by Ginger Scott
“It was always you,” he says, his body shuddering as he rocks us side to side, his thumbs tracing my cheeks softly until one finds my lips. I let out a sharp breath at his touch, as the pad of his thumb slides over my bottom lip. Surely he can feel it shaking. My entire body is pulsing, the sound of my heartbeat loud in my ears, filling my head, drowning all reason. “It was worth it…for you.”
His head tilts up just enough that his lips graze mine, our touch almost a tickle as his bottom lip passes over mine, his breath slow against me as his forehead rests heavy. “Emma,” he breathes, his whisper against my mouth. “So long…I wanted…I waited.”
My eyes flutter open then drift closed again, something awakening in me from his touch. My body rushes with heat as he steps in closer to me, his hold on me firmer, his breathing more steady.
Years begin to dissolve, and my heartbeat feels strong and steady.
Then music begins to play at my feet. It’s Lindsey’s ringtone—alarms sounding off, calling off mistakes, stopping accidents. This is my chance to stop hurting people, to not make things worse. I step back and Andrew’s grip tightens, his body feeling panicked. We both look down and see her name.
I kneel down, and Andrew steps back a pace, his hands falling to his sides, his eyes wide.
I hold my ringing phone in my hand, then look up at him, his sad eyes saying everything that’s in mine.
“Hey,” I answer the phone, never breaking my gaze at Andrew, who keeps his eyes on mine as well.
“Hey, I’m at the library. I need to finish up a research project, but I’m starving. Wanted to see if you wanted to grab lunch before our lab?” Lindsey’s voice is in one world, and I’m in another. Those worlds are so far apart, and one will destroy the other if I let them collide.
“Sure,” I say. My eyes stay on Andrew’s, my hands wishing they could touch him again, but my head knows they can’t. The dull ache starts to creep in slowly. “I’ll meet you at the library in half an hour.”
Lindsey and I say goodbye, and I push my phone into my purse quickly, no longer able to look up and see Andrew’s face. I reach for my lipstick, but before I can grab the rest of my things, he kneels down and takes my pills into his hands. My initial instinct is to grab them back, but my fingers recoil before I do. A few seconds pass, and I know he’s reading the long name, wondering what it’s for. Eventually he passes the bottle to me, and I stuff it into my purse before zipping it closed.
“Thanks,” I say without looking at him. I won’t give any hint that that bottle is anything significant, even though when I finally stand and meet his stare, I know the question is just perched on his lips. He doesn’t ask it though.
This is one secret I’m not ready to share today. There are too many things, and Andrew’s heart has been broken enough without having to add the weight of my story—of what he missed while he was busy being tortured at Lake Crest—to his heavy load of things to bear.
“Lindsey…she’s in my lab and wants to meet,” I say quietly. He nods. He knows. “Andrew…I…”
He holds up a hand, shaking his head, his lips a deeply unhappy smile.
“It’s okay. She’s your friend, and I’m…” he pauses, chuckling to himself, “I’m not in the place I should be.”
He pulls his keys from one pocket and his beanie from another, tugging his hat over his head and opening his palm for one more wave goodbye as he falls back on his heels, turning to leave. “I’ll see you again soon, Emma. There’s too much to talk about—me and you?”
I watch him go, wanting to race to him, wrap myself around him, kiss him like I really want to. But I stay in my place, remaining in the lie we’ve built on Lindsey’s behalf, regretting every second of it, and now taking it as my punishment just as I’m sure Andrew is.
His engine fires up, the sound hitting that familiar nerve, but this time I’m able to stop the feeling before it numbs me. I wait to watch him pull away, and he lowers his window, looking ahead, breathing—thinking. Then he leans out the window, urging me to take a few steps closer so I can hear him.
“I said I wasn’t in the place I should be,” he says over the low idle of his car, licking his lips once, pulling his bottom lip in, chuckling to himself and looking down into his lap. He shakes his head slowly, then peers out the window again, his eyes square on mine, his heart talking to mine now. “What I meant to say was I’m not with the person I should be.”
