Chapter 8 Tanner #2
The flames crackled, sending orange sparks spiraling into the night sky. Avery picked at the cuff of her sleeve, ignoring everyone’s stares.
A grin split Drew’s lips. “You sly dog.” He reached around Bel to give Avery a shove. “You kept that one quiet!”
“Details.” Savannah aimed a kick at Tanner’s ankle. “I want details.”
“It was when they were installing outdoor lighting and the new CCTV system in the PS High parking lot.”
“And there was that single floodlight hooked up to a temporary generator,” Sam added. “Right in the middle.”
Tanner nodded as his fingers drummed against his thigh, beating a similar patter to the rain that night.
“My mom had another chest infection and we couldn’t afford the medication she needed.
” He remembered the terror of feeling so fucking helpless.
“It was playing on my mind and I was angry. I wasn’t concentrating.
I’d no idea Avery was even there.” Across the firepit, he met her eyes and they were soft.
A small shower of sparks burst from a log as it split.
“What happened?” His cousin was hanging on his words.
“I had my battered old Chevy truck then. It was a solid beast, but the tires were worn and I stepped too hard on the gas. There was so much surface water the back end lost its grip.”
He’d hit the brakes and fought to straighten up as the truck fishtailed.
“I sideswiped the generator. The floodlight fell. The principal’s car and two others were underneath it.”
Simple words; an incomplete description. Avery’s exhale carried a multitude of clearer memories known only to the two of them.
There had been a moment when the floodlight almost regained its balance and he’d thought he might get away with it.
But gravity was a bitch. The whole top-heavy structure had teetered then fallen, the aluminum tower crashing down across the hoods of three parked cars—one of them belonging to Principal Harris.
Six huge LED light heads exploded in a shower of glass and sparks, the car windshields shattering beneath them.
And a sudden backwash of darkness had swallowed up the devastation.
Like the swinging pendulum in a longcase clock, everyone turned to Avery.
“Why did you take the blame?” Savannah asked.
Avery hugged her knees, half of the new wobbly tattoo peeking out from beneath the hem of her hoodie. “Tanner was already on a final warning after sticking up for me with Tyson Dax. I didn’t want him to risk his scholarship when I might be able to get away with it.”
Tanner noticed the subtle movement as Bel threaded her fingers between Avery’s.
“How did you carry it off?” Griff asked.
Avery gave a small, careless shrug. “After Tanner left, there was no one else around. I reversed my car into the fallen floodlight, hard enough to bash a crater into the bodywork. And I went to see the principal.”
Tanner had thought he might throw up when he recognized Avery’s VW Golf the next morning. The site of the accident looked so much worse in the unforgiving light of day, cordoned off as it was with red and white tape—and Avery’s car right in the middle of it.
“I thought maybe she’d hit the fallen floodlight in the dark after I’d gone. When I tried to own up to Principal Harris, she wouldn’t listen. She told me she ‘wasn’t in the mood for misguided chivalry.’ I was so damn confused,” Tanner said.
He’d found himself back in the hallway, with the principal’s office door shut firmly behind him and not a single idea what in the hell was going on.
“As it turned out, everyone took Avery’s confession as gospel because who would make up something like that?” Tanner watched her lips quirk when she met his eyes.
“Did you get into trouble with your parents?” Gemma asked, leaning forward.
“Not really, because they accepted it was an accident, although it gave Aunt Delia a new way to yank my mom’s chain for a while. She made out it was the start of a slippery slope to delinquency.”
Everyone in Pine Springs knew Avery’s aunt. She was the fearsome owner of Diner 43, the best place in town for a hearty breakfast if you didn’t mind it coming with a generous helping of sarcasm and scowls.
“Must have been devastated you didn’t double down on it, babe. Delia would have been so smug if you’d embraced a life of crime.” Bel gave Avery’s hand another squeeze.
Propping one foot over the opposite knee, Tanner fiddled with the laces of his shoe.
The moment the floodlight had toppled was seared so deeply into his brain he would never be free of it.
He’d seen it falling over and over again for months, the shower of sparks lighting the inside of his eyelids every night when he tried to sleep.
He’d heard the crash and the explosion of glass on repeat, could still taste his panic and despair.
“Avery—” Savannah broke the silence, but her voice choked and she didn’t continue. Tanner saw Avery flash her a self-conscious smile that acknowledged everything his cousin couldn’t quite manage to say.
“Hockey was the only thing I knew I could do to make money,” he said to take the heat off her again. “I had to get that scholarship to take care of my mom and my brothers, and Avery handed it to me on a plate. There’s not been a day since when I haven’t been grateful for that. She was a miracle.”
Tanner’s throat felt raw from the memories.
Drafted to the NHL at the end of his freshman year of college, he’d had the opportunity to stay on and continue his education while playing for his school, but his need for the salary and signing bonus had driven him to pursue his professional hockey career as soon as possible instead.
Within a year, he’d moved his mom into the neat and clean little three-bedroom house that she still refused to sell today.
Even better, he’d been able to afford all the medical care she needed.
Sam, as usual, was the one to break the lingering moment of intensity.
“Dude, you’re such an attention seeker,” he complained, flipping the cap off another bottle of beer. “I’ll be picking bits of chalk out of my teeth for days, and you win everyone over with some crappy driving and a sob story.”
As laughter dispersed the light layer of solemnity that had fallen over the group, the chatter moved on to other subjects. And Tanner took a long, deep breath, relieved to have finally taken ownership of that niggly splinter from the past.
But when he risked a glance over the firepit, he found Avery staring at him in a way that made him wonder if he’d done the right thing.
Now that their secret was no longer a secret, had he unwittingly released her from the only tie that connected them together?