17. Chapter Seventeen
Stanley
I wake up at four-fifty, ten minutes before the alarm, which is fine, because I’ve been awake on and off since two and gave up around four. My stick is leaning against my closet door where I set it last night when I got home from Linwood’s.
I get up and shower. I throw on jeans and a sweater my mother would call put-together and my father would call fine. I sling the garment bag over my shoulder and grab my packed duffel.
The house is silent.
Benson’s parents are asleep in his room. He’s on the pullout in the living room with Gianna on an air mattress beside him.
Blue is with Melly.
I come down the stairs as quietly as I can, noticing that the kitchen light is on, and only Gianna is asleep in the living room.
When I walk into the kitchen, Benson’s at the island in a hoodie and sweatpants, eyes at half-mast, and a coffee in his hands. There’s a second mug poured on the counter. His truck keys are sitting next to it.
I stop in the doorway.
“Reeve.”
He lifts his mug. “Stan.”
I walk in and pick up the second mug, and the coffee is, somehow, the best coffee I have ever had in my life.
On the counter, next to the bananas, there’s a Tupperware. A pie under plastic wrap. A yellow Post-it on the lid in Rowan’s handwriting.
Stan — Good luck on faking it. You owe me. —R
I read it twice and toss it.
Benson says, “He made one for us too.”
“I can take it on the plane, right?”
Reeve shrugs. “Hopefully.”
“What if they confiscate it and eat it for themselves?”
“Then say Happy Thanksgiving,” he says, lifting his mug. He looks down at my bag. “Do you have a ride?”
“Yeah, Reeve. I have a girlfriend now.”
He smirks. “How does it feel?”
I glance down at the counter and adjust the strap on my shoulder. “My brain started a podcast about it this morning.” I nod and grin. “I’m calling the first episode: I would never –– by me, when I might.”
He laughs. “You know what’s crazy?”
“Me.”
He nods. “You. Happy Thanksgiving, Stan. Good luck faking it.”
“Tell your mom I’m sorry,” I say.
“I will.”
He adds, “You’re missing the game.”
I blink. “I’m not missing the game.”
“You’re flying back Friday morning. Wheels-up six. Hartford to Albany to Burlington, you land ten-thirty. Coach has skate at eleven. You’ll be lacing up in the room ten minutes before everybody else hits the ice.” He finally looks up. “I checked your itinerary.”
“You checked my itinerary?”
“Stan. I’m the captain. I had to sign you off. We’ve got a Friday game against a top-ten team and our first-line right wing is in a different state pretending to date some NHL coach’s daughter. Yeah. I checked your itinerary.”
I set the mug down. “I’ll be there, Reeve.”
“I know you’ll be there.”
I chug the coffee and set it down in the sink. “Reeve.”
“Yeah.”
“How big a mistake is this?”
“Is this for your podcast?”
I nod.
He doesn’t blink. “Saturday night you walked into a kitchen thinking you were doing a panicked girl a favor. Now, it’s Thursday.
You’re flying to her parents’ house with a pie Rowan baked at midnight and a goalie named Percy is worried about how much wine you’re going to drink. You’re not in the mistake anymore.”
“I’m not?”
He shakes his head. “You’re past the mistake. You’re in whatever’s on the other side of it.”
“And what’s on the other side?”
He looks at me for a long second. “You know what’s on the other side, Stan. Deep shit.” He laughs and adds, “Don’t be a coward about it.”
I know what’s on the other side of it?
I don’t.
“Tell Coach Linwood I say hi,” he says.
I nod, grabbing his shoulder. “Thankful for you, brother.”
“You, too.”
Aspen’s black SUV is idling in the open garage. I walk up just as she steps into the garage with her carry-on at her feet, coat over her arm, and she looks ready, the way she is always ready, ten minutes early for everything in her life.
I come up her front walk in the dark with a duffel, a garment bag, and a large pie container.
She watches me the whole way.
“What’s in the container?” she asks.
“Pie.”
“The one you baked?”
“Exactly.” I wink.
She almost smiles as she opens the back door to put her stuff in.
“Do you want me to drive?” I ask.
She looks at me. “Why? Are you a control freak?”
I shrug. “Just offering.”
“No, Ermington. This is my car. I’ll drive.”
And she thinks I’m the control freak?
I put my things in the backseat with hers and hold the pie on my lap in the passenger seat.
It’s twenty-five minutes to the airport. I pull out my phone, text my dad that I’m on the way to the airport and pocket it.
Beside me, Aspen holds her coffee in one hand, focuses on the road, and says nothing.
I let it ride for four minutes. Then I can’t.
“Linwood. Wanna play a game?”
“What kind of game?”
“Pop quiz. Couple stuff. Things real couples are supposed to know about each other. We wrote it into the rules. We have a four-hour window to get good at it.”
She waits.
“What’s my coffee order?”
“I know this one.” She raises an eyebrow. “Whatever I’m drinking.”
I scoff.
“I know your middle name,” she says.
“You do?”
“It’s Robert.”
