Chapter 25
THE INSIDE OUT OF IT
Maverick
The next couple of days are low-key. I hang with Kody and the guys, not playing much hockey. I need the break.
Then when my parents get back, I’m immersed in family time.
That means lots of time on the ice rink my dad has in the backyard.
I miss having my older brother, Robbie, around.
He’s been out in the wilderness of British Columbia for the past year with his girlfriend, doing pot research and living the life.
I don’t think he’s going to be back this way anytime soon, other than a yearly summer visit.
That’s unfortunate, because he’s good at occupying my dad’s time with things like Scrabble.
Ironically, I also love Scrabble, but my dad’s default with me is always hockey.
I want to be in a better frame of mind, especially after that conversation with Lavender. I should be able to put the parts of my past that haunt me back in their coffins, but with everything that’s currently going on, I still feel like I’m skating at the edge of a cliff.
On Wednesday, Gram-pot and Grandma Daisy arrive, and on Thursday, Gigi and Grandpa Sid show up. The house is full of family and festivities, but I can’t seem to get into the holiday spirit.
Even with all the awesome food in the house, my appetite is for shit, and I can’t get a decent night’s sleep.
I keep dreaming about getting lost, and when I find a staircase, it goes down, down, down, getting darker and darker.
But I can’t go back up, because every time I turn around, there’s a wall behind me.
I want to reach out to Clover, but I don’t know if I should.
She’s all I can think about. From the moment I wake up in the morning to those semiconscious minutes before sleep pulls me under, she’s on my mind.
And I miss her.
I feel like I’m coming down with something. Food tastes wrong. Life seems like it’s shrouded in a gauzy film of gray.
I watch the way my sister and Kody are together, stealing secret glances and furtive touches, sneaking off when they think no one is paying attention and returning twenty minutes later, Lavender wearing a smirk and Kody looking even more jacked up than usual.
The night before Christmas Eve, we have a big dinner, which is basically the only kind of dinner we have around here during the holidays. But since my mom can’t actually cook, and Lavender, me, and River can’t be responsible for making a meal for thirty-plus people, we have it catered.
Gram-pot and I are playing a game of Scrabble—again, normally Robbie would play against him. Gram-pot glances around the living room to make sure no one is paying attention to us before he rummages in his pocket and produces a baggie. He slides it across the table. “You look like you need this.”
I glance down at the bag. Inside are two double-chocolate cookies.
“I’d only eat one of those, though. Otherwise, you’ll be drooling on the floor in an hour.”
“You speaking from experience?”
“Your grandma was not impressed when I passed out in my lounger so hard that I peed myself.”
I’m in the middle of a sip of scotch—I mixed it with ginger ale when my dad wasn’t looking because I can’t stand the taste of the stuff—and I start choking. I slam my fist into my chest a few times and cough, clearing my throat. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
“You’re almost eighty, Gram-pot. You should probably stop using that phrase.”
He waves a hand around in the air. “Ack, we all go sometime. I hope my end is swift like a reaper in the night.” He makes a circle around his face. “What’s eating at you, Mav? You’re not your usual happy-go-lucky self.”
I focus on my tiles. “Just got a lot on my mind. Final semester of my degree, contract talks coming, and all that.”
“What about woman problems? You got any of those?”
“Nah. No woman problems.” I open the baggie and pop a cookie into my mouth.
“Not ready to talk about it, then.”
I give him an arched brow. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I remember what your dad was like when he messed things up with your mom by being a grade-A jackass. He wore the same mopey expression you’re sporting.
Walked around like Eeyore, moaning about how he lost the best thing that ever happened to him.
And over a fucking endorsement campaign.
It was ridiculous.” He shakes his head. “Lucky for him, your mother is an understanding woman. I don’t think the good genetics hurt him much either.
” He starts laying tiles and spells the word C-U-S-H.
“Those two are a couple of weirdos.”
“Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
And when you’re looking at the same kind of career as your dad, if that’s still your plan .
. .” He gives me a somewhat skeptical look.
“You need someone who’s going to stand beside you and keep you grounded.
Your dad found that in your mom, and when he realized what he had, he was pretty relentless in his pursuit. I have a feeling you’ll be the same.”