There’s an emptiness and fullness that settles over us at the same time—a feeling of hope and hopelessness. We wade in it, breathe it in together, and I want to run back to him, to tell him the rest of my story, to climb back into his car and let him drive us away, not caring if it hurts Lindsey. But my feet stay where they are, and Andrew’s hand pats the side of his car, his fingers drumming along the shiny black surface and the gleam of the chrome stripe.
He drives away, and long after he’s out of sight, I wait.
I wait for him to come back.
I think I’ve always been waiting.
Chapter 14
Andrew
I should have kissed her anyway. I should have stayed. I should have picked her up in my arms and carried her into her goddamned apartment.
Instead, I drove away, headed right to Harley’s gym, and convinced him I was fine, good enough to stand in the ring for an hour with some new guy. This time, though, I hit back. I hit back more than I normally do. I hit back with the force of all of the shit I was feeling. I took out my frustration with Emma, with her parents and the lies they clearly told, with her lack of trying to find out the truth sooner. Was it her job to find out the truth? Would I have if I were in her position?
There’s still this part of me that can’t help but feel like I was busy thinking about her while she forgot about me completely—while I lost a year of my life and most of my soul.
I took it all out in the middle of Harley’s gym on some guy named Taylor. Some frat boy who cleaned up during the campus fight night and thought maybe he’d make a go of it, get himself some sponsors and really try and fight. I’m pretty sure I broke his nose.
Harley was pissed at first, and before I left, I thought he was walking over to tell me to quit showing my crazy face in his gym. Instead, he pulled up a stool and sat silently while I unwrapped my knuckles and packed up my bag, sliding his chair away right before I left, his back to me as he grumbled “that dude isn’t ready. Good work, tonight.”
Good work. Ha!
I left feeling just as confused and frustrated. I spent the night ignoring the three—she sent three!—texts from Lindsey. And then I laid awake, getting to my feet and moving to the door, with every intention of driving to Emma’s apartment, before talking myself out of it and throwing my ass back in bed.
The problem is it’s not just Emma’s apartment. It’s Lindsey’s, too. I’ve made things messy. But I haven’t slept with Lindsey. I mean…I’ve slept with Lindsey. But that hardly counts. That can’t count. Not now that things with Emma are…well, they’re different.
I didn’t think my hate could give way so easily. I’d spent so many years harboring it, carving it into this delicate weapon to guard myself from ever dreaming again. It turned into vengeance when I saw her in the bar. There was only one thing that could have made a difference, and that was Emma not knowing where I’d been. I don’t know why her parents lied to her, and I hold them accountable. My anger—it’s shifted in their direction. And I’m a son-of-a-bitch for hating her mom now that she’s gone. But I do. I don’t know what their motives were, but I’m sure it had to do with everything they thought I was, and the one thing they thought I wasn’t—good enough for their daughter.
Sleep might have helped me find reason today. Only, I didn’t get any. I spent my morning workout just as pent-up, and now I’m laying here on this bench, rubbing my eyes raw, my cheekbones still bruised and tender from the beating they took two days ago, my heart bruised from the one it took yesterday.
“Better sit up, Harp. Coach is
coming,” Trent says, throwing his wet towel on my chest. I don’t even fight back, letting it drench my shirt and make me feel as miserable on the outside as I do in.
“Your ass better not be hung over,” Coach Bishop says, pushing my legs from the bench as he walks by, knocking me off balance. He’s the only one on the team who can legitimately kick my ass, even at my scrappiest. I stumble from my resting place and follow him through the lockers to his office, throwing the towel over Trent’s shoulders as I pass him.
“Fuck ass!” he yells, shrugging it from his now-wet shirt and shoulders.
“You started it,” I chuckle.
“What are you, fucking twelve?” Coach grunts as I turn my attention back to him in his office. “Go on, close the goddamn door.”
I do as he says and take my seat. Bishop is one of the country’s best college hockey coaches. His NHL career was mediocre, a starter for the Stars and Sharks for a few years, but traded around the country year after year until he finally gave up. He slid into the job at Tech as a favor owed to him by a friend, but he’s stayed for a decade thanks to his two hundred wins and forty-six losses.