“It’s not Robert. It’s Henry. After my grandfather. Stanley Henry Ermington. We are going to have to do better than this before we hit that driveway.”
She bites the inside of her cheek, so she won’t smile.
I run her through what I know. When her father coached me over the summer, I learned everything about the Linwoods.
I know how her father met her mother, where they had their wedding, how they wanted more kids, but it just didn’t happen, where they go on vacations, and all of the small little things that one shouldn’t know about a fake girlfriend’s family.
“You know more about me than I know about you.”
“One afternoon with my family will change that.”
She says, “That was a concerning amount of things, Ermington.”
“It’s going to be useful by three o’clock.”
We reach the airport soon after. I get out faster than she can, so I can grab all of our things.
She reaches for her carry-on and says, “I can carry my own—”
“Linwood, I got it.”
“Let me––”
“No.” I shut the back door. “I got it.”
She doesn’t argue as she locks her car and places the keys in the zipper of her purse. She walks beside me with tense shoulders. I keep my eyes forward and walk to the parking structure’s elevator.
She follows me in and presses the button.
It feels oddly quiet, and I’m not used to the silence.
I open my mouth, and then the elevator doors open, and a family steps in, smiling at Aspen.
She smiles back, looking down at their baby.
I’m looking at the baby, too. It’s staring up at Aspen, so she lifts her hand and waves.
When the doors open again, we’re across the street from the departures of different airlines. Aspen points in the direction we need to go, so I follow her lead while the baby stares at her the entire way. Funny baby, giving me proof that energy doesn’t lie.
When we step inside, I head straight for the kiosk.
Boarding pass already on my phone. We have no luggage, so this is smooth sailing.
She’s at the kiosk beside me, entering her information.
I wait patiently, knowing that we need to walk in that direction for TSA.
I’ve only done this at least six hundred times.
The pie gets through TSA, and I’m the happiest man alive.
“I don’t think we should lie about the pie,” Aspen says as we walk to our gate. “What you did back there made it so obvious.”
“What?” I scoff. “He believed me.”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t see his face after you grabbed it back.”
“What kind of face did he make?”
She does the face. It’s quick and subtle, so I grin. “That’s it?”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she huffs, and there’s the truth. “We shouldn’t be doing this. You’re like… the worst person I could’ve chosen for this.”
“No, I’m not.”
Her eyes flick forward in annoyance.
“You’re a bad liar,” she says. “I just watched it happen in real time.”
“Alright, you don’t want to lie about the pie, so we don’t lie about the pie.” I shrug.
“No, it’s more than the pie, Ermington. This is so stupid. How did we get here?” She looks around at the airport hallway that we’re walking through. Her face falls into a wince, and then she laughs. “I don’t think we should do this.”
She stops walking.
I pull her to the wall and say, “Don’t worry––”
“Stop saying that.”
I put my hands up. “Okay. Okay.”
“Let’s tell them we’re sick.” She nods. “And then we tell them it’s fake.”
“Aspen, I know you’re freaking out.”
“You think?”
“But,” I say, holding the pie between us. “You know what’s beautiful about this situation? I baked a pie, and nobody said I had to bring it. Would you like to have some with me?”
She looks around at the busy airport and scoffs. “I want to go home.”
I shake my head. “Sorry, princess, but we have a flight to catch and parents to charm.”
She covers her face.
“Do you think I’m that bad of a liar?” I ask.
“Yes!” she says through her hands. “You’re terrible. Are you ever serious?”
I lift up the pie and lift a brow.
She looks at it and says, “Thanks, but I’m saving my appetite.”
She starts walking, so I follow behind her like a lost puppy. We reach our gate ten minutes later. The airport is packed. We board in an hour, and Aspen is still tense. I sit beside her and don’t say another word.
Percy handed me a piece of paper last night and told me not to read it until I’m on the plane, but I figure right now’s a good time to read it. I slide my hand in my pocket and pull it out.
I open it in my lap, below the line of her sight, and I read it.
One. Compliment her mother’s cooking. Twice. One ingredient, one technique. Not the meal.
Two. Don’t bring up hockey. Let Coach bring up hockey.
Three. One glass with Coach. You talk too much after two and you fly back tomorrow.
Four. Eat slow. Match her pace, not your own.
Five. When she goes quiet, you get loud. Have her back.
I read it twice.
I look carefully at her left hand on her lap. It’s pressed too flat like she’s still anxious. My award-winning personality is putting her on edge.
I fold the note along Percy’s creases and put it back in my pocket.
When the plane takes off, she still hasn’t said a word since the hallway. I can tell she’s fighting herself, and I know I need to do something fast because if we show up to Thanksgiving with this attitude, her family is going to think we’re fighting or that I’m terrible for her.
I can’t bring myself to say anything because I know it’ll just annoy her.
Somewhere after the seatbelt light goes off, the weight of her head comes onto my shoulder.
I look down.
She’s asleep. Mouth pressed closed, the line between her eyebrows gone for the first time since Saturday. I don’t move. I have a window I could lean against. I have an arm that is going to fall completely asleep within ninety seconds. I stay very still and watch her sleep.