Chapter Six
Fair Trade
Shane
I didn’t want to be apart from Ariana after that day at Girls Inc.
Instead of sitting two rows back from her, I’d taken to sitting in the seat right next to hers. I figured out when she walked to class and I’d meet her at her dorm, taking her bag over my shoulder.
It became a rhythm; one I looked forward to more than game day.
Every Thursday, I showed up with a new smoothie from the Smoothie Guy — mango sunrise, tropical punch, peanut butter banana — and watched her wrinkle her nose before I convinced her to try a sip.
By week four, I had a running list of her favorites scratched into the margins of my textbook.
Those walks to class were my time to shine.
That was when I got to bug her without restraint.
I asked her about everything: what music she listened to when she was sad (Coldplay), what her first job was (dog walker), why she always layered a lacy tank top under her shirts (because it’s cool).
She rolled her eyes at my endless curiosity, but she always answered.
When fall semester was coming to a close, and I knew we wouldn’t have Professor Reid together anymore, I innocently asked her which classes she was taking in the spring and made sure I had another one with her.
I didn’t want to lose our walking-to-class ritual.
And from that ritual, Ariana came to know me better than most of my teammates.
She knew I was majoring in psychology, that it wasn’t just a backup plan for when hockey ended, but something I already used in the locker room — to read the guys, to lead better.
She knew we were clawing through the playoff race, one step from a Frozen Four berth if we could just keep the momentum.
And she knew about my pregame superstitions and routine, everything from how I had to eat half a Hawaiian pizza to the precise way I laced my skates.
She told me she was majoring in sociology, that she wanted to work with kids someday. She didn’t say it like it was some vague dream, either. It was steady and rooted, the kind of certainty that made me believe she’d actually do it.
By the time we’d reach the classroom, I was usually mid-question — sometimes serious, sometimes dumb — and she’d push open the heavy door with a sigh. “Class is starting, McCabe. You’ll have to wait to yap at me later.”
But then she’d shoot me this look, this small, reluctant smile that gave her away. She liked the questions. She liked me being there.
And I had every intention of staying.
One evening, I talked Ariana into a study date. Midterms were upon us, and it was the perfect excuse to spend time with her. She invited me to her dorm, since the library was packed, and I skipped over there like a kid on his way to Santa’s workshop.
We had our books spread across her desk and the floor, two open smoothies within arm’s reach, and Ariana was dead serious about cramming every last bit of theory into her head before our exam.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t focus on a single word in that textbook or my notes.
School was important to me, and I wanted to do well on my midterms, but my mind was tied up. I was thinking about hockey, about how regionals were coming up, about how we had more than just a chance at the Frozen Four tournament. I was thinking about drills and video and staying mentally strong.
And more than anything, I was thinking about Ariana.
She was sprawled out on her stomach on the floor, gnawing on the end of her pen while she studied. Her hair was down tonight, still damp from a shower, and she was cozied up in a light pink sweatsuit.
It was my first time inside her dorm, as I usually met her on the sidewalk when I’d walk her to class. And while she studied her notes, I studied everything the room told me about her.
I saw the stacks of books in the corner of her room, not just textbooks, but fiction, too.
Markus Zusak. Stieg Larsson. Stephen King.
Virginia Woolf. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Austen.
I saw craft supplies shoved hastily under her bed.
There was a half-finished puzzle on her desk, now covered by notes we’d sprawled on top of it.
Unable to help myself, I snatched a black binder full of CDs off her nightstand and began thumbing through. Coldplay. Radiohead. Sarah McLachlan. Avril Lavigne. Fiona Apple. I hummed my approval when I came upon Snow Patrol.
“I can’t wait for their next album,” I said, pulling Final Straw from the slipcover and waving it at Ariana.
She glanced up in a study-haze, blinking before she frowned at me. “Are you going through my stuff?”
“Just looking at what music you listen to.”
“You’re supposed to be studying,” she reminded me. “This whole thing was your idea.”
