Chapter 19
19
RHYS
I t’s the last week of September, and Cedar Shade is a glorious kaleidoscope of color. Bright orange, russet red, warm earthy browns, and greens of every shade fill the branches that line the streets.
Here there’s a tree whose leaves are all one tone, making a stunning pop of eye-catching color; here there’s a tree whose leaves are a mellow mixture of colors, creating a soothing autumnal collage.
This is my favorite time of the year. The first game of the season is just a week away, anticipation at its height right as the air starts to chill, the smells of autumn starts to hang heavy and sweet in the air, and the trees turn into a natural art exhibit.
I’m out taking a walk, just marinating in the atmosphere of this time of year that I associate with so many memories and feelings.
Growing up, I’d always be a ball of anticipation right before hockey season started, and it’s something I haven’t totally outgrown. Hopefully, I never will.
The air is crisp enough for me to have on one of my favorite thick flannel shirts, which I’m wearing unbuttoned over a white t-shirt. But a chill isn’t the only thing in the air.
Today, there’s a bittersweetness laced through my reminiscing as I stroll toward the outskirts of town.
This is my last college season.
The last time I’ll be playing with the guys who’ve become like a second family to me since I came here. Sure, maybe some of us will end up on the same team at one point once we’re in the pros, but it’s a long shot. No matter how you slice it, it’s the end of an era.
And there’s another era coming to an end this year. This is the last year I’ll be living near Maddie.
The bittersweet feeling gathering in me suddenly leans a lot further to the bitter side.
The thought feels like a stab through the heart, and I heave out a heavy exhale.
All through middle school and high school, I saw her almost every day. Even during those two years when Lane and I were here before she graduated high school, I saw her every summer, during every long break, or when Lane and I would make random trips back home.
When I graduate and move to Seattle to the team that drafted me … it’ll be different. Really different.
That’s life, though, right?
You make friends, and life pulls you in different directions. Even your best friends, you just don’t see them as much, even if you remain close. There’s no doubt in my mind that Lane and I will remain friends for life. I’ll always talk with Maddie, always see her from time to time, but …
From time to time isn’t even close to enough.
I’m going to miss running into her on campus, tapping her on one shoulder even though I’m behind her on the other side. A wistful smile rises to my lips, because she always falls for it.
I’m going to miss our stupid staring contests that I always win.
I’m going to miss seeing the new paintings she’s working on.
I’m going to miss us listening to music together, sharing new songs or bands or albums that one of us just found and knows the other will like, too.
I’m going to miss the whiff of vanilla that wafts from her hair. Fuck, am I going to miss that.
I’m going to miss the sound of her laugh. Even if we talk on the phone or do video calls regularly, it’s never the same as hearing it in person.
What if I only hear it in person a couple times a year? Hell, what if I only hear it once every couple years as we settle into our own lives far apart on different sides of the country?
A thought creeps into my mind that makes a sharp shard lodge painfully between my ribs.
Maybe that’s all a good thing. Maybe that distance will make it easier to truly accept that friendship is the only thing possible between us. Maybe I’ll stop torturing myself with longings and fantasies about something that’ll never happen.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow. So bitter that my throat tightens at the thought of it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not one I should swallow …
I push those thoughts away. The bittersweetness is about to turn into downright melancholy.
I try to settle my thoughts back on excitement for the upcoming season. Excitement to finally play with Lane again once he’s cleared. Excitement to end my last season of college hockey the right way, winning the Frozen Four championship that we were so damn close to last year.
My shoes crunch over some newly fallen leaves as I arrive at a park on the edge of Cedar Shade, stretched out along the path of a small river that runs past the eastern side of the town. A group of small kids are having a ball with a pile of leaves on one side of the park.
I look to the other side of the park, and my heart clenches when I see Maddie.
She’s sitting crisscross on the grass, a sketchpad in her lap and an array of colored pencils by her side. I walk over to her, and when I see the incredible drawing she’s sketching of the lushly colored trees in front of her, pride beats in my chest.
Does she even know how talented she is?
She turns to me when I settle onto the grass next to her. A surprised smile rises on her pretty lips, and my heart flutters.
“Well, well, look who it is.” Her eyes elevator my torso. “Very fall-y shirt. I feel shown up,” she jokes.
I find a particularly big leaf on the ground, fallen from its branch recently enough to still be a ruddy shade of orange, and place it on the top of her head.
“There you go,” I say with a smirk, “exceedingly fall-y.”
She laughs, shaking her head so the leaf slides off. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Came out to sketch?” I ask, nodding towards her drawing.
“Yeah.” She turns back to the scene in front of her, sighing a happy sigh. “Isn’t the view beautiful?”
I don’t take my eyes off her. “It sure is.”
My eyes trace the gentle slope of her neck, the curve of her chin, the outline of her cute nose, the swell of her pale pink lips, so full and plush.
