Chapter 6 #2
He doesn’t care.
Of course he doesn’t care. Why would he? How self-centered am I that I think anyone in this room cares whether or not Brayden Elliot touches my hip, especially Freddie? I need to stop obsessing and being constantly aware of him. It’s not healthy.
Giving myself a small shake, I take down a stack of ten plates and walk into the dining room to lay them out. There are two massive wooden tables, but we’ll all fit at one.
“Leave them on the table, I’ll put them out,” I say to Brayden coming in behind me, who probably grabbed more glasses.
“Sure,” Not-Brayden’s voice answers.
I turn and Freddie’s behind me, not more than a foot away, actually less, and I catch a scent vaguely like cinnamon. Is there cinnamon soap or cologne, is that a thing? It’s spicy and warm and really, really nice.
“Oh.” I blink at him, stupidly, trying to refocus my brain. “Hi.”
He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything as he puts a handful of napkins and silverware on the table.
“Thanks,” I manage to choke out.
Nodding, he bites his lip, opening his mouth to say something, but then a moment later he just shakes his head, before turning and leaving through the archway to the kitchen.
I exhale.
Shit.
Okay, it’s over. That wasn’t so bad. Now I’ve spoken to him, for real, sort of, and he very clearly has nothing to say to me, which is fine.
I think I can deal with silence better than a complete recitation of all the reasons he has to not be anything more than just civil.
How I didn’t stand up to Camille and Dad.
How I should have waited it out, even if it meant we had to give up that competition season.
Just like he would have for me after Mom died.
How we were starting to figure out, even then, that our friendship was deeper than most. Or at least I was.
That it was special. And that I ruined that too.
He doesn’t have to say any of it. I’ve said it to myself more than enough. Maybe he knows that. After all, for a long time, no one knew me better than he did. So maybe he knows, and he’s decided to leave it alone. That’s something he’d do.
Freddie, at his core, is a good guy. He always has been and probably always will be.
He even helped with Mrs. Tarasi yesterday, whether he knows it or not.
He’s the kind of guy who sees an upset kid and figures out a way to fix that.
The kind of guy who forgives and, if not forgets, at least moves on.
So maybe he has moved on and knows how much I regret what I did and now he’s happy and skating with Riley and probably, eventually, doing other not-skating things with Riley, and if not Riley, someone else. Someone who is not me.
My hands shake as I reach out for the silverware he left. This is ridiculous. I need to calm down. Clearly, he’s not affected like this. He’s moved on. I thought I had, but apparently not. Whatever. I can do it now.
There. It’s decided.
It’s time to move on.
I’m moving on.
I circle the table quickly, getting the rest of the flatware into place as everyone else files in, dishes full of food for us to eat.
We all go to sit down, but Riley yells, “Wait! Okay, so I read about this team building exercise, and I want to try it.” Several people, me included, groan, but she just talks over us.
“We pick names out of a hat and put them on the table, and that’s the order we sit in.
Oh! And you can’t sit next to your partner or anyone you train with because that defeats the purpose.
” She runs back into the kitchen and returns seconds later, brandishing a baseball cap with folded pieces of paper in it.
Those rules don’t leave me with a lot of options; I try to do the math in my head quickly, but probability was never really my strong suit.
“Okay, Brayden here,” Riley says, motioning to the head of the table and then placing cards for Jimmy and then herself, followed by Katya and Maria.
My odds are looking worse as she places Gillian at the foot of the table and turns.
Charlie’s name is next, and then she picks my name but drops it back in because we train together.
There’s only one arrangement left that doesn’t break her rules.
I glance at Ben, who plops down next to Charlie with a smile and a shrug.
I fall into the seat beside him, and then Freddie slides into the last open seat, between me and Brayden.
I could kill Riley for suggesting this.
It’s fine, though, actually. Everyone spends the meal chatting lightly, especially with the people beside them who they don’t know well.
Even Brayden and Freddie talk a bit, but I’m not fine because while the table can hold us, it’s a bit of a tight squeeze.
I’ve spent the entire meal making sure my right leg doesn’t come anywhere near the orbit of Freddie’s left leg.
My entire body is hyperaware that he’s sitting inches away, entirely ignoring me, but still right there.
His shoulders are wider than the chair’s back, and every time he turns from talking to Brayden toward the rest of the table, I swear I can feel the cotton of his shirt brushing against my sweater.
Was that me not so long ago putting together an outfit to impress this guy?
That girl would roll her eyes and scoff at the ridiculous bundle of nerves I am right now, but I’ve never felt like this before.
I hate it.
“You know what we should do?” Freddie says, and the entire table quiets down. “We should play Odds.”
I tense beside him and suddenly the air between us feels supercharged.
That’s…that’s the game we played together, constantly, for years.