“What’s with your face?” he asks, pulling the toothpick from his lips and using it to point at me. He has this permanent scowl and crinkle around his eyes that makes him look like Popeye.
“Had a little fight. It won’t happen again.” I’m a fucking liar. Eight grand an hour, it sure as shit better happen again.
He stares at me for a few hard seconds, then leans back in his chair, slowly pulling his feet up on his desk. I’m holding my hands on my kneecaps, my posture straighter than it ever is anywhere else—I’m like a child waiting for my suspension from the principal.
“Don’t get yourself hurt. I need your ass on the ice. You’re starting,” he says.
My shock is a little delayed because at first I start to stand, expecting to leave with my tail between my legs, but then his words register, and I fall back into my seat.
“Starting,” I repeat. I don’t ask. I know one thing—you don’t ask Bishop questions. I just need clarification. I’m not questioning.
“You get punched in your goddamned ears? Yes. Starting,” he says. “Your numbers are better than Gilbert, so I need you to spend more time out there on the puck. I need you to keep it out of Northwestern’s control next week, and out of Penn’s after that. You get that puck, and you get it to Metzger, and we will win it all this year. Now, you think you can do that? Or do you want to go back to spending your time in some stink-ass back alley with a mugger or whatever fuckin’ piece-of-shit lie you told me about those bruises on your face?”
I blink for a second.
“No sir. I got it. Get the puck to Trent. Done,” I say, standing before I say anything else stupid. “And you’re right. I did lie. It was a big fight. But you should see the other guy.”
I wait for him to laugh. He doesn’t. I said something stupid, so I leave before I continue making it worse.
Trent’s waiting for me by my locker, so I let him stew in curiosity while I throw my sweatshirt on and pack up my gear. I glance at him, but keep my face hard, letting him believe I got my ass chewed out as he follows me out of the rink, out to the parking lot and finally to the back of my car.
“Well, how bad? Did he suspend you? Please say he didn’t suspend you,” he asks. I unlock my trunk and throw my bag inside with a thud, closing the trunk and holding my excitement in for a few more seconds while I sigh and turn to face him.
“Do you prefer working a shot based on our offense or would you rather have more breakaways?” I ask. His face is blank at first, and his expression starts out as what-the-fuck, then suddenly it hits him.
“You asshole!” he punches my chest.
“Starting, at least through Penn,” I smile.
“Hell yes, you are!” Trent slaps my hand, gripping it at our shoulders before he bumps into me. We both walk around our sides and get into the car. I pause before I start it, my mind flashing to Emma for a second, then back to the good news I got this morning. My heart feels lighter, and things suddenly seem clearer. I keep it to myself as I pull away, but in that instant, I decide that tonight’s the night I’m honest with Lindsey and go after what I really want, what I’ve always wanted.
Emma Burke.
It takes Trent and me a few extra minutes to find a spot in the main student lot. I would have just driven back home and left my car there, but Trent’s class starts soon, and I didn’t want him to be late.
“Dude, why so many people today? Is there some event I don’t know about?” I ask, wondering if I missed the memo that the President was on campus today or something.
“It’s homecoming. There’s a lot of stuff going on along the main mall, like a carnival or some crap. They’re giving away free food—people show up for that,” he says.
I finally find a spot near the very back of the lot, next to a dumpster, and I make Trent get out while I back in so he can guide me. No way am I scratching my car less than a week since I’ve had it back. Once I’m in, we both grab our backpacks and start the long walk to the heart of campus, the smell of barbecue pork and burgers overcoming us the closer we get and guiding us in.
“You weren’t kidding,” I say when we see the line of tents along the main walkway. Beyond the food vendors, there’s a stage with some third-rate, campus rock band playing Blink 182. It’s slightly appalling, however, the crap band is out-douched by the more pathetic groupies screaming for them along the stage.
“Why don’t chicks do that for us?” Trent asks, handing me a pork sandwich from the tent just to the left of him. I bite into it, talking through my full mouth, wiping the small dab of sauce that starts to slip down my chin.