“I guess in time we’ll see.” I tally his points and huff a laugh when I realize what the letters I have will spell if I use the C from Gram-pot’s cush.
Even when I try not to think about her, there she is.
By the time we’re called for dinner, I’m feeling the cookie I ate.
My mom asks me to fold the napkins, like I always do for events like this, but I keep messing them up, so they look like a bunch of cranes that have flown into the sides of houses.
It also takes me way longer than usual. And I eat an entire bowl of olives in the process, leaving oily fingerprints on all the cranes.
On the upside, I have an appetite. I eat enough to put myself in a food coma.
My mom stops me on my way up to my room. “Gram-pot gave you one of his cookies, didn’t he?”
“How’d you know?”
“Your eyes are all bloodshot, and you ate an obscene amount of scalloped potatoes at dinner.”
“I love scalloped potatoes.”
“I know. But you’re definitely high.”
“Are you going to tell Dad?” He’ll be pissed if he knows I ate a cookie. The team does random drug tests, and after the winter holidays is prime testing time. Same with after spring break. Everyone knows it. Me included.
“Of course not.”
“Are you going to make me tell him?”
She shakes her head. “No, but don’t think I haven’t noticed that you and River have switched roles. He’s all happy and chatty, and you’re all . . . morose and reclusive.”
“I’m fine, Mom. I promise. But I need to lie down.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.” She steps aside. “But I will be pinning you down over the next few days to have a chat. Don’t think you’ll get to leave without at least one mother-son bonding sesh.”
“They’re my favorite anyway.” I lean down and kiss her on the cheek as I pass.
I climb the stairs to my bedroom, close the door, and shut the lights off. I nap hard for a couple of hours but wake up around ten thirty and can’t force my brain to shut back down.
I grab my phone and peruse the messages from the guys. An hour and a half ago, they messaged to ask if I was coming out. At this point, there’s zero chance I’m leaving the house. Besides, I don’t feel like doing the whole social thing.
I hit the bathroom, relieve myself, and dig through the vanity for some eye drops.
Then I lie back down and scroll through social media. Kody’s feed is full of hockey pictures and Lavender. Mine is full of . . . nothing. The last thing I posted was hockey practice a few weeks ago.
Clover has an IG account, but obviously I’ve never followed her because that would be stupid as fuck.
But it doesn’t mean I haven’t creeped on her a couple of times.
Most of the time she posts pictures of flowers or dinner, and occasionally a selfie of her and Sophia hanging out.
But there’s no consistency. Weeks and months can pass between posts.
I fight not to give in to the urge to creep on her, but I lose the battle after a minute.
This week she’s been a lot more active, with several new posts popping up on her feed.
There are pictures of her with her family in Florida.
There’s another couple too, closer to Clover’s age, if I had to guess.
I can tell the man is her brother. I wonder what it would be like to meet her family—not that it would ever happen, but still .
. . How would they react to me, eight years her junior and still in university?
Would it be different once I’m playing professional hockey?
By the end of next semester, a lot will be different.
I scroll to the next picture. She’s wearing a beach cover-up, but it’s sheer, and it shows off the bikini-clad figure underneath. That I’ve had my hands and mouth on. That I’ve been inside.
It was posted today.
I squint and use my thumb and finger to enlarge the photo. Around her neck is a thin gold chain with a familiar charm dangling from it.
I flip back to the previous picture and zoom in, but her neck is bare in that one. Back one more image, two days ago, and again, bare neck.
Which means sometime between yesterday and this afternoon, she opened the gift I slipped her before she left for the holidays. And if she’s wearing it, that means she’s thinking about me like I’m thinking about her.
I could call her out, see what happens.
It’d be a hell of a lot better than sitting in this limbo.
I’m not used to doing the pursuing, which I realize is how this has been the entire time.
It makes sense, considering her position versus mine—me with nothing to lose, her with a career and a life and a reputation.
Usually, I can count on whoever I’m dating to message, ask when we’re hanging out next.
The role reversal takes some figuring out.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I fire off a message:
Maverick: You were supposed to wait until Christmas Day.