Those lips that my own were so damn close to last week, when we tumbled to the floor in my living room, tangled together, and she landed on top of me.
Every day since, my own lips have tingled with the imagined sensation of what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped arcing my mouth toward hers as I lay underneath her, feeling the heave of her chest against mine.
It’s a stupid thought. It was all in my head, anyway. There’s no way that, when she parted her lips as her face hovered over mine, she meant anything other than to catch her breath after tripping.
“This town is so gorgeous,” Maddie continues. “Do you think you ever get used to a scene this beautiful? That it ever, I don’t know, loses its luster if you’ve lived here long enough?”
“If something’s really beautiful,” I say, keeping my gaze tethered to her profile as she looks at the foliage across the river, “I don’t think you ever get used to it. If it’s really, truly beautiful … I think it still makes your heart skip a beat every time you see it.”
She makes a low hum of acknowledgment. “And if you have to move, leaving it behind? Do you ever stop missing it?”
My throat feels tight, emotion slicing through my chest.
“If it’s beautiful enough? I think you keep missing it every single day.”
Maddie turns to me, and our eyes lock. Her irises are deep, perfect pools of blue, and I feel like I could drown in them and still breathe; I feel like I could drink nothing but the sight of her eyes and never need a glass of water.
Something crackles in my chest, a spark that has my nerves buzzing down to my fingertips. I pull in a deep breath through my nose, and Maddie’s vanilla scent mixes with the smells of the autumn outdoors, a concoction that sends a thrill shooting up and down my spine.
A lock of Maddie’s hair slips past her shoulder, fanning over her face. I reach out and brush it behind her ear with my index finger. The silky softness of her hair against my hand is enough to send a jolt of exhilaration coursing through me, enough to thicken my blood, enough to coil the muscles low in my core.
I can’t fucking help it: as I pull my hand away from her, I let the tip of my finger trace the delicate outline of her jaw. It feels like sparks sizzle between our skin as the pad of my finger rakes gently across her creamy skin.
There must be something in the air making me crazy. Something about the way the slanted sun is shining behind the trees, its rays catching on the leaves and turning the horizon into a glorious blaze of golden light.
That’s the only explanation there is for me touching her like that, touching her in a way I have no excuse for.
Maddie’s response isn’t to ask me what I’m doing; it isn’t to shrink away.
Instead, she angles her body toward me, tentatively placing her hand on my leg. The pressure of her touch sends a blast of heat shooting through me, settling in my groin.
“Rhys?” My name is a breathless, unsteady question from her lips.
“Yeah?” My own voice is raspy and tight.
Something laces into the air, a heavy, tense immediacy that makes me feel like the two of us are encased in a bubble of our own. It’s a feeling that bends reality and makes me forget about everything other than the girl in front of me.
When I lift my hand, it feels like it’s moving through a dense, unstable electric charge; it’s as if the air could catch fire at any moment. And when I settle my hand, it settles on top of Maddie’s.
I don’t know if I move first. I don’t know if she moves first. All I know is that, suddenly, I’m aware that I’m inching toward her, and that she’s inching toward me. That her lips are parted, their pink softness glistening where the dapped sunlight falls on them through the leaves of the trees.
My gaze drops to her lips, and fire blasts through my bloodstream at the sight of her soft, red tongue behind them. That’s the last sight I see before my eyes flutter closed, our lips on a path to …
A metallic clang of bells reverberates in the air, clear and loud.
My eyes snap open. So do Maddie’s. She jerks back, her brow leaping in shock. I do the same, my heartbeat frantic in my chest.
There’s a church nearby that chimes its bells every hour, and the sound that rings in the air feels like it presses on us with the weight of a thousand pounds.
“It’s getting cold,” Maddie says, her voice shaky as she runs her palms up and down her arms.
“Yeah, right, cold,” I stutter, my voice hoarse, my mouth so dry I can’t swallow. I push myself up from the ground. “We should go home. Don’t want you to get sick.” All the while, I’m burning underneath my clothes, like I’m standing in front of an open furnace.
Normally, I’d hold out my hand to help Maddie up. But this time, I don’t.
My mind is still scrambled, a confused tangle of thoughts, feelings, and images of what just happened—images of what would have happened if it weren’t for the loud chiming of the church bells from a couple blocks away that still sound in the air.
Maddie and I don’t exchange a word as we walk back home. My nerves are frayed, and the couple blocks back to campus feel like they last an eternity.
“Here’s my stop,” she says with a forced, nervous laugh. “Bye.”
I nod. “Bye. Have a good night.”
She lingers in front of me on the sidewalk next to campus for a long beat of time, before she finally gives me a curt nod and turns, walking toward her dorm a lot faster than she normally would.
A sigh pulls from my throat before I resume my walk back home. What the fuck just happened?
But that’s a stupid question. I know what just happened.
I almost kissed my best friend’s little sister.
And I don’t have the energy to deceive myself into believing that I’m relieved rather than disappointed in that almost .