Chapter 19 #2
Dad and I exchanged gifts with the enthusiasm of a hockey line change—him to me: new gloves, top of the line, already broken in the way I liked. Me to him: a frame for the photo from my first varsity start, something I’d found in a box in my closet and figured he’d want displayed.
“Good gloves,” I said.
“Good frame,” he said.
We ate ham in front of the TV, watching an NHL game neither of us cared about.
The house was too quiet. Mom had been gone since I was fourteen—not dead, just relocated, remarried, living in Arizona with a man who sold insurance and didn’t understand hockey.
She’d sent a card. I hadn’t opened it. And dad was currently single after going through a string of wives.
At two p.m., I escaped to my room and called Austen.
“Merry Christmas,” I said when he answered.
“Merry Christmas.” He was wearing a sweater I didn’t recognize—chunky knit, forest green, probably borrowed from Maya’s dad. “The Chens are doing a puzzle. A one-thousand-piece rendering of the Milky Way. I have been assigned the edge pieces.”
“Sounds intense.”
“It requires focus.” He shifted the phone, and I glimpsed the living room behind him—fireplace, tree, people moving in the background. “How’s New Jersey?”
“Quiet. Dad gave me gloves.”
“That’s… practical.”
“It’s his way.” I leaned against the headboard. “I got you something. It’s back at the dorm. I’ll give it to you when we get back.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to.” I’d found it at a used bookstore in town—a first edition of some math text he’d mentioned once, spine cracked but intact. Probably too sentimental. I didn’t care.
“I have something for you as well,” he said. “Also, at the dorm. It’s not… significant. Just something I saw.”
“I’m sure it’s perfect.”
“You haven’t seen it yet.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He was quiet for a moment. Through the phone, I heard laughter—the Chens, probably, celebrating something puzzle-related. Austen glanced toward the sound, then back at the screen.
“I wish you were here,” he said.
“I wish I was there too.”
“Only five more days.”
“Five more days.”
We stayed on the phone for another hour, not talking much, just existing in the same digital space. He worked on edge pieces. I stared at the ceiling. Sometimes presence didn’t require words. I had more fun staring at the Chen’s ceiling than I had since getting back home.
New Year’s Eve, Dad tried.
He bought sparkling cider and made his famous seven-layer dip and put on the countdown coverage like we were a normal family who did normal things. We sat on opposite ends of the couch, watching the ball drop in Times Square, surrounded by the ghosts of holidays that had gone differently.
“You’re playing well this season,” he said at 11:58.
I looked at him. It was the first compliment he’d offered all break.
“Thanks.”
“Harper knows what she’s doing. The team’s got structure.” He paused, jaw working like he was chewing on words he couldn’t quite swallow. “I’m proud of you, Luke.”
The ball dropped. The crowd roared. Dad raised his cider glass, and I raised mine, and we clinked them together in the flickering TV light.
“Happy New Year, son,” he said.
“Happy New Year, Dad.”
It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. But it was something—a crack in the wall he’d built, a glimpse of the father I remembered from before the injury ended his career and turned him into a man made entirely of regret.
I texted Austen at 12:01.
Me: Happy New Year. Dad said he’s proud of me.
Austen: That’s significant.
Me: Maybe. I don’t know what to do with it.
Austen: You don’t have to do anything with it. You can just let it exist.
Me: Oh, is that how feelings work?
Austen: I’m learning that they might.
I smiled at my phone. Across the room, Dad was cleaning up the dip, moving with the careful economy of a man who’d spent his life protecting his body from damage.
“I’m heading to bed,” I said. “Early drive tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving tomorrow?”
“Day after. But I want to check the truck, make sure it’s road-ready.”
He nodded. “I’ll look at it with you. In the morning.”
“Okay.”
Another silence. He crossed to the couch and did something he hadn’t done in years—put a hand on my shoulder, brief and heavy, and squeezed.
“Good night,” he said. “And keep your glove up.”
“I will.”
He went upstairs. I stayed on the couch, staring at the TV as the celebrations continued in cities I’d never visit. My phone buzzed.
Austen: The Chens have started singing karaoke. I am hiding in the bathroom.
Me: Coward.
Austen: Strategic retreat.
Me: Same thing.
Austen: Agree to disagree. Happy New Year, Luke.
Me: Happy New Year, Austen.
