Chapter 8
eight
MIKE
Andy’s demolished half an antipasto platter by the time I slide into our booth, and there’s a charcoal smudge on her left cheek that makes her look like she’s been fingerprinted by her art supplies.
And the chaos of her—hair twisted into a gravity-defying bun, paint under her fingernails—is like a warm blanket.
“Five minutes late,” she says, not even glancing up from her phone. “That’s practically punctual by your standards.”
“Traffic was brutal.” The lie slides out smooth as the cracked vinyl beneath me, which protests my weight with a wheeze.
Her eyebrows shoot up, skepticism clear on her features. “You walked here from the arena that’s literally around the corner.”
“Scenic route.” I grin. “Had to stop and admire all the… architecture… or something.”
“That sketchy massage parlor?”
“That, and other architectural marvels of Pine Barren decay.” I steal an olive, and the brine bites sharp. “Very avant-garde.”
The waitress materializes before Andy can properly eviscerate me, a small mercy from the restaurant gods. We order our usual: pepperoni and a beer for me, veggie and a cinnamon cider for her, and enough breadsticks to feed an invading army.
“So,” I start, pilfering another olive because petty theft from siblings doesn’t count. “How’s the semester shaping up?”
Andy launches into her schedule with the enthusiasm of someone who actually chose their major for love rather than obligation. She rattles off Advanced Figure Drawing, Contemporary Art Theory, and something about digital-traditional fusion that sounds boring and pretentious in equal measure.
Her phone buzzes mid-sentence, and I watch my cynical sister transform. Her face softens at the edges, the usual sharpness dialed down, and the change hits me hard.
“Declan,” she says, and his name in her mouth becomes an entirely different word than when I used to yell it across the ice.
“Didn’t say anything.”
“Your face has opinions,” she says, but her finger is already swiping across the screen.
Declan’s face fills the screen, all artistic dishevelment and sleep-drunk grin that sharpens the instant he sees her. “Hey, gorgeous.”
“Hey yourself.” Andy’s voice drops into a register I didn’t know existed in her vocal range. “How was the opening?”
“Incredible.” He gives her a gooey grin. “Sold three pieces to some collector from Munich who apparently has more money than God and worse taste in wine.”
While they talk, I become fascinated by the precise architecture required to balance maximum olives on minimum pizza space. But I can’t unhear the way Andy laughs or unsee how she traces invisible patterns on the table as if tracing the brushstrokes in whatever painting Declan’s describing.
“Show me the blue one again,” she says, the need in her voice similar to when Sophie had asked me to?—
No.
Declan angles his phone toward a canvas that shouldn’t work, all churning blues and grays that somehow capture drowning and floating simultaneously. Even through pixels and international data plans, it looks damn impressive even to a philistine like me.
“I was thinking about that morning at Pine Lake,” he says, vulnerability creeping into his voice. “When the fog was so thick we couldn’t see the shore.”
Andy’s hand drifts to the screen, fingertips grazing glass like she believes in the physics of love transcending space-time. The gesture is so unconsciously intimate that I have to look away, but not before catching her expression, unguarded and open.
Their goodbye ritual involves three separate “no, you hang up first” exchanges, blown kisses that would earn legendary chirping in any locker room, and Andy making these tiny humming sounds I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear because gross . And, when she finally disconnects, she catches me staring.
“What?” she says.
“Nothing.” I select an olive with surgical precision. “You guys are good together.”
“Yeah,” she says simply, like it’s that easy.
The pizzas arrive in a cloud of steam, and I watch Andy start on her first slice while that soft smile keeps haunting the corners of her mouth.
It’s the same sort of smile that I caught on my face in Sophie’s bathroom mirror the morning after.
Before she called me complicated like it was a terminal diagnosis.
“Michael Scott Altman.” Andy wields my full name like a scalpel. “What’s happening in that overtaxed brain of yours?”
“Nothing.”
“Right. That’s why you’re creating meat sculptures.” She points at my plate, where I’ve apparently constructed a pepperoni Tower of Pisa, complete with structural lean. “You only do that when a girl’s got you twisted into emotional origami.”
The pizza turns to sawdust in my mouth. “That’s not?—”
“Summer before senior year. Ashley Maddox. You built a pepperoni Stonehenge that fell onto my plate and covered my garlic knots.” She leans back in the booth with the satisfaction of someone who’s just solved cold fusion. “So who is she?”
I could lie. Should lie. Instead, words tumble out like they’ve been waiting at the starting blocks. “I met someone a few weeks ago.”
“And?”
“And nothing. She made it crystal clear that she didn’t want anything ongoing and that I’m too complicated to date. Apparently, I’m the human equivalent of IKEA furniture—looks good in the showroom but comes with impossible instructions and missing pieces.”
Andy liberates a pepperoni from my architectural disaster, chewing thoughtfully. “I mean, she’s not wrong.”
“Really feeling the family support here.”
“Listen.” She aims her pizza slice at me like a precision instrument. “You are complicated. You overthink everything, you’re weirdly intense about random stuff, and you’ve got this whole brooding athlete thing that screams early-season teen drama.”
