Chapter 3 #3
I follow Whitney back inside. There are a dozen bags of chips, dips, cookies, a veggie tray of carrots and celery and little tomatoes, and a watermelon.
I pile as much of it as I can into my arms and head back out with it.
Penn and Grady have moved off the deck and stand near a pile of bricks that I assume is some home improvement project.
Penn’s nodding along as Grady waves his hands in front of him excitedly.
“Look at me, I carried a watermelon,” Whitney says as she sets it at the end of the table next to all the other stuff I brought out. She glances at me like she expects me to say something in return.
Finally, she asks, “Dirty Dancing?”
My brows lift, and my brain short-circuits for a second. “What?”
“The movie,” she clarifies. Right. Not asking me to get freaky with her, she’s explaining the reference. “You’ve never seen it?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“It’s my favorite. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.
He’s a bad-boy dance instructor and she’s a good girl on vacation with her parents .
. .” She trails off as she organizes the snacks by type: chips, dips, other.
When she’s done, she stands tall and looks at me again. “Anyway. What’s your favorite movie?”
I open my mouth to answer her, fully intending to tell her, but I’m a little too slow, and I think she takes that as my unwillingness because she crosses her arms over her chest.
“Let me guess. Miracle? The Mighty Ducks? The Mighty Ducks 2?” She waits. “Not The Mighty Ducks 3. That isn’t anyone’s favorite.”
“Those are all good.” The words rush out a little too fast.
Light laughter fills the space between us, and she lets her arms drop back to her sides.
She glances to the pool, where the kids are splashing and yelling.
Her expression shifts from happy to concern to .
. . something else I can’t quite put my finger on.
When she looks back at me, I’m still staring at her.
“In case I don’t get a chance to say it later, thank you.”
“For carrying the food out here?” I ask.
She laughs again. Not at me, I don’t think . . . or maybe.
“For coming today. I know you didn’t want to be here, but the kids really enjoyed camp this week in large part because of you and August. You gave them memories that will last a lifetime and coming here this afternoon is the cherry on top. It makes it all the more real for them, so thanks.”
My brain processes her words slowly, trying to make sense of them. “What do you mean I didn’t want to be here?”
Her brows pinch together. “I mean . . .” She lets out a soft chuckle. “I saw the look on your face. You looked horrified at the idea of spending more time with them. And I get it. Grady shouldn’t have put you in that spot. You already gave enough of your time this week—”
“That . . .” I cut her off but then find I don’t know how to respond.
It’s just so, so . . . wrong. “I . . .” I clear my throat.
“The kids are great. I had a blast with them this week. It was a great reminder of why I love hockey and who I am because of this sport. It wasn’t about them.
I was happy to be there this week and here now. ”
I’m breathless when I’ve finished talking.
“O-kay.” She says the word slowly as if she heard me but can’t line that up with my actions. And fuck, fair enough.
“Shiiiiit!” Grady exclaims as his footsteps pound up the steps. Whitney swivels around to see what’s wrong.
“I heard that, Coach!” one of the kids shouts from the pool.
“I hope you like your dogs burnt,” he yells back. “Food’s ready.”
Whitney slowly turns back to me. I can feel the commotion happening around us—the kids hurrying out of the pool and moving this way, Penn stepping back onto the deck, and Grady pulling food from the grill, but I’m concentrating only on the woman in front of me. I need her to understand.
But all I get out before we’re overrun with teenage boys is, “It had nothing to do with them.”
“Okay,” she says, this time more definitively, but she still looks as if she doesn’t really believe me, then takes a step closer to me to let the boys pass.
This is not going well, and I need to do something fast.
“It’s you,” I blurt out, and immediately my face is on fire.
“Excuse me?” She laughs though her expression does give away that she’s at least a little offended.
I hold in a groan already knowing I’m going to replay this conversation later and feel like the world’s biggest idiot, but right now I can’t dwell on it.
There are so many things I could say to help her understand: “I’m bad at talking to women.
” Or “You intimidate the fuck out of me.” Or “You might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. ”
What I go with instead is, “Do you want to go out with me sometime?”
Shock splashes across her face like she’s been doused with water. The red sparks in her eyes light up, and her jaw goes slack. The rejection I know is coming stings less than the annoyance of how badly I’m bungling this.
“I’m sorry,” I say, while she’s still figuring out how to turn me down. “It was a bad idea.”
I start to walk away—to throw myself in the pool, perhaps—but Whitney reaches out to stop me.
“Wait.” Her fingers wrap around my forearm. A pleasant tingle spreads from her touch. She still wears a confused expression, but she’s nodding. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
A smile slowly curves her lips, and her tone is back to sounding amused. “Yes, I’ll go out with you.”