’s room.
The door flew open, and Colm and Emmett blew in. I pinched the bridge of my nose and sat up on the bed. Bottles clanked together as Heath grabbed a beer from the six-pack he’d stashed.
He’d driven up to Maine to a specialty microbrewery just to get them. Only one six-pack per customer. After all the time we’d been scoring booze underage, that was the thing that made him finally get his fake ID. All to drive ten hours for a six-pack. Sometimes he just took off driving. If something got to him off the ice, he walked away and just drove.
“Let me get one of those.” Colm held his hand out, opening and closing it like a little kid who wanted a toy.
“Dude.” Heath glanced down at his precious beers and held out the six-pack to Colm. He leaned over and snagged one out of the cardboard carton. Emmett tapped Heath on the shoulder, and he handed over another one.
Emmett flicked on the TV and threw a controller my way. A girl stumbled past the open bedroom door on the phone. “I can barely talk, let alone walk. Holy fuck, that was amazing!” She banged into the wall, dropping her phone, and we all shot up. Before we got to her, Ford wrapped his arms around her, coming from the same direction she had.
He held on to her and crouched down so he was looking into her eyes, and talked to her so low we couldn’t hear. He held on to her hands, and she smiled, nodding. Letting go, he watched her as she stood and kissed him on the cheek. On steady legs, she turned and headed toward the steps.
“What the hell was that? Was she that drunk?” Emmett stared out the open doorway.
“No, she hasn’t had anything to drink.” Ford plucked a beer out of the carton and cracked it open using his bare hands. I still had no idea how the hell he did that, and every attempt to show us how to open the bottles that way led to bruised and bloodied fingers.
“Then what the hell was wrong with her? Was she high?” Colm peered over at Ford, who gulped down his beer and kept totally silent.
“You sexed her into a stupor, didn’t you?” Colm laughed, before raising his cup and gulping down more of his beer.
Ford’s cheeks turned bright red, and he stared at the video game on the TV. “I didn’t sex her into a stupor. Things were intense; we had fun. She’s fine.”
“If you call not being able to walk straight fine.” Emmett laughed and went back to the game. Ford grumbled something, and I shook my head. He had that quiet intensity where we never quite knew what was going on in his head.
“You’ve been bragging about these things almost as much as you’ve been bragging about Miss Juniper. Since I can’t have a taste of her, I’ll settle for the beer.”
“Is he talking about making out with Miss Juniper again?” Ford rested his arm along the back of the seat.
“If we have to hear you go on about it again, then I get to drink the good stuff.” Emmett cracked the beer open on the edge of the table before kicking his feet up. I swore the solid wood table bent under the weight of his frame. Any team would be lucky to have him as a wing. Just his natural mass alone made him better than most, but the speed he had in the net was like nothing any of us had ever seen before.
“I haven’t talked about it that much.” Everyone in the room let out a groan. “What? If you hooked up with a hot student teacher, you wouldn’t gloat about it a little bit?” Heath leaned his head back, drinking down some of his beer and admiring the label like he was savoring a fine wine instead of the microbrew.
“A little bit? If that woman keeps her job after you’ve practically shouted it from the rooftops, it will be a miracle.” Colm threw the video game controller to Ford, who caught it and nearly dropped his beer.
“She’s barely two years older than me.”
“She’s four years older tha
n you.” Ford dropped into the massive gaming chair Emmett had bought especially for him after he broke two others. He was the Hulk. Other than turning green and no longer having rage issues since sophomore year, most people would think Ford and the Hulk were twins.
Colm fired up a new game, and they all looked ready to settle in for the night.
“Why the hell are you guys even in here? Isn’t there a party going on out there?” I pointed out through the open bedroom door as voices filtered up the stairs from the party down below.
“It won’t take them long to find us, but how much longer will we all have together to hang?” Heath glanced down at the bottles he had left and held one out to me. With a flick of his wrist with his custom bottle opener, he flipped off the cap and clinked his glass to mine.
