Andrew
“You promise to be civil?” he asks Ainsley as he follows her through the local grocery store.
The amount of food in her cart says she’s about to live through the apocalypse, but she had explained that they just don’t get to the store as often. Lake Placid isn’t remote by any means, but sometimes even fifteen minutes is a hike when they’re coming down a mountain.
“You said she promised to be civil,” Ainsley says with a shrug, “I can be civil if she can. ”
“That’s not what JT said.”
“New year, new me, Andy,” Ainsley says.
“It’s almost July.”
“Still counts.”
“In what universe?” he asks, under his breath as he turns the corner. “I really like this girl, Ainsley, I need you to be chill.”
“You’re lucky I love you, or this would not be happening,” Ainsley says, dropping a box of graham crackers into the cart with a bag of marshmallows. “Spending time with someone who gave me hell in high school and then tried to sleep with my husband isn’t the way I wanted this weekend to go.”
“She tried to sleep with JT?” Andrew asked, raising a brow. “Were you married? That doesn’t sound like my Danielle.”
“Your Danielle,” Ainsley says, using air quotes, “has a past, and is part of why it took me so long to come back here. And no, we weren’t married. We were broken up.”
“This sounds like Ross and Rachel’s ‘we were on a break’, so I don’t think it should matter. ”
“You’re a man,” Ainsley says, rolling her eyes, “of course you wouldn’t think it matters. But it does. It matters, a lot .”
Once Andrew is sure that JT isn’t going to start a forest fire in his back yard, he jumps into his truck and heads into town to pick up Danielle.
Fourth of July announcement banners have gone up along Main Street, letting him know about the fireworks happening the next weekend, and he can’t help but get excited.
It had been a while since he’d had a small-town Fourth of July, spending more of his adult life Raleigh, but it seems like this year might change that.
According to JT, Lake Placid has thousands of people come into town for the weekend, boasting a carnival, and a huge horse show, plus fireworks like he’s never seen before.
And he’s done Fourth of July at Boston Harbor, so he’s sure these ones are going to be a treat.
Boston had been a week-long event, starting on June thirtieth and running all the way to July fifth.
There was a Chowder Cook Off, a Boston Pops concert, a reading of the Declaration of Independence, and also a huge market than ran the length of the harbor.
He’s hoping it feels like home .
There were places in the Triangle that he was sure had massive Fourth of July celebrations, but the last time he had been to one was when he had first moved there.
He’d snuck into Wake Forest and hidden on the lawn at one of the high schools, just in case he was recognized, and watched as the fireworks lit up the sky.
He’s excited to be in a small-town. They know how to do it, and do it right. He remembered when he was growing up in Stillwater, Minnesota, it was the best time of year.
Main Street has transformed overnight, and he finds himself impressed at how efficient small towns are.
There are patriotic banners on every light post, celebrating businesses and veterans.
Red, white, and blue stars are underneath them, and he has a feeling that they light up at night while people are walking the main strip of the town.
His heart is starting to beat for this small-town life again, and he’s not sure he ever wants to go back to Raleigh.
He turns off main street and onto a side road, turning onto one more before heading to the end. Danielle is waiting for him on the porch .
She’s texting someone, brow furrowed in concentration. Mile long legs are covered in jeans, and she’s got an oversized flannel over a gray t-shirt. She’s stunning, and his heart slams into his ribs when she looks up and sees him in his truck.
He hops out, running to the passenger side so he can get her door for her as she comes down from the porch.
“Such a gentleman,” she teases.
“I know you’ve got that whole ‘independent woman’ thing going on, but my mom would kill me if I was anything less,” he says with a grin. “You look good, D.”
“It’s D, now?” she asks. “No Dani, or Boss?”
“Harper calls you Aunt D,” he says with a shrug as she climbs up into his truck, the way her legs look in those jeans are doing nothing but remind him how long it’s been since he’s actually been with someone. “I figured that, outside of work, I could.”
“I kind of like the way it sounds when you call me that,” she says, her eyes meeting his, gentle smile on her face. He matches it.
“You can call me Andy, if you want,” he says softly, “only the most important people in my life do. ”
“Andy,” she says, testing the name, “it suits you.”
He grins, closing the passenger door before jogging around to his side. “I have like, four names, so I’m glad that you like at least one of them.”