“I can’t help it. I’m distracted by you. Is that so bad?”
She rolled her eyes, but I saw the flush of her cheeks as she turned her attention back to her notes.
I picked one of her CDs labeled as rainy day mix and popped it into my laptop. When it started playing John Mayer, I smiled.
“We have similar taste in music,” I told her.
“And apparently different taste in study vibes.” She climbed up to where I sat on her bed long enough to turn the music off, and I didn’t even mind — not with the view that little act gave me.
Ariana got right back to studying when she was on the floor, but I was still looking around.
My eyes caught on the one and only photo in the room.
It was of her and a woman I assumed was her mother. Ariana was holding a baby boy.
My stomach tightened.
“Who’s that?” I asked, nodding to the picture frame.
Ariana looked up at me, then where I was staring, and the most genuine smile I’d ever seen graced her lips.
“My little brother.”
Apparently, I didn’t hide my shock well, because Ariana chuckled at my expression before turning back to her notes.
“Yeah, bit of an age gap, huh? He…” She swallowed. “Wasn’t exactly planned.”
“Care to elaborate?”
Ariana sat up, wincing against a pain in her neck as she rubbed it.
“My stepdad is… a real piece of work,” she said with a laugh that carried more weight than any I’d ever heard.
“His favorite pastime is beating up on my mom and then making her forgive him with some elaborate, romantic gesture.” She nodded to the photo.
“That time, it led to an accidental pregnancy.”
I gaped at her.
Had she just said what I thought she had?
“I was so upset at first,” Ariana admitted quietly.
“Shitty, I know, but I just… I felt like there was no way we’d ever get away from him now.
If she had a kid by him.” There it was, that smile again.
“But then Georgie was born, and I swear, I’d never felt love like that in my life.
My dad took off when I was a kid, so I never expected to have a sibling.
I’m glad I do. He’s the best thing in my life. ”
I blinked.
I was still stuck on the fact that her stepfather hit her mother.
Apparently, more than once.
“He’s almost five now.” She swallowed, looking at her nails. “I go home whenever I can. Not because I want to be in that house, because if it was up to me, I’d never go back again. But because I need to see him. I need to make sure he’s okay.”
“Fuck, Ari,” I said, and then I was off the bed and on the floor right next to her, wrapping her hand up in mine. “That’s… that’s really heavy.”
She nodded. “I told you, you might not like what you discover.”
“I like everything about you.”
She puffed out a laugh. “Even my toxic family bullshit?”
“Every piece.” I frowned, sweeping a lock of her hair from her face. “He… he’s never hit you, has he?”
Ariana’s gaze slid somewhere behind me. “Not yet. But there was a night with a knife where I got in the way.” She held up her hand, the harsh light of her dorm highlighting the shiny scar across her skin. “That’s how this happened.”
Her answer made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I pulled her into me without thinking, holding her close to my chest as she fisted her hands in the sleeves of her hoodie and hugged me in return.
“Why doesn’t your mom just leave?”
“It’s not that simple,” she said on a sigh. “Though, trust me… I’ve asked her the same question many times.”
“I get it now.”
“Get what?”
I pulled back to look at her. “Why you believe resilience is born within.”
Her smile was soft at the edges, her eyes searching mine. “You called me Ari.”
“I did. Is that okay?”
That smile widened, and she nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
“Can we talk about something else?”
“Anything you want.”
“Well, we should probably be talking about stages of childhood social development…”
“Five minutes,” I said. “Just a little break and we’ll get back to it.”
“Okay, then. Tell me about hockey.”
I leaned back on my palms, but still stayed close enough that my knee touched hers. “It’s all ramping up now. We’ve got regionals soon, then semi-finals. And then…” I shrugged, picking up the pen she’d chewed to bits with a grimace. “Championship game. Milwaukee. Ours for the taking.”
She snatched her pen from my hand with a roll of her eyes. “You sound so sure.”