On January third, I drove back to campus.
The truck handled the I-95 corridor without complaint, heater blasting, radio playing the same classic rock Dad had raised me on. I’d left at dawn, watched the sun rise over the Delaware Water Gap, and felt the tension drain from my shoulders with every mile north.
Austen was waiting.
I knew because he’d texted his arrival time—4:47 p.m., precise to the minute—and I’d calculated my own to match. When I pulled into the campus lot at 4:52, his Camry was already there, engine off, a figure visible through the driver’s side window.
I parked two spaces away. Got out. The January air bit at my face, sharp and clean.
Austen emerged from his car. He was wearing the green sweater—he’d kept it, or bought one like it—and his hair was longer than I remembered, curling at his temples.
We stood there, two spaces apart, breath fogging between us.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hello.”
“Good drive?”
“Acceptable. Yours?”
“Long.”
The distance felt unbearable. Three weeks of screens and texts and the phantom weight of his absence, and now he was here, real, solid, close enough to touch.
I closed the gap in four steps and kissed him against his car.
He made a sound—surprised, pleased—and his hands fisted in my jacket, pulling me closer. The cold vanished. The parking lot vanished. Everything vanished except the pressure of his mouth and the proof that he was here, he was real, the separation was over.
When we finally broke apart, his glasses were fogged.
“That was—” he started.
“Yeah.”
“We’re in public.”
“I don’t care.”
“Someone could see.”
“Still don’t care.”
He looked at me, eyes bright behind the foggy lenses. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” I pressed my forehead to his. “Let’s go inside.”
“Yes. Let’s.”
The next six weeks existed in a haze.
We fell into a rhythm—classes, practice, study sessions that turned into something else, nights tangled together in Luke’s narrow bed. The secret held, mostly. Maya covered for us when she could, deflecting Ryan’s questions with the skill of a veteran diplomat.
We went on a date. A real one—off-campus, a Thai place twenty minutes away where no one knew us.
I ordered pad Thai. Austen ordered something with a heat level that made my eyes water just looking at it.
We argued about probability theory and whether pineapple belonged on pizza and what constituted a “real” date versus “just eating.”
“This is a real date,” Austen insisted. “We traveled. There’s atmosphere. You’re not wearing a jersey.”
“It’s a flannel.”
“Exactly. Effort was made.”
I laughed and stole a bite of his curry before thinking better of it as my mouth suddenly burst into flames and I thought a baby dragon was hatching on my tongue. I scrambled for the water. My mouth settling as one of Dante’s lesser levels of hell.
“How do you eat that?” I asked between gasps.
“I put it in my mouth and chew.”
“Dear God, Austen. How do you have any tastebuds left after eating that stuff.”
He shrugged.
February arrived with a cold snap and a schedule that made my head spin.
“Boston,” Harper announced at Monday practice. “Northeastern. Saturday. This is the big one, people. Scouts confirmed. I want everyone sharp.”
I tapped my posts and tried to focus. The game mattered. The scouts mattered. Everything I’d worked for was converging on one weekend in a city I’d never much liked.
That night, Austen mentioned his own news.
“I got accepted,” he said, not looking up from his laptop. “The symposium. Northeast Regional Mathematics.”
“That’s great.” I set down my protein shake. “When is it?”
“February fourteenth through sixteenth. In Boston.”
I stared at him. “We’re playing Northeastern on the fifteenth. In Boston.”
He finally looked up. “That’s… coincidental.”
“We’ll both be in the same city.”
“It appears so.” He pushed his glasses up. “I doubt our schedules will align, though. You’ll have the game, and I’ll be presenting, and—”
“But we’ll be there. At the same time.”
“Theoretically.”
I grinned. The idea was absurd—both of us in Boston, moving through the same streets, breathing the same air.
“We should try to meet up,” I said. “After the game. Or before your presentation. Something.”
“The logistics seem complicated.”
“When has that stopped us?”
He considered this. Then, slowly, he smiled. “Fair point.”
“Valentine’s Day weekend in Boston,” I said. “Could be worse.”
“Could be significantly better if we were in the same location for more than five minutes.”
“We’ll figure it out.” I crossed the room and kissed the top of his head. “We always do.”
He leaned into me, laptop forgotten. “Your optimism is statistically unfounded.”
“And yet.”
“And yet,” he agreed.