It started out as just silly things kids do, like blending fast-food leftovers and drinking it like a smoothie or doing something embarrassing in public like wearing your red, white, and blue spandex costume from a Fourth of July skating tribute out to dinner in January. Or—
“What’s ‘Odds’?” Maria asks, cutting off my thoughts.
“It’s the best game,” Riley says, giggling, and of course they’ve played it together. They both love shit like that, being crazy and living life in the moment. That doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“It’s like playing truth or dare, or actually, mostly dare if you’re playing it right,” Freddie says, a wide grin spreading over his face, and I recognize that wicked gleam in his eye.
“You just sort of play it forever. You ask someone what the odds are they’ll do something, like one out of three or five or ten.
Then you shoot with your fingers to see if they have to do it.
So like, I say one out of three odds that Ben does a naked lap around the house right now. ”
“And I say one out of ten, not three,” Ben shoots back, snickering from the other side of the table.
“Fine,” Freddie agrees, his eyes sparkling like I remember them. “Then we shoot to see if our numbers match. One…two…”
On three they both put out their hands. Freddie with six fingers. Ben with just three.
“And since they don’t match, I don’t have to do it,” Ben says with obvious relief.
“Should we go around the table?” Brayden asks, clearly thrilled with this game.
“Nah,” Freddie says, “we’re all gonna be together for weeks. You do it when something good comes up or something that feels right for another person. Everyone in?”
It’s unanimous, or at least it sounds that way to them, since I definitely didn’t agree. A game of Odds for the time we’re together.
Fantastic.
“Leave your plates on the island, guys. I’ll clean up,” I say to a chorus of protests when we all start to get up from the table. “Trust me, it’ll be easier for me to do it. I know where everything goes. Go get everything ready to watch Elisa’s reality TV debut. It starts soon.”
I flee into the kitchen, and once they’ve all left their plates, I exhale for the first time in what feels like nearly an hour.
The place is a total mess, but I’ve worked enough summer camp kitchen duties to get everything in order pretty quickly.
Pots and pans go from soaking in the sink to the industrial-size dishwasher, and then the plates with the flatware follow suit.
Using the hair tie I always keep on my wrist, I pull the curls I was so proud of earlier up to the top of my head in a messy bun and roll up my sleeves as I put away whatever ingredients we left out while we were eating.
“Your hair looks good like that,” Brayden says, coming into the kitchen.
“Thanks,” I say, wrapping up the bread that’s left over and putting it in the freezer.
“I’m glad you made me come to this tonight.”
“Yeah?” I ask, finally turning to him as I push a curl I missed out of my eyes.
Oh.
He’s very close. He hums a positive response and takes a step closer.
He doesn’t smell like cinnamon. Brayden, off the ice, always smells the same: a clean soap scent and Creed Aventus, a ridiculously expensive cologne that mixes citrus and woodsy fragrances together to make something intoxicating, especially since he doesn’t wear too much like so many guys do.
What is with the guys around me smelling so good?
I put out a hand and it lands on his chest, but I’m not sure if I’m doing it to push him away or brace against him for what’s coming. What am I doing? He reaches up, his fingers twisting into the curl before tucking it back over my ear.
“Oh, sorry!”
We don’t jump away from each other, but my eyes fly toward the door. Brayden turns and glances over his shoulder. When my gaze follows his, I want to vomit.
It’s Freddie and Riley. Together. He’s carrying her, piggyback style, into the kitchen while she giggles nervously, looking back and forth between me and Brayden like they interrupted something.
Something that wasn’t what it looks like. Mostly.
“We wanted some drinks,” Freddie says, looking directly at Brayden and not at me. Riley jumps down from his back, still laughing.
“There’s—” I clear my throat and take a step back from Brayden, my hand dropping from his chest. “There’s a whole thing of lemonade in the fridge.”
“Perfect!” Riley says, giggling nervously. “We’ll grab it and leave you guys to, you know…whatever it was you were doing.”
Every single millisecond of Freddie standing there while Riley hands him a sleeve of Solo cups is too long. His eyes haven’t left Brayden the entire time, which is a relief because I think if he looked at me right now, I would spontaneously combust.
They’re gone moments later, and Brayden turns back to me with a sigh.
“So, they probably think…” He trails off and I groan.
“Not probably. Definitely. Ugh, this is a nightmare.”
Brayden lets out a heavy breath. “A nightmare, really? Isn’t Maria the dramatic sister?”
He almost sounds hurt and I wrinkle my nose. “It’s not that. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” he says, tilting his head at me, his mouth ticking up in a grin. “I do.”
Does he, though? “Brayden, I—”
“It’s starting!” Katya’s voice carries into the kitchen, interrupting me, even though I’m not sure what I’m going to say.
“Come on, let’s go,” I say, relieved at the interruption. “We’re about to be reality TV background characters.”
He laughs and his smile becomes a real one. “Can’t wait.”