Chapter 53
DENALI
NICE TIMING ALL AROUND
The TIHCC decided to hold the Gulf Coast Championship in Corpus Christi, at the largest ice rink in the city.
Tickets sold out within the week, and everyone’s families were coming.
I’d played in bigger arenas, I’d played in bigger conferences, but this was the game that’d have the greatest impact on my career.
It was a three-hour bus ride, and the bus was quieter than usual. The air was heavy with anticipation, with a nervous edge we couldn’t shake.
It was the first bus ride Elijah and I sat apart.
He was upfront with Cleo. Noise-canceling headphones rested over his ears, like anybody was talking. I tried to bring it up to Zariah, but she refused to acknowledge him, even if I kept catching her sneaking looks his way.
We had an interview with Corpus Christi Today, dinner with the opposition, but still Elijah steered clear of Zariah and me. The longer it continued, the more I could see how it hurt Zariah. She was angry with him, but that anger didn’t cancel anything out.
She missed him.
And I couldn’t do anything about it.
I’d tried to talk to him multiple times—he shut me out at every turn. He refused to speak to me outside of meetings, but I had to talk to him.
Zariah, June, and Cleo went to call some of their football friends, and I took my exit, heading to Elijah’s room. I had no idea what I was going to say but we couldn’t keep going like this.
Pickles poked his head out of their shared room, toothbrush in his mouth and told me that Elijah had left and hadn’t come back. The night before the Cup—how could he leave?
I strode down the hallway, thinking it over.
“You didn’t leave the hotel,” I decided, muttering to myself. “You’re pissed but you wouldn’t have left.”
I searched the hotel, scanning the empty hallways and the open balconies. Elijah was nowhere to be seen. Downstairs, I found a gate with a warning saying the outdoor firepit was closed. I couldn’t hear anything beyond the cars on the road.
I slowly pushed open the gate and slid my way through. I spotted his sneakers before I really recognized him. Elijah found the perfect hideaway—a private grove with overgrown trees. He was stretched out on one of the stone benches, a can of beer in one hand.
His eyes darted to me. “Goddammit.”
I made my way over. “Hey.”
“I told you—I don’t want to talk. And I don’t need any bullshit tonight, Denali.”
“I need to talk to you.”
He took a long drink of beer. “That’s the bullshit I don’t need.”
I sat down on the stone bench, covered in leaves and crap, and held out a hand to Elijah.
“If you’re asking for our handshake, I might actually punch you,” he warned.
“No.” I shook my head. “I want a beer.”
“We have a game tomorrow.” He frowned. “You don’t drink before games.”
“You’re drinking.”
He waited for me to leave, and when I didn’t budge, he reluctantly handed me a beer, hitting my palm harder than necessary. I cracked it open and gazed up at the hotel rooms with their shades drawn. Elijah didn’t say anything for a moment as we drank in silence.
“I shouldn’t have lied to you,” I finally said.
“No,” he mocked. “Really?”
“I should’ve been upfront before the season even started. I should’ve…told you everything.”
He stared into the charred embers in the firepit. “I don’t know whether to be mad that you guys thought I was too stupid to notice or mad that I was too stupid to notice. How did I not know?”
“You’re depressed, Elijah,” I said quietly. “You’re not exactly in the best—”
“Don’t,” he stopped me. “Seriously, fucking don’t. I don’t need pity, and I especially don’t need it from you.”
“I didn’t mean to—to—” Fuck, this was uncomfortable. I rubbed the back of my neck, eyes on the firepit too because I honestly couldn’t look at him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t want to tell you and affect your gameplay—”
“Oh, thank fuck you didn’t do that. I’m so glad the Gulf Coast Cup isn’t tomorrow. Nice timing all around.”
Was I making the right choice? Should I have asked Zariah to come with me? I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what to say. But I did know what I really wanted out of this conversation, so maybe being direct was the best thing to do.
“Do you know why I’m here?” I asked.
“Because if we don’t kiss and make up, we’ll probably lose the Cup?” he taunted.
“I’m here because Zariah loves you more than almost everybody in the world. She misses you,” I said, emphasizing every word. “And if she goes to Atlanta, and you’re still angry with her—” I shook my head. “I can’t let that happen—”
“What do you want me to say?” he muttered. “Huh?”
“No, what do you want me to say? How do I convince you that the moment you’re almost a thousand miles away from each other, it’ll rip her into pieces?”
“Rip her into pieces? What, like I don’t care?”
“Elijah—”
“Like I won’t give a shit? Like I’ll throw a huge fucking rager when she leaves because it’s Elijah—he doesn’t give a shit about anybody—”
“That’s not what I meant,” I insisted.
He crumpled the empty beer can. “I knew this was going to happen.”
I frowned. “You knew she was going to leave?”