“To our last nights as Kings.” He held up his bottle to the rest of the guys in the room.
“Nah, man, we will always be Kings. We skate together always, no matter what, and I’ll be happy to kick all your asses in a pickup game whenever we’re in town together.” Emmett lifted his bottle to the rest of us. He’d be going it alone, wherever it was he went. He still hadn’t given up the goods yet.
We crowded around the TV, playing a few games before the voices in the hallway got louder.
“And that’s it for me, guys. I’ve got a hot date.” Heath shook his phone in his hand, the screen lit up clear as day: Miss J. “Catch you guys later!” He vaulted over the back of the couch and scrambled out the door, stopping short when he nearly slammed into someone standing there.
“Hey, Liv.” Heath scooted around the string bean before bolting down the hall. A few more people bounded past the door headed for other bedrooms upstairs. Emmett didn’t even care.
“Olivia.” Colm struck that warning tone in his voice as he dropped his controller and rounded the couch.
“Colm.” She deepened her voice and mocked his tone. Olive Oil put her hands on her hips and tapped her toe, waiting for her big brother to barrel-roll her.
“You’re supposed to be at home. Where is the babysitter?” He glanced behind her like the babysitter would be out in the hall.
“The fact that you even left me with a sitter makes me want to shave off your eyebrows in your sleep. I’m almost a teenager.” She said it in that exasperated way that only an almost-teenager could use.
“And the fact that you’d even think of doing something like that tells me you definitely still need a babysitter.”
“You shaved off Declan’s eyebrow for a bet a year ago; what does that say about you?”
I ran my hand over my fully regrown eyebrow. Not exactly my proudest moment, but I’d learned a valuable lesson. Never bet against Colm in a shoot-out.
Booming laughter came from the hallway as more people made their way upstairs to start a whole new set of end-of-year fun.
“It says I’ve grown up a lot since then, and if you don’t want to be shipped off to a boarding school in Siberia instead of coming with me to Boston, then you’re going to have to learn to listen to me.”
“You said I’d get to have a going-away party. I think this is the perfect one.” Her gaze drifted into the room, and a wide smile spread across her face when she spotted Ford.
“Your friends aren’t even here.”
“Yes, they are.”
Colm’s eyes got as wide as saucers; I was ninety percent sure they might actually fall out.
“You brought a bunch of almost freshman to this party. How did they even get here?”
“Grant ordered us taxis.”
He slapped his hand over his forehead and gingerly grabbed her arm before calling over his shoulder. “Ford, help me out here and get a handle on your brother.”
Ford dutifully dropped his controller and strode over to the pair.
“Hey, Ford,” Olivia said, batting her eyelashes at him. Colm dragged her out of the room with Ford following behind them.
“And then there were two.” Emmett paused the game, cracked his back and stood next to me in the doorway.
“So what’s the deal with school? You’re killing us all with this secrecy bull.”
“I’m just not one hundred percent on my plans yet. But after tonight I will be.” He crossed to his dresser and pulled out the ring.
“You’re still going to ask her tonight?”
“No, I’m going to carry this box around in my pocket and start using it to open the beer bottles of everyone downstairs. Yes, I’m proposing to Avery tonight.”
I did my best to push aside the sinking shit-show feeling that reared its head whenever I tried to process the idea of him getting down on one knee and asking her to marry him. Avery was awesome, but marriage?
“Where is the lucky lady then?” I plastered on a smile and doing my best to be happy for him. If he was going through with it, I’d sure as hell back him up.
“She should be here soon. She had to do something for her dad, and then she said she was coming by.” The nervous energy vibrated off him like at any second he would be consumed by his excitement to be with her. How can I not support him if that is how she makes him feel?
“Speak of the devil.” Her ringtone blared from his pocket. The smile on his face could only be described as shit eating. He answered the call. “Hey, babe.” Then his eyebrows scrunched down. “Avery? Avery? I think she butt dialed me.” He glanced up at me. “I can hear the music from downstairs.”
“Let’s go find her then.”
