3
Nate
I’m supposed to be cleaning up my image.
Which is why, naturally, I’m standing in the kitchen of a house party with a red plastic cup in my hand, watching a freshman defenseman try to convince a girl that his "grit" on the fourth line is the reason we’re going to win the frozen four.
Growth is not linear.
To my credit, the cup in my hand contains water. Lukewarm, flat, sink-flavored water that tastes like the pipes of a house built in 1924.
Coach Rawlings’s voice has been living in my skull all day like a squatter who refuses to pay rent.
*One more public incident, and I sit you.
* It’s a remarkably effective deterrent.
Turns out that the threat of losing the only thing I’m actually good at makes me surprisingly okay with being the only sober person at a Sigma Chi rager.
The music shakes the floorboards beneath my sneakers, the bass thudding through the old house until the walls feel like they’re breathing.
The air is thick with the standard party bouquet: cheap beer, expensive perfume, and the lingering scent of someone’s burnt frozen pizza.
Usually, this is where I excel. I know how to move through a crowd like this.
I know how to be charming enough that people forgive me before I even do anything wrong.
Tonight, though, I feel like I’m observing the party through a thick layer of plexiglass.
I lean back against the counter, my eyes scanning the room because standing still makes me restless. I see the team everywhere—backward hats and team hoodies. I see the guys from the football team chanting around a card table in the dining room.
And then I see her.
Hannah Reed.
For a second, I think I imagined it. She looks like a library book someone accidentally left at a bar.
She’s standing near the archway between the living room and the kitchen, wearing a soft blue top and a denim jacket that keeps slipping down one shoulder.
Her hair is down tonight, blonde waves falling over her shoulders, and she’s holding her drink with both hands like it’s a life raft.
She looks pretty. And entirely, hopelessly out of place.
Beside her is the brunette from this morning—the one who looked like she could dismantle a man’s ego with a single adjective. Hannah says something, her friend laughs, and then Hannah’s gaze shifts across the room.
Not to me. To Ethan Cross.
Of course.
I know Cross in the vague way everyone knows guys like him. Student government. Biology department. He’s standing by the fireplace in a gray sweater, looking polite and entirely too put together for a house with this many beer stains.
Hannah is looking at him like he’s the answer to a question she hasn’t asked yet.
She’s trying not to be obvious about it, but she’s failing miserably. Every time he laughs, her face lights up. Every time he moves, she adjusts her posture. It’s the kind of quiet, intense hope that usually ends in a long walk home alone.
And Cross? He hasn’t looked at her once.
A ridiculous irritation needles under my ribs.
I don’t know why I’m still watching. I should stop.
I should find someone who wants to make a mistake and go be "unstable."
But I keep looking. I remember the way she looked this morning when I said her name.
I remember the way she told me I was “very solid” with the horror of someone who wished she could swallow herself whole.
Across the room, Cross finally starts walking in her direction.
Hannah goes so still she might actually be holding her breath. Her friend says something quick into her ear and then vanishes into the crowd, leaving Hannah alone.
Cross stops in front of her. He smiles—that practiced, "I'm a nice guy" smile.
They talk for maybe thirty seconds. I can’t hear a word, but I can read the body language.
Hannah is giving him a hundred percent of her focus.
Cross is looking over her shoulder every five seconds to see who else is in the room.
One of his friends calls his name. He says something to Hannah, taps her arm—completely platonically, the bastard—and walks away.
The smile stays on Hannah’s face for a second after he leaves. Then it just… drops.
The irritation under my ribs flares. She looks down at her cup and takes a slow, shaky breath. It’s the look of someone realizing they’re invisible even when they’re standing right in front of the person they want to see.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m moving.
I weave through the bodies, ignoring the hands that touch my arm. I stop right beside her. She’s staring at her phone, tucked into a corner like she’s trying to disappear into the drywall.
She glances up. Her eyes go wide, then narrow, then settle on my chest. Just for a second.
“Relax,” I say. “I’m stationary this time.”
Her cheeks go that familiar, beautiful shade of pink. “I wasn’t worried.”
“Sure you weren’t. You were assessing my structural integrity again.”
She lets out a soft huff. “I was assessing my exit strategy.”
“Ouch. And here I thought we were friends.”
“We’re barely acquaintances who survived a collision.”
“I helped you pick up your pens, Hannah Reed. That’s a life debt in some cultures.”
She looks up at me, and there it is. That spark of sass that I liked this morning. “Why do you keep saying my full name?”
“Because it sounds nice. It fits you.”
She blinks, her lips parting slightly. For a second, she looks thrown, her guard dropping just enough for me to see the vulnerability she’s been hiding all night.
“My night is fine,” she says, though I didn’t ask.
“Fine is a lie people tell when they’re having a terrible time but don't want to admit it.”
She gives me a flat look. “Are you an expert on that, too?”
“I’m an expert on people, Hannah. And you’ve been staring at Ethan Cross for the last forty minutes like he’s the holy grail.”
The horror that crosses her face is almost enough to make me feel bad. Almost.
“I was not—you were watching me?”
“Hard not to. You’re not exactly subtle.”
“I’m subtle!”
“You’re as subtle as a power play. You look at him like you’re waiting for him to save your life. It’s intense. A little academic.”
She looks like she wants to crawl into her cup. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” I lean against the wall, my shoulder inches from hers. “He doesn't even know he’s being watched, does he? He’s too busy making sure everyone else is watching him.”
Hannah goes quiet. She looks toward Cross, who is now talking to a group of girls across the room. The disappointment on her face is so sharp I can practically feel it.
“He’s just… nice,” she says, her voice small. “He’s smart and he’s polite. He remembers my name.”
I stare at her. “That’s your bar? He remembers your name?”
“It’s more than some people do!”
“I remembered your name.”
She flushes. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because you’re… you.”
“A bad decision?”
She looks at me, really looks at me, and for a second the music feels miles away. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I look at Cross, then back at her. I don’t like the way she looks at him. I don’t like that she thinks "nice" is a personality trait worth pining over.
“You know,” I say, my voice dropping. “There are ways to make a guy like that notice you.”
Hannah shifts, her eyes wary. “I’m not playing games, Nate.”
“Everyone’s playing games, Hannah. You’re just losing yours right now.”
“And you think you’re the one to help me?”
“I think I’m the one who can.” I push off the wall and take a step closer, crowding her space just enough to make her breath hitch. “Make him wonder why someone like me noticed you first. Make him realize that while he was being ‘nice,’ he was missing out on someone he can’t have.”
Hannah stares at me, her chest rising and falling quickly. Suspicion and curiosity are fighting a war behind her eyes.
“Why would you care?” she whispers.
I look at her—really look at her. The way her hair catches the light, the way she bites her lip when she’s nervous, the way she stands her ground even when she’s clearly out of her element.
“Maybe I just hate seeing a good player stuck on the bench,” I say.
I don’t wait for her to answer. I step back, giving her air. “Think about it, Hannah Reed. I’ll be in the back of Anatomy on Wednesday. Try not to run into me on the way there.”
I walk away without looking back, but I can feel her eyes on my spine.
I head for the door, the bass of the party fading as I step into the cool night air. My heart is beating a little too fast, and for once, it has absolutely nothing to do with hockey.
It’s a bad idea. A distraction I don't need.
But as I walk back to my apartment, I can't stop thinking about the way she looked when she finally smiled.