“I am.” I straightened, leaning toward her across the pile of notes. “Sure enough that I’ll make you a bet right now. If we make it to the championship game, you have to go.”
She blinked, then laughed — that soft, surprised laugh I was starting to crave. “You’re insane. I’m not flying to Milwaukee to watch you skate around on ice.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head. But the corner of her mouth betrayed her, tugging up. “Fine. What do I get if you lose?”
I tilted my head, and unashamedly, my eyes ran the length of her. “What do you want?”
My voice dropped an octave, suggestive, because I liked the way her breath caught when I teased like that. I liked how she pretended she was annoyed and unaffected by me, but her body told a different story.
And there it was, the reward I was seeking — the hitch in her breath, the parting of her lips, the slight widening of her eyes.
She stared at me for a second, color creeping into her cheeks, but then she smirked back. “Your smoothie punch card.” She pointed her demolished pen at my chest. “I know you’ve been hiding it from me.”
“That’s what you want? Not dinner anywhere you choose, not me running laps around Conte Forum shouting your name — my smoothie card?”
“It’s worth at least fifty bucks in free smoothies,” she said primly, picking up her notebook. “Seems like a fair trade.”
I shook my head, still grinning as I leaned back on my palms again. “All right. You’ve got a deal.”
I extended my hand, and we shook on it.
I’d never been so motivated to win in my life.
· · ·
On March 25, 2007, right around midnight, I decided I couldn’t hold back my feelings anymore.
I was on a bus full of my teammates, all of us buzzing after winning our regional game. I could still hear the roar of the crowd in Worcester even back at campus.
We’d buried Miami five–nothing. Frozen Four, baby. We were going.
And all I could think was that I had to tell Ariana.
The bus hissed as it pulled to a stop, brakes squealing against the quiet of campus. Midnight air bit at my lungs when I jumped down the steps, but I barely felt it.
I didn’t even think about it — just took off running across the quad, grinning like a lunatic with my hockey bag thumping against my side. By the time I reached her dorm, my chest was heaving, not from the sprint, but from the thought of her on the other side of that door.
I knocked loud and insistent, and thirty seconds later, the door cracked open.
Ariana stood there in a big sweatshirt and shorts, hair piled in a messy knot, finger pressed to her lips.
“Shhh! My roommate’s asleep.” But she was smiling, and it hit me like a second victory. “What are you doing here?”
“Did I wake you?” I whispered, trying to catch my breath.
She was still smiling. The sight of it lit my chest on fire. “No. I was waiting up to see—”
She didn’t get to finish before I had my hands in her hair and was kissing her.
The win against Miami, the way I’d thought about Ariana all the way to Worcester and the whole way back, the way she was all I ever thought about anymore…
It all snapped something inside me, and my patience was eviscerated.
She gasped against my mouth, surprised for only a moment.
And then, she melted, her hands finding the front of my hoodie and fisting there like she’d been holding back just as much as I had.
I could have kissed her all night. I could have survived off the little whimper she made, the way her body leaned into mine, how she pressed onto her toes like she wanted more. I framed her face, thumbs at her jaw, fingers curling in her hair as she parted her lips and my tongue swept in.
That had both of us groaning, and suddenly I was hungry for more than just a kiss.
When I finally pulled back, I pressed my forehead to hers, still grinning like a fool.
“Be my girlfriend,” I breathed, voice rough with hope.
“Please, Ariana. I don’t want this to be just…
whatever we’ve been. I don’t want there to be any question in your mind when it comes to how I feel about you.
” I swallowed, pulling back so I could look at her. “I want it to be you and me.”
Her eyes flicked over my face, wide and searching, like she was trying to decide if I meant it.
I’d never been surer of anything.
And she must have seen it, because that smile was back, her cheeks flushed, lips swollen. “Yes,” she breathed.
“Yes?”
She nodded.
And then she was in my arms, and I was spinning, feeling like I was on top of the world.