Chapter 13 Harper
The buzz of the alcohol fades, but the buzz of the party doesn’t. I let myself get swept into conversations with people I’ve never spoken to before, play rounds of games I’ve never played, and forget everything that’s been stressing me out.
Maybe the hockey team has a few things figured out.
Over the next few hours, people slowly start trickling outside to head home or upstairs to crash.
Sometime around one a.m., Sam loads up an Uber full of inebriated hockey players, buckling Patrick’s seat belt for him (“He celebrated making varsity a little too hard,” Dawson whispers to me), and everyone nods silently but supportively while Brady gives a speech about how this team means everything to him and maybe he should just not graduate so he can stay and play another year?
As they pull out of the driveway, the guys in the back seat bellowing “we are the champions,” I see the depths of human suffering in Sam’s gaze.
Sabrina gets washed toward the door in a wave of other partygoers, Ryan chasing them and begging them to stay. “There’s plenty of space! Especially if you’re willing to share a bed,” he says with a wink.
Sabrina waves him off, enveloping me in a tight hug and whispering, “I’ll text you about the commission.” I’m surprised at how widely I smile back.
As long as I’m staying, might as well be useful. I start collecting bottles from the living room and head toward the kitchen when my arms are full. I nearly run into Dawson, who’s leaving it with a garbage bag in his hands.
“Let me take those,” he says, opening the bag and nodding at my haul.
I dump them in with a clatter, too surprised to see Dawson cleaning up after his teammates to say anything. But then again, why should I be shocked? When he’s not getting me to cover his shifts, he never shirks his work at the diner, is always finding spare chores to fill the downtime.
He’s peering at me with concern. I probably have a buffering symbol above my head. “You need water,” he decides.
“You need water,” I say automatically, and it reminds me of the moment in the fridge, the way his eyes flicked to my lips before they flicked away.
He rolls his eyes. “I’ve barely been drinking.”
“Really?”
He shakes his head. “Not when we have another game next week. Can’t compromise my performance.” While I’m taking that in—that his friendliness tonight isn’t the effect of drunkenness—he holds up a hand. “Just sit, okay?”
So I sit. As two a.m. approaches, I sink into the deep couch looking out the living room windows. It’s the comfiest seat my butt has ever felt, and the glass of water Dawson brings when he joins me is the best drink I’ve ever tasted. I gulp half of it down in one go, cool and quenching.
At this stage of the night, his hair is more mussed than usual, flopping chaotically as whatever product he uses loses its hold.
I like it like this. It matches the softer Dawson who’s been checking on me all night, the flush in his cheeks, the quiet of the house as the party shifts into something gentler.
This Dawson makes the petty rivalry of the last few weeks seem so silly. Maybe all I needed was a little time to get to know him.
I lean forward to put the empty glass of water down on the coffee table, and when I settle back onto the couch, I’m somehow seated much closer to Dawson. Close enough to tuck myself under his arm again.
Suddenly I can no longer repress the moment in the walk-in when I could swear he was about to kiss me. The heat of his body pressed against mine—the scent of him all around me—the tiny inhale of breath—
From the way his eyes flicker across my face, I wonder if he’s thinking of the same thing.
I’m holding my breath. I feel suddenly certain that kissing Luke Dawson would be nothing at all like my dry peck with Ethan at homecoming.
“Your business,” he says, clearing his throat, “tell me more about it?”
Right. Of course he isn’t thinking about kissing me. Why would he be? I take a deep breath, leaning back slightly so I don’t do anything rash. “I’ve been building it for years. I used to only make things for my friends, but the demand started getting out of hand.”
Dawson nods. “I remember when every girl I knew started wearing one of your bracelets.”
I blink. “You do?” He just nods, so I stumble ahead, trying to regain my composure.
“Well, I started off with simple beaded stuff, but pretty quickly I wanted to make more of my own designs. I started thinking, there’s no way I can afford all these supplies if I don’t start charging for some of this stuff.
So I started Beads by Braedon. Last year I made an online storefront, and, well…
” I shrug. “Things have been taking off. So I’ve been hoping it’ll win me the Hamilton Lakes Young Entrepreneur Grant for college, and maybe I can use the experience to get me into business school.
But I have a lot to learn, and our district doesn’t have nearly enough economics and business development classes, so.
” I take a deep breath. You’re monologuing, Harper.
“I’m kind of on my own. But I’m figuring it out. ”
Dawson frowns. “It sucks to have everything riding on something that’s not in your control. And for other people to not see how much it means to you.”
I blink, startled. “Yeah. Yeah, exactly.” I’m close enough to see the ring of brown and gold in his eyes, the freckles on his nose.
It must hypnotize me, because I keep going.
“If I’m honest, that’s why your team got under my skin so much?
Like, I always thought it must be so nice for other people to care about what you want to do with your life.
Care enough to devote so much of their own time to cheering you on. ”
His gaze turns softer, understanding. I have to look away. I’ve never really connected the dots like that for anyone else. Have barely admitted it to myself.
“Yeah, that’s not fair at all.” I look back, startled, at Dawson’s mouth twisted in frustration, his eyes intent on mine.
“For what it’s worth, I meant what I said earlier.