“They don’t scream for you? Wow, I mean, I make girls scream all the time…I just figured you did too—”
“You make girls scream, hmmm?” Her voice cuts in, and I choke on my bite while Trent grins. Fucker saw her coming.
“I’m Emma, by the way. I don’t think we’ve ever formally met,” she says, shaking Trent’s hand. He looks at me as he does, his tongue tucked in the corner of his mouth with his eyebrows raised. By some miracle, he keeps his mouth shut, but he knows I’m gone when it comes to her. He probably knew the second he put the who and where together over the driver’s license I lifted at the bar.
“Emma, nice to meet you. I’ve heard…” I cough to interrupt him, a warning that he doesn’t break the man code—we don’t talk about when we talk about chicks. It doesn’t work. “I’ve heard way too much about you.”
Asshole.
I pinch the bridge of my nose as Trent excuses himself to grab more of the handouts. I open one eye to the vision of Emma sucking in her bottom lip, her cheeks red. I nod slowly, shrugging to admit my guilt.
“Yeah, Trent’s my Lindsey,” I say with instant regret. Her face falls as she takes a step away; she thinks we’re too close now that I’ve uttered Lindsey’s name. Unlike Trent, Lindsey doesn’t know the details. They’re really nothing alike at all. God, I wish I thought before I spoke. I wish I thought before I acted!
Fuck, I wish I thought before I thought!
Emma’s wearing a dark gray hoodie and tight jeans tucked into boots at her feet, nothing remarkable, yet instantly memorable to me. Her hair is down in waves, the shorter layers up front blowing over her face as she pulls them away, tucking strands behind her ear.
“You know how I first recognized you?” I ask in my haze from looking at her. I’m definitely not thinking now. No…now, I’m feeling.
She shakes her head in tiny movements, her cheeks rounding with a slight smile, her lips closed tight as she works to hold in the effects of my attention. I love her blush. “It was your eyes.”
Her lashes lift as her eyes widen when I say this, the silver shining.
“I was obsessed with those eyes when I was sixteen,” I say. “I could never forget them.”
God, that felt good to say!
We stare at each
other for a long moment, and Emma relents to the small giggle building in her chest before looking down at her feet. “Thank you,” she says, her voice meek and beautiful. That’s the same, too—the timber, the inflections…all of it.
I kick at her toe with my shoe. She kicks back.
“I always liked your shoes,” she says, her face falling to the side, her hand coming up to hide her embarrassed look.
My head falls forward, and I stare at my feet, my black Chucks, the same shoes I’ve owned for years, just a newer pair. Maybe a little bigger.
“They really are my best attribute,” I nod, joking. She laughs, her voice a little raspy, maybe sleepy, too, and swings her arm at me, brushing against mine.
“No,” she says. I look up at her. I want to kiss her. Her smile fades from a playful one to a serious one—an honest one. “That’s not your best attribute,” she says, her eyes looking as if they’re about to cry.
I ache to reach for her, to touch her cheek to stop the sadness from taking over that space around her eyes, when she takes a sharp step back, lengthening the distance between us.
“Graham. Hi,” she says nervously.
Just a guy is here.
“Hey, I was looking for you,” he says, his eyes making a dominant glance in my direction. I laugh and roll mine.
“We were just checking out the free food,” she says, squinting her eyes closed and shaking her head when he looks away. She does this move sometimes when she’s uncomfortable—like she’s a genie trying to wish the situation away.
“Were you?” he chuckles. This smug ass wipe thinks I’m intimidated by him.
“Yeah,” I answer, surprising Emma, her eyes widening fast, caution lights firing behind them. I’m going to ignore that sign. “It’s nice…you know…to be able to just take what you want?”
The moment that passes between Emma’s friend and me is short, but it’s filled with threats and lots and lots of fuck yous.
“Emma?” He’s talking to her, but looking at me. I hate this just some guy. “There’s this dinner my mom’s hosting, her chief of staff and a bunch of other surgeon-types are going to be there. She’s fairly insistent that I go, but it won’t be any fun on my own. I thought maybe you’d like to join me?”