“This pep talk is really?—”
“But,” she steamrolls forward, “you’re also stupidly loyal and actually funny when you’re not marinating in your angst. Plus, you give a shit about people in ways that matter, not just for show. If she can’t see past the complicated to get to the good stuff, that’s on her.”
“She hates hockey players.” I take a bite, taking out my frustration on the pizza. “Like, actively despises us as a species.”
“So did I until Declan proved they could be housetrained.” Andy’s chewing halts abruptly. “Wait. Is she hot?”
“Andy.”
“It’s valid. If you’re going to pine over someone who fundamentally objects to your existence, she better be worth the emotional labor.”
Sophie’s laugh ambushes my memory. That surprised, delighted sound when I said something that caught her off guard. The?—
“Your face just did something disturbing.” Andy launches her napkin at my head. “But also kind of sweet. Dude, you’re actually gone for this girl.”
“Doesn’t matter. She said no.”
“Did she, though?” Andy steals another pepperoni, building her case like evidence. “What were her exact words?”
“That she doesn’t do complicated.” I take another bite. “That athletes aren’t her type.”
Andy scoffs. “Hardly a unique statement. But did she specifically ban you from her life forever?”
“She got in her car and left me standing there, Andy. The subtext had its own zip code.”
“You beautiful moron.” She shakes her head with theatrical disappointment. “She didn’t say she doesn’t want you. She just said you’re complicated.”
“How is that different?”
“Because one is about you as a person, and one is about circumstances.” Andy wipes her hands with surgical precision.
“Maybe she’s got her own complications. Maybe the timing’s wrong.
Maybe she’s terrified. Maybe she needs to be convinced you’re not just another jock—or that being with you isn’t as hard as she thinks. ”
“Or maybe she just doesn’t like me.”
“Also possible.” She shrugs. “But you’ll never know unless you try again.”
The pizza suddenly becomes fascinating, all those little grease pools in the pepperoni cups like tiny lakes of regret. I don’t want to look at Andy, because I don’t want any more reason to think about Sophie, and I’m suddenly regretting opening up about her at all.
“Look,” Andy says, reaching across the table to grab my wrist. Her fingers are warm and slightly sticky with pizza grease, and it’s weirdly grounding. “Remember when I thought Declan was just another hockey asshole trying to score?”
“Vividly.”
She’s smiling at the memory. “Point is, sometimes complicated doesn’t mean impossible. Sometimes it just means worth the work.”
“Since when did you become a relationship philosopher?”
“Since I started dating someone who moved across an ocean and we’re making it work through sheer stubbornness and competitive emoji usage.” Her expression goes soft again, that same look from the video call. “Sophie knows who you are now. That’s already different from one random night.”
I nod, but don’t say anything.
“So what’s she actually like?”
“Complicated,” I say, but the word tastes different now. Less final, more hopeful.
“Try again with more adjectives.”
“Smart. Funny in this dry, unexpected way. Studying to be a nurse, so she’s got that whole caring-but-takes-no-shit thing.”
“You’re so far gone it’s physically painful to witness.” Andy’s smiling like she’s proud of me for falling off this particular cliff. “Text her.”
“And say what? ‘Hey, remember when you basically issued a restraining order in the parking lot? Want to grab coffee and reject me again?’”
“Or just ‘Hey, thinking about you.’” She flags down the waitress for the check. “Simple. Honest. Leaves the door cracked without kicking it down.”
My phone sits on the table between us like an unexploded grenade. I know Sophie’s contact info sits right there, in my recent numbers, three weeks old. But it may as well be written in invisible ink, because texting her is just not something I can get behind right now.
“Thursday,” Andy says, yanking me back. “Karaoke. You’re coming.”
I sigh and throw some cash on the table. “Sounds like emotional terrorism.”
“Perfect for your current mental state.”
As we leave Antonio’s, Andy hugs me, quick and fierce like she’s trying to squeeze bravery into me through osmosis.
It’s the reverse of just six months ago, when she’d been in my arms after a devastating summer romance gone wrong, needing a pick-me-up from her big brother. The shoe is on the other foot, now.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, “I think any girl who can make you build nervous pepperoni art is worth fighting for. Even if you’re both complicated.”
After she leaves, I stand on the corner like an idiot, phone burning a hole in my hand. The smart play is to delete Sophie’s number. Move on. Forget about girls for a while, focus on the team and the scouts and the giant fucking opportunity that’s right in front of me in the NHL.
But my thumb won’t swipe left to delete.
I type out a message:
Hey, I know ‘complicated guy’ wasn’t on your course load this semester, but I can’t stop thinking about that night. Coffee?
My finger hovers over send long enough for the screen to dim. Then I delete every word, pocket the phone, and head home. But I don’t delete her number, because maybe tomorrow I’ll be brave enough. Or maybe I’ll keep building pepperoni monuments to my own hesitation.
Complicated might not mean impossible, but with Sophie, it feels that way.