Chapter 2
DENALI
HOW’D YOU GUESS THAT?
I’ve figured out exactly what I’ll do when I see Raya Giallo again. The girl who mangled my heart and hacked it with a rusty axe five years ago. Back when we were fifteen years old and I was so fucking stupid.
When we meet again in the future, it’ll be after college hockey, when I'm inevitably signed onto a pro team. I’ll probably be at a sports bar with my future smoke-show girlfriend—doctor, model, and Peace Corps advocate—when Raya will approach the table.
I’ve imagined the fantasy a million times. Her short-cropped curls—rich and thick, always catching the light. Her skin, a warm, liquid gold. Her eyes, such a dark brown, they’re almost black.
Collectively, I spent hours gazing into those eyes. Overwhelmed. Speechless. Completely without words from how singularly beautiful she was, and from how much I felt about her.
It was more than a crush, it was a fixation that broke me into pieces.
Before. Not now. And fuck no at that sports bar.
Raya will definitely try to get my attention, hesitating at the outskirts. I’ll arch a brow, pretending to place my ex-girlfriend’s face. Or maybe I won’t pretend. Maybe by then, I’ll have scrubbed her memory out of every crevice she’d seeped into.
She’ll ask if I want to grab a drink to reminisce on the old times. Like I’d want to remember that. Like I’d want to remember when she had me wrapped around her finger, willing and ready to do anything she wanted.
Where did that devotion lead me? Our summer together came to an unceremonious finish, a shove out the door, a ‘closed’ sign flickering through the window. I’d bared my soul, felt things I’d never felt before, and Raya told me to stop calling her. She barely had a goodbye for me.
But none of that mattered. Once she realizes she fucked up, that she missed her chance with the guy who’d become a living hockey legend, oh man. The regret would eat her alive.
I didn’t know how I knew, but it was set in stone. One day, Raya Giallo and I would cross paths again, and I’d get to tell her—you had your chance.
I’d never be her doormat again.
The beginning of my junior year was starting tomorrow. And after so much bullshit with my past team, things were finally snapping into place. Nothing could kneecap my future, I’d worked too damn hard.
At my last school in Michigan, I was forced to take the backseat. My old teammates had pro hockey legends in their families, and even when their stats sucked shit, they were gifted better spots on the lineup, leaving me in the shadows. Everybody knew it. Sportscasters called it ‘iced-out nepotism.’
Searching for a fresh start, I transferred to Marrs University in May, just a few months ago.
Is Houston, Texas known for its hockey? No.
But I saw an opportunity to be the best of the best here and whip the program into shape.
It paid off big time. Over the summer, we fired our shitty coach, got a new one, basically rebuilt the inside of the arena by hand, and became a closer team than I would’ve ever thought possible.
Yeah, we were stuck at a university that worshipped football. The student body couldn’t care less about hockey. Most of them didn’t even know the Gladiators existed, but not for long.
Everything would change once we won the Gulf Coast Cup. A team of underdog hockey players who’d transferred for a chance at notoriety and greatness would be heroes. I didn’t have anything to worry about this season. We were too damn good at this. All we needed was a chance to prove ourselves.
Walking into the ice arena on campus, I knew my life was at its peak, and about to get so much better.
“Captain!” one of my teammates bellowed from the rink.
The rest of the guys hollered, urging me over. I’d already attended a morning practice, but it wasn’t unusual for me to hit the ice again. It was kind of what I was known for.
With a grin, I waved that I was busy as I ducked around the operations staff. They clapped me on the back, happy to see me, but I couldn’t stop for a conversation.
Breaking from the crowd, I spotted Elijah coming out of the locker room.
“Hey, man,” he mumbled. “You don’t have to come. I’m sure you’ve got something better to do.”
“Better than listen to you complain about Houston traffic?” I nudged him. “What could be better than that?”
A ghost of a smile crossed his face before disappearing. Something that regularly happened with him now.
I hadn’t had a best friend in years. I wasn’t really a ‘best friend’ kind of guy; I was a little too uptight, a little too focused on hockey. If something messed with my practice schedule, I had no problem cutting it out.
Elijah was one of the few exceptions. He refused to hear my excuses and dragged me out of my usual solitariness until I realized he was the only one I really felt comfortable around. Which was weird because we’re so different.
Everybody knew Elijah as a loud, brash hockey player while I had a five-year calendar for my career, highlighted down to the month. He threw punches before asking questions, while I could list the college hockey penalty codes by heart. We balanced each other out.
Well, we used to.