He didn’t even hear me. “Avery?” He took off down the hallway before I could say anything else.
I closed his bedroom door behind me, making sure it was locked and following him. Emmett took the stairs three at a time and was practically at the bottom before I even hit the top step. People flowed up and down the stairs, laughter, drunken woos, and general debauchery all around. Beer and chlorine overpowered every other smell in the place.
I rounded the bottom of the steps and glanced to the side, where I spotted one of the last people I’d expected actually show up, looking exactly as I’d expect her to at a place where people were having fun. Like a small alcove in a library, Mak stood with her back against the wall under the stairs while someone else leaned on the wall beside her, probably having the fun sucked out of them like one of those things out of Harry Potter.
“Give your friend a break, Books. Let her have some fun before you drain the life out of this party.” I meant it to come out as a playful jab, but the fire and brimstone in her glare showed me that perhaps my quip hadn’t hit its mark like I’d hoped.
“Fuck you, Declan!” Her voice came out harsher than it usually did. Usually it was detached annoyance, but now it was filled with a burning anger. Her step faltered a bit, but she caught herself on the wall. I reached out a hand to steady her, and she slapped it away. “I don’t need your help.” She stood straight and crossed her arms over her chest, unintentionally pushing her tits up in her low-cut top. I glanced down out of reflex. I mean, they were right there.
The sound that ripped out of her throat had my full attention as she dropped her arms and jabbed an angry finger at me.
“You think that everything is a joke, don’t you? You think that life’s easy and fun and why doesn’t everyone just float along like you do and do whatever the hell they want.”
Talk about a blowup out of nowhere. Everyone was there having fun, and she had to come in and try to steamroll everyone with her saintly bullshit.
“I’m just saying you should chill out and have fun for once.” I was used to our jabs, but she was going a bit crazy.
“How do you know I don’t have fun? Maybe it’s the fact that your idea of fun and mine are extremely different.”
“I have no doubt about that.” I crossed my arms over my chest, and my jaw tightened.
“I hope you have fun when you get a smack in the face and see that your easy life won’t always be this way. When you get to college or the NHL, if you make it, you’ll see that you need to work hard and can’t
just dick around all the time. Let’s hope you don’t choke.”
What the hell did she even know about it? She wrote me off freshman year when I was late for one group project because my mom’s car broke down. We didn’t all live lifestyle-of-the-rich-and-famous lives.
My anger rose at her jab. It’s like she’d gotten into my head and poked around until she uncovered all my fears and just splashed them out in front of my face like they were nothing.
“You think you know me? You think you know the first thing about what it takes to cut it in hockey? You think I just skate by and don’t put in any hard work?” My voice got louder, matching her earlier tone.
“One of the best things about going to college is I can forget about this place. I won’t have to see you, and I won’t have to know you.” She spat her venom at me, and I was a six-year-old kid again, peeking out from my bedroom, staring at someone else who thought he was too good to know me. The anger shot through my veins like an injection and it prickled along my skin.
“Fuck you, Makenna. Fuck you and every judgmental thing you ever thought about me, because I don’t give a shit. Go off and have your perfect little life, and I can’t wait until it all comes crashing down on you.” I glared at her, meeting her ice with my fire. My chest heaved, and I was ready to go as many rounds as she wanted.
She’d opened her mouth to speak when a sound I’d never heard before ripped through the party. It was like a cross between a wounded animal and someone finding out a loved one had died. Loud voices thundered from the hallway to my right. Everyone glanced over, and I peered down the hall as Emmett almost bulldozed me.
“How could you do this to me?” Emmett roared.
Avery walked with slow, even steps down the hall like she was a robot come to life. She stood with her arms over her chest, staring straight ahead. Tears glittered in Emmett’s eyes as he looked at her in disbelief.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Her voice came out like normal, but her chin wobbled. Everyone in the entire party stared at these two. They weren’t even looking at me and Mak anymore, but I could feel the heat from the collective eyes of over one hundred people behind us.