Chapter 4
Four
Adeline
“You know smoking isn’t as cool as you think it is.”
I squinted at my friend, Esme, who was tapping the pen thingy and frowning.
“It’s not smoking, it’s vaping, and I don’t have any intention of using it. I confiscated it from Jerryn.”
Jerryn was Esme’s fourteen-year-old brother, who should definitely not be indulging in those kinds of vices.
“Such a rascal.” My other friend, Rosie, laughed and took a sip from a hip flask. When did my friends become so … cool wasn’t the word, but whatever it was, it was something I was not.
Though a nip of whatever was in the flask might flush some warmth through my veins. I pulled the lapels of my coat tighter and huddled closer to the wall outside the Chase Manor’s kitchen door.
Mind reader extraordinaire Rosie offered me the flask. “Maybe it’ll loosen you up.”
“Is that what I need?”
My friend shrugged. “You’ve been kind of quiet since you came home from Vermont. Hatch said you might not even go back.”
“Hatch said?” My brother was such a gossip.
Rosie screwed up her mouth and pushed her dark, natural waves out over her shoulder. At roughly the same age as my older brother and nineteen months older than me, Rosie had always been the epitome of hip. She even had tattoos, though her dads were definitely not in the know on that score.
“Why did I have to find this out from Hatch, anyway? You should be telling us everything.” Rosie gestured at Esme who had finally gotten the vape pen to work and was now examining it like maybe it was worth trying anyway. For science.
Esme looked up. “What happened in Vermont?”
“Nothing. I-I just don’t think I’m cut out for college. I couldn’t make any friends and the place was jam-packed with mean girls. Which sounds like I think I’m better than everyone. I don’t think that. I’m just not a great joiner.”
Rosie regarded me with sympathy, borne of years listening to detailed deep dives on my well-crafted inferiority complex. “You have no problem talking to us.”
“Yeah, but think how long it took for me to get comfortable? Especially with you being so close to Hatch and all.”
People used to joke—still did—that Hatch and Rosie were senior Rebels royalty, an arranged marriage waiting to happen. Thankfully my brother and my friend never took that nonsense seriously because that would have been disastrous, especially if they broke up. I couldn’t even begin to think of takings sides.
Esme sucked on the vape pen and started coughing. Rosie took it from her and pocketed it before turning back to me.
“You did stay in that cubby under the stairs for longer than reasonable.”
“I was nine and a half and you were a big girl. All of eleven.”
“Terrifying,” Esme said, dryer than unbuttered toast. “Well, I can’t wait to go to college in the Fall, though Mom will probably rent a place nearby to keep an eye on me. The phrase helicopter parent was invented for her.”
Tara Fitzpatrick did like to hover, but she was a Rebels mom, which translated to “in your business all the time.” My parents were a bit more hands off but not by much.
Rosie grinned. “Speaking of which, we’d better put in an appearance, or they’ll start sending out the search parties.”
We turned to go in just as Cade Burnett, one of Rosie’s dads came out.
“There you are! You out here boozin’, RoRo?”
“Sure, Dad.” She winked at me.
“Saw that.” Cade crossed his arms. “Don’t let your dad catch you with that hip flask.” At Rosie’s gape, he added, “Can’t get anything by me, honey.”
That made both Esme and I laugh. Cade was a funny guy, so laid-back with his Texan drawl. He had retired this past Spring and was enjoying taking on a more stay-at-home interest in his family. On a hammy wink, he returned to the kitchen just as Rosie caught my eye.
“I’ll follow in a sec. Just want to clear my head some more.”
Rosie touched my arm. “It’s gonna be okay, y’know. We’ve got your back, no matter what happens.”
I watched them go, wishing it was easy as all that. That I knew where I belonged. My mom would say I was too young to worry about that, yet my brothers had no problem figuring out their place in the world. Hatch and Conor were destined for the big time in hockey and Landon would probably be an investment banker or a con artist. Same thing, Uncle Gunnar would say.
The strains of Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” filtered through into the cold night air. It was one of my favorites and I hummed along, letting myself indulge in a few of the familiar phrases, especially the ones about how next year, all our troubles would be miles away.
A minute later, the song was over and the cold was seeping deeper into my bones instead of clearing out the cobwebs of my brain as I’d hoped. I couldn’t put off the mingling any longer and was turning to go back in just as Lars Nyquist rounded a corner. The big-shouldered defenseman, son of a legendary Finnish player, had started with the Rebels this season. I’d met him once at a cookout in my Uncle Dex’s back yard.
Once was enough. The guy was the stuff of a schoolgirl’s horny dreams, but he was also kind of moody, which should have done nothing for me. Such was my thinking, ever self-contradictory.
Naturally I made it as awkward as possible.
“Where did you come from?”
Blinking, he ran a hand through his dark blonde hair, evidently unused to being questioned like he’d committed a crime.
“Around the corner.” He held up the phone as if swearing an oath in a court of law. “Taking a call.”
“Right.” I stepped aside to give him room to walk by.
He didn’t take it. Instead he just stood there, waiting for who knew what.
“Can I help you?” I asked after a few uncomfortable seconds.