Over the summer, Elijah made a mistake that changed the dynamic of our team…and our friendship. A mistake that changed everything. I tried to cheer him up, but nothing seemed to push away his depression.
A few of our teammates shifted away as Elijah came close. What were they expecting? Him to lash out again?
I shot them irritated looks, wrapping an arm around Elijah’s shoulders. Once our games started and Elijah helped bring us to victory, our team would let bygones be bygones.
Turning away, we headed to the door. Elijah needed to pick up his sister from the airport. He played it off when he originally asked me to come along, but I could tell he was excited for her to come home.
I hadn’t met his twin yet. I knew she was one of the resident assistants on campus, one of those students who ran the dorms. Elijah mentioned she had a lot of friends, apparently she was pretty popular. And artsy. She was a painter or something. But beyond that, I didn’t know much about her.
Elijah didn’t say much in the car as I stretched back, watching him from the passenger seat. “You’re in a slump, man. This isn’t forever.”
“Sure feels like it.”
“You’ll bounce back.”
“I know I’m not fun anymore,” he admitted.
“Don’t say that.”
“No, it’s true. So…thanks. For coming.”
I held out my fist, and he hesitated for a moment before fist-bumping me. We slapped palms in our handshake at the red light. It was dumb bro-shit, but it was our dumb bro-shit. And it brought that ghost of a smile to his face again, looking a little more like the old Elijah.
He passed me his phone. “Can you pull up my sister’s playlist?”
“Yeah, which one is it?”
“‘Classic Movie Scores.’”
I paused. “Movie scores?”
“Horror movie stuff. It’s our thing, we listen to them together.”
My mind darted to places I didn’t want to go.
The memory was so sharp, like it happened yesterday instead of five years ago.
I could feel the scratchy carpet on my back.
Hear violin notes playing from the stained-yellow CD player.
Raya’s hand was warm in mine as she hummed along to the notes of a track that belonged to a cannibalistic dismemberment scene from the seventies.
“Our grandpa was this practical effects genius,” Elijah explained, and my heart stuttered at his words. “He worked on a lot of famous horror movies, doing the gross monster stuff." His grin widened. "You’ll never guess how he got his start. He was a janitor and broke into this guy’s office—”
“The director’s office,” I interrupted. It was a story I’d heard countless times, the details burst out like an automatic track from my skull. “He rearranged the ice monster and the special effects team offered him an apprenticeship.”
“Holy shit.” Elijah glanced my way, confused. “How’d you guess that? You know Herschel Giallo?”
Did I know Herschel Giallo? Did I know Hersch, the old man who smoked rancid cigarettes on his balcony and cackled every time he spotted me furiously pedaling to his apartment complex? Did I know Hersch?
I had a key to his place around my neck for months. I spent more time in that old man’s apartment, covered wall-to-wall in his film memorabilia, than I spent in my parents’ house.
Because for the entire summer before my sophomore year of high school, Hersch’s granddaughter and I were inseparable.
My ex-girlfriend, Raya.
“Giallo?” I repeated, my voice faint. “But Elijah…Contractor?”
“Elijah Giallo for the first sixteen years of my life. Z and I changed it to our dad’s last name for his birthday. He’s a big marshmallow, he cried so hard over it.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Stepdad’s. Our dad in every way but DNA.”
Was this a joke? Some elaborate prank to show Elijah was back to his old self? My mind raced while we drove to the airport. I told Elijah so much about Raya, but I couldn’t remember ever saying her full name. I never wanted to say it out loud, to breathe life into the painful past.
And I definitely never told Elijah how it really ended between us.
“Can you stay with the car?” Elijah asked. “We’ll be quick. I think Zariah’s already grabbed her bag.”
Numb, I nodded and watched him head inside. When Elijah passed through the see-through doors, I dove for his glovebox, rifling through papers for some proof that the name Elijah Giallo existed. I was captain of the Gladiators—wouldn’t I have seen it on his paperwork?
I was wrong—I had to be wrong.
Searching for anything, I thumped down the sun visor.
There were pictures clipped to it—of course there were.
Elijah could talk all the shit he wanted to, but I knew how sentimental he was.
There were pictures of the Gladiators over the summer, a shot of him and me gaming, a few of the girl he was in love with, and one of him posing with a girl beside a shared birthday cake.
I yanked it down.
Her thick, dark curls blossomed in all directions, so much longer than they used to be. Her lips tugged up for a smirk, a smirk that left me feeling like I’d fallen out of a skyscraper and slammed headfirst into the concrete.
I knew exactly who was in the picture.
My stomach dropped. “There’s no fucking way.”