“No. This.” Elijah motioned between me and the gate only a short walk away. “It’s all about her, isn’t it? This is why I didn’t tell you about Zariah.”
For a moment, I was so surprised I stopped drinking. Elijah’s words slurred together, tumbling out of his mouth like he couldn’t hold on to them. I scanned the stone patio—there were plenty of empty cans.
He was drunk and I didn’t realize it because I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I saw Elijah drunk.
“No, you told me you had a sister,” I said, puzzled.
“Yeah. Sure. A ‘sister.’ This shapeless, vague—my twin. My sister.” He wove his hand in a circle, nursing his beer.
“Whenever Zariah called me, I took it in another room. Whenever you asked questions about her, I dodged that shit like a fucking ninja. She wanted to visit for a weekend in July and I said—nope! Not good for your schedule, sis, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks—you know why? Do you have any idea why, Denali?”
“I…no?”
“Do you know who Zariah is?” he asked, suddenly serious, his eyes bloodshot and piercing.
“Zariah is the coolest fucking person I’ve ever met.
That’s who she is. She’s easy to hang out with, she’s easy to talk to, she’s into the coolest shit—she’s going to Atlanta to work for a real studio or whatever—how fucking cool is that?
And she never, ever fucks up.” He crumpled the next can, tossing it aside.
“Our own grandfather liked her better. Herschel used to tell me, ‘your sister’s going places, you better hope you have a spot in her backseat.’”
I lapsed into silence. I couldn’t remember Hersch ever mentioning him. Not once.
“When you and Zariah got together…” Elijah continued.
“I was happy because I was the one who introduced you. I wasn’t getting sidelined—I was the main character too.
My best friend and my sister. You guys are both my—” He stopped himself, mouth twisting into a grimace.
“Except, that’s not how it is. I’m just the guy you hid shit from, I’m the side character, I’m disposable. ”
“That’s not how it is—”
“That is how it is. I thought about it—I did—and I hate that Zariah’s right. Maybe you were that fucked-up psycho kid who terrorized my sister, but Zariah’s the least trusting person I know. If you’re still around, obviously you’ve changed.”
“I have changed.”
“People can change,” he echoed. “But you still lied to me. You still kept shit from me. You still treated me like a fucking moron, and now that I know what you two have going on, now that the secrets are out there, I have a question. Why are we even friends, Denali?”
It was quiet again. Both of us took another drink, staring into the firepit. It was a mistake to find him. I’d just made things worse, and my insides were twisted up with the realization.
I lifted a shoulder. “Do you want the truth, Elijah?”
“Would be nice,” he muttered.
“I didn’t tell you everything because…I didn’t want you to not like me.”
Elijah was in the middle of a drink, and he stopped himself. He started to say something and stopped. “What?”
“I hadn’t had a real friend in a couple of years,” I admitted.
“And I’m always putting on this front, and I’m awkward, and anxious, and you…
you’re never anyone but you. You’re so fucking confident.
You’re way more fun than I am. And you’re the most loyal person I’ve ever met.
Like, I know you do dumb shit—everybody does dumb shit—but that’s because you care so much.
” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I was worried that if you knew who I really was, if you knew what I did, you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore. ”
That was an uncomfortable fucking thing to admit to, but the beer got to my head, too. It was something I hadn’t even admitted to Zariah yet, even if I suspected she already knew.
The silence stretched, and it was unbearable. I knew Elijah was done with the conversation. I’d said everything I could, and I couldn’t fix this. I poured out the remainder of my beer into the firepit and pushed myself up.
I made it to the gate when Elijah stopped me. “Denali?”
I glanced back. “Yeah?”
“Your family’s coming to the Cup.”
I nodded. “They’re on a flight, they’ll be here tomorrow morning.”
“My parents are going to be there.”
“Uh-huh.”
He gazed at me, quiet for a moment. “Have you figured out what you’re going to do?”
“Um…” I hesitated. “Zariah says we don’t have to worry about it.”
“Wow. Your owner told you not to worry about the vet and you believed her?”
“Obviously, they’re going to have questions, but we’ll talk after the game. She and I are going to take everybody out to dinner and—”
He finished the last beer, wiping at his mouth. “Maybe you don’t have a mullet anymore, but my parents know who you are. They know you by name—”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” I said quietly. “But I know I love Zariah. I can be fucking weird about her, but I’d do anything to make her happy. Anything.”
I thought Elijah would’ve had a one-liner to spit out, but he fell silent again. He put his head in his hands, his voice muffled. “Our parents love to talk to people in the bleachers. If you stay in the locker room, you won’t have to see them before the game.”
Surprise flickered through me. Was Elijah…helping me?
“Oh,” I said. “Uh, thank you.”
Elijah shrugged again and he didn’t say anything else.