“You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Piercing blue eyes, well, pierced through me. The heated gaze was tempered a second later by a tug at the corner of his sensual mouth. He found me amusing, apparently.
“How’s college?”
My shock at him posing a personal question meant I didn’t answer. Instead, I stared, waiting for clarification, which he was forced to give.
“Your dad was pretty excited that you were coming home for Christmas.”
“I think he’s more excited I’m attending his alma mater.”
“That, too.” An eyebrow lift, now, like we were sharing an inside joke about the man, the legend, Theo Kershaw. That kind of intimacy warmed me through, leading my hamster wheel brain to inappropriate places. Was I so desperate for connection?
In truth, I did not need the complication of secretly lusting after someone on my dad’s team. Not that a guy like Lars Nyquist would even notice me that way.
The silence had gone on a little too long, so I shrugged again. At this rate, I should be majoring in it. “Well, nice talking to?—”
“What’s going on, Adeline?”
That halted my progress, not just the question, sort of personal for our non-relationship, but his use of my name. There was something familiar about how it sounded on his lips. A touch raspy and clearly all in my imagination.
“Noth—nothing. Why do you ask?”
He thumbed over his shoulder to the direction he’d just come from. “I might have fibbed. I wasn’t on my phone the entire time.”
“Meaning you?—”
“Overheard some of your conversation. Is someone giving you a hard time at school?” It came out gruff.
I opened my mouth. Gusted a sigh.
“Why would you think that?”
Lars moved in closer and leaned against the wall outside Harper and Remy’s kitchen.
“You said you’re having trouble making friends. That people are being mean to you.”
The way he said it, as if it mattered to him.
“That came out wrong. It’s more that I don’t really fit in.” I’m the problem.
“In what way?”
Another shrug. I really needed to quit that. “Freshman life is all about the frats and the parties and letting loose after living with your parents for eighteen years. Not that my parents have sheltered me. They’ve always encouraged me to get out there, try new things, figure out stuff for myself, and I want to be that person but …”
I lost the thread as he edged closer. He picked it up. “But you’re not sure what that person looks like yet?”
I smiled, a touch embarrassed yet inching toward comfortable. Toward confidence or sharing one.
“I’m not really a ‘try new things’ kind of person. I like reading and staying indoors and … hot chocolate with marshmallows. I know that sounds super boring but going away to college is more stimulation than I think I need.”
“Yeah, it kind of does. Sound boring, that is.”
My body flushed with embarrassment. Of course it would sound boring to a guy like this. To any guy.
I turned to leave.
“But it’s okay to feel that way,” he said, as if I hadn’t tried to end the conversation because he was kind of rude.
“What way?”
“Like you don’t want to try new things. Or like you don’t want to move away from your family. Or you don’t ‘fit in’. If anything, it sounds to me like you know your own mind.”
I thought I did, but then I second-guessed everything and wondered if I just wasn’t as open or receptive to new things as I should be.
“I worry about disappointing people.”
“Your mom and dad?”
I nodded. “I’m not like the others.”
“So what. Embrace your weird.”
“Hey!”
Another smirk, not quite a smile, but still awfully appealing. He had to be at least ten years older than me. Why had I even thought that?
Because you’ve thought of him in other ways.
He continued. “If you want to carve out your own path, to go against the grain, then do it. If that translates to leaving a place that makes you uncomfortable, then you’ve got to look after yourself. ”
I leaned in, hanging on every word like this wise man truly had all the answers.
He went on. “Remember that there are multiple options here. Lots of people go to college, get an education, ignore the parties, and still find time to read, nest, and drink hot chocolate. With marshmallows. There’s no one way to do this. And if you’re homesick, maybe you could transfer somewhere closer. I hear there are some decent places of learning in Chi-town.”
I had considered it, then dismissed it as a sign of failure. “And if I decide I don’t want the college experience at all?”
He shrugged. “It’s your life. You don’t owe your parents or friends or anyone else a thing. Kershaw can eat the tuition, believe me. Take the time to think about it and figure out what you want.” He patted my arm, barely a touch, so why did I feel sparks to all extremities?
Staying out of the Chicago area might be for the best. Back to Vermont I should go.
“You won’t tell my dad we talked about this? I don’t want him to worry.”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I wished I could bite them back. Asking him to keep a secret felt far too intimate.
“Or whatever. It doesn’t matter.” I pushed at the kitchen door.
“Hey,” he said softly.
My pulse hammered, even more so than a moment before. I turned to see him half-shaded in the dark. But his eyes still shone, like the twinkling holiday lights in the trees behind him.
“I won’t say a word. And Adeline?”
“Yeah?”
“Have yourself a merry little Christmas.”
Oh God. He’d heard me singing.
“Um, okay.” I rushed in, cringing at the knowledge that someone—that Lars Nyquist—had overheard me warbling, like a cut-rate Judy.
He didn’t follow me inside, and immediately I felt a sense of regret. I hadn’t asked him a single thing about his life, how he was settling into Chicago, about his holiday plans. I hadn’t even wished him a Merry Christmas, little or otherwise, in return. Instead, I made it all about me.
Good job, Adeline.