I really do think you can accomplish whatever you set your mind to.
You’re up against a lot, but you haven’t let it stop you yet.
I admire that, honestly. We could all use a fraction of your drive. ”
My cheeks are on fire. He’s not saying anything I haven’t heard from Marissa and my parents, but coming from Dawson, it means so much more.
He’s not at all the dismissive jock I always assumed.
“Thanks.” It comes out as a whisper, and I have to clear my throat.
“What about you? It sounds like you work your ass off for the team.”
“I told you I’m trying to get a scholarship to Michigan eventually,” he says.
“It’s where my dad played at the start of his career.
I know I could try out for a lower-tier team, but Dad’s always been so insistent that I’m even better than he was, that I could go all the way.
And I guess it feels like I’m completing some unfinished arc, you know? ”
He searches my face, like he’s afraid I’ll laugh at him.
I don’t blame him for being nervous—I’ve mocked his team and this game plenty of times before, and suddenly I regret every joke.
Tonight, all I want is for him to finish his story.
I nod as encouragingly as I can and he relaxes, continuing his explanation.
“But without a scholarship, I can’t afford to leave Hamilton Lakes, and I’ll end up inheriting the Lakeside and running a diner for the rest of my life.
And the first step is making it onto a good Juniors team next year.
That’s why Coach Red getting fired is so stressful.
I know I’m a great player.” He shrugs, and for once I don’t see it as self-centered—more like he’s just acknowledging a fact that would be dumb to ignore.
“But without the right coach and the right connections this year, it won’t mean anything.
I have this one moment to make something of myself.
If I don’t, I’ll be staring up at my dad’s old jerseys at the Lakeside when I’m forty, thinking about the year I almost did something with my life. ”
“That makes a lot of sense,” I say slowly. “No wonder the changes this season mean so much to you.”
He nods, making that intense eye contact again. For once I don’t want to tease him, not even a little bit. Talking to him like this makes it impossible not to see the importance of what he cares about. Makes it impossible not to see him as way more real than before.
Does he deserve all the credit the rest of the school gives him, and I’ve just been too close-minded to realize it?
I pull my legs up onto the couch, and the cushions tilt us closer together. Our knees brush, and this time I don’t move away.
“Okay, so. As long as you’re convincing me maybe hockey isn’t quite as dumb as I thought… can you explain what this icing thing is?”
His face lights up, and his excitement over rules and technicalities is almost enough to make me understand the game—and definitely enough to keep me from realizing how late it’s getting.
The house gets quieter and quieter, and our bodies become looser, melting into the couch, inching closer and closer together.
At some point he asks me to explain metalworking, and I scoot toward him so I can show him my bracelet from my vantage point. I lean back into his chest, and my body softens like it’s been here a million times.
He turns my outstretched arm this way and that to examine my work, and when he finally lets it fall, I don’t move away. It’s the middle of the night and I’m at a hockey party with Luke Dawson and everyone else is asleep. This is already unreal.
So I let dream logic soften the edges of everything around me, and I focus on the rumbling of Dawson’s chest beneath my head as we talk later and later into the night, warm and cocooned in this unexpected circle of stories.
The first thing I become aware of the next morning is a pair of arms encircling my waist. Heat like a furnace behind me. The soft, snuffling sounds of someone breathing deeply in sleep.
Dawson.
I freeze, the calculator part of my brain back online and immediately tabulating all the places our bodies are touching.
His shoulder against my back.
His arm wrapped loosely around my waist.
The curve of his hips behind mine.
It’s undeniable: I spent the night on a couch with Luke Dawson.
The Harper of a few weeks ago wouldn’t have dreamed this scene up in a million years. I never wanted anything to do with the hockey team, and Dawson was the epitome of their entitlement.
But… is he? After last night’s conversation, and all his little thoughtful gestures, and how careful he was to check in on me… maybe there’s more to Dawson than I gave him credit for.
I almost don’t want to move. It’s so warm and secure here, like the moment we arrived at the party, Dawson guiding me more gently than I thought possible. But now that the early morning watery light is washing through the windows, I have a feeling staying any longer might break the magic.
I slip out from under his arm. He shifts, releasing a sleepy sigh, and for a moment I swear he’s going to wake up and see me sneaking out.
It’s not that I don’t want to talk to him—it’s just that I’m a little overwhelmed by every tangled emotion in my chest, and I suddenly understand what hangxiety is.
My mouth is dry, a faint headache pounds at my temples, and I’m all jittery and panicky.
I need to get myself together before I can handle a conversation with Dawson.
I freeze and wait for his breathing to stabilize. His eyelashes flutter against his cheek, his thick eyebrows furrowing a little at whatever he’s dreaming about, before everything smooths and softens again and he drifts back into deep sleep.
It’s almost enough for me to lunge back onto the couch, nestling into his chest again.
Instead I square my shoulders and grab my keys from the coffee table. Then I tiptoe through the wreckage of the house without a backward glance, slipping my feet back into the shoes I left in the foyer.
I’m turning to close the door behind me when I lock eyes with Noah at the top of the stairs. His hair’s mussed with bedhead, and there’s a smirk on his face that I really don’t like. “Not so disgusted by the hockey team anymore, huh?”