“Why do you have four names?”
“Fans call me Andrew, or Fish,” he says, starting his truck, “My team calls me Drew, and the important people call me Andy.”
“Andy is the best one out of all of those,” Danielle says. “Andrew is too formal, and you’re not a formal type of guy. Fish is just lazy, and Drew is pretentious.”
Andrew throws his head back in a laugh. “Why is Drew pretentious?”
“It makes you sound like an overzealous politician,” Danielle says, laughing with him. She deepens her voice. “My name is Drew Fisher, and I’m running for Congress.”
“I’ll make sure I let my teammates know when I go back to Raleigh,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I’ll tell them that my new boss says they can’t call me that.”
“As if they’ll believe you got a job,” she laughs. “I could hardly believe it when you came in and asked. ”
“JT and Ainsley couldn’t, either,” he replies, “but I like working with you, it’s fun.”
“But not Cara,” she says.
“Cara hates me,” he shrugs, “I don’t like being hated.”
“I thought you’d be familiar with it,” she replies, “since you’re in the NHL and all.”
“Depends,” he shrugs, “it’s a lot easier to deal with when you aren’t seeing the person who hates you every single day. Knowing I’m hated and experiencing being hated are two different things.”
“I don’t know why you would want to put yourself in a position where half the country hates you at any given time.”
“Because hockey is the best sport in the world,” he says, simply. “It’s worth it.”
A comfortable silence falls between them, as Andrew drives, heading to JT’s house. He wants to know everything about this girl, but he starts with the biggest question he has.
“Why does Ainsley hate you so much?” Andrew asks, turning off of Main Street to head back to JT’s house .
“Loaded question, Fisher, try again,” Danielle says, rolling her eyes. She looks over at him, but he doesn’t change his question, just lets it sit in the air between them before Danielle finally sighs.
“We were academic, and social, rivals when we were in school,” Danielle says. “I had a massive crush on Jet, and so did she. He kind of… led me on.”
“How so?”
“I would flirt, and he would flirt back,” she says with a shrug. “It was to the point where a lot of people thought we were together, and I was so gone for him.”
She looks out the front window of his truck, leaning her head back against the seat .
“It was stupid teenager stuff, but I thought for sure he was going to ask me out,” she says, “and I was going to have it all. The grades, the guy, the friends. Everything I was supposed to have, everything that made me impressive. That’s what I wanted more than anything, back then.”
He gets that, in a way. Wanting to have it all so that you can be a step ahead of everyone else. So that people will look at you differently, and even want to be you sometimes. He doesn’t think it’s worth the cost.
“What happened?”
“Jet showed up holding Ainsley’s hand on a random Monday after one of his games, and it was all over,” she says with a shrug, “and after that I made her life miserable without any thought of how my behavior was hurting her. I was hurt, so I wanted her to hurt, too.”
“And she internalized the hurt,” Andrew says with a nod, “and it’s been this way ever since.”
“Okay, therapy,” she teases, kicking a bare foot up on his dashboard. He grins, because if this isn’t a country song come to life, he doesn’t know what it is.
“Fourteen years of it,” he says with a laugh.
“You actually go?” she asks, head swiveling towards him, eyes wide.
“I have to,” he says, shrugging. “If I don’t, I wouldn’t be able to handle anything that happens during the hockey season, and I especially wouldn’t be able to have gotten through this past one.”
“When are you going to tell me about that?” she asks, raising a brow.
“When you’re done telling me about this JT, Ainsley, you dynamic so I know what I’m getting myself into.”
“By the time that happens, we’ll be there. ”
“Then you’ll have to be patient.”
“Patience isn’t what I’m known for,” she replies, “if you haven’t figured that out by now.”
“I have,” he says, “but keep telling me.”
“Ainsley also found out that Jet and I almost hooked up after she broke up with him. That definitely did not help.”
“She mentioned that.”
“It was stupid,” Danielle says, watching as he turns onto JT’s road, the mountains rising in the distance. He’d gotten used to this view, but at golden hour it still takes his breath away.
“He was single,” she says, “I was single, and I thought I could finally have everything that I’d wanted.
That I’d worked for. I ran my parent’s business, I was successful.
He was there. I went for it, and then threw it in her face because when she came back in town, everything I’d built my life on until that point felt like it crumbled. ”
He doesn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue.