10. Chapter Ten #2
I shake my head. “No. God, no. We used to date. My dad said a man like him isn’t someone I’d want to settle down with, and he was right.
” I blink, trying to reach for the nearest thing and explain why I would put us on the same side of the fence.
“I ended it. And tonight, he wouldn’t stop smiling at me.
I panicked. I saw you come through the door, and I improvised. ”
Something in him lets go. He runs a hand through his hair and exhales. The cold drops out of him by degrees.
I watch him closely. He’s still on edge. The Stanley Ermington I know isn’t fully back yet. He takes a step back and wipes his palms down the front of his jacket like he’s drying them. Then he rubs his mouth, thinking to himself.
“Are you okay?” I ask, feeling like he might be freaking out.
“No.” He shakes his head. “You’re Coach Linwood’s daughter, so I will—”
I scoff before I can stop it. “Is that all I am to you?”
He looks at me, and the grin tilts back into place. “I’m sorry, your highness. You’re also the girl sleeping next to my hockey stick.”
I growl at him. Actually growl. “Did you stalk me again?”
He laughs, so I step forward. “That is so fucking creepy, Ermington. Fine. Forget any of this happened.” And I turn to storm off, because storming off is the only move I have left.
His hand closes around mine and pulls me back.
“Wait, wait. I’m sorry.” He’s still smirking. “I didn’t mean to poke the bear.” The smile fades out of his face. “Your dad really said Gavin wasn’t good for you?”
“Really.”
He goes still, and I can see him thinking about something. I have no idea what, but then he looks at me and comes back.
“Huh,” he says. “Okay.” He shifts his weight. “So, do you know what you did in there?” He points at the house.
I nod. “I needed an exit. I’m sorry, I’ll fix it —”
“You can’t fix it.”
“Why not?”
“Because you grabbed me in front of forty hockey people, Linwood. You called me babe. In front of my captain. In front of Blue. In front of Gavin — who plays for the team that drafted me, and who is going to text his entire roster about this.” He spreads his hands.
“Hockey is the smallest pond on earth. By breakfast, the league knows. And everybody knows who your dad is, and everybody knows who my father is, so by lunch, your dad knows, and by dinner, my dad knows.”
I feel it land somewhere under my ribs. Shit, he’s right. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yeah.” He nods. “That’s why they say to think before you act.”
I turn away from him and place my hands on my hips and breathe through my nose. I try to run the angles, find the exit, solve the problem, and for the first time in a very long time, there isn’t one. The numbers don’t resolve. I turn back around.
“So what are you saying?”
He looks at me for a long minute. My heart races with each passing second. I knew I shouldn’t have come out tonight.
“I’m saying if we go back in there and tell him you were joking, it sounds worse, not better. He’ll think it’s a lie and blow it up twice as big.” He looks down. “You see him choke on his beer?”
Shit. Shit. Shit. I really didn’t think this through.
“You’re right. I screwed up. I panicked.” And I catch myself, because I don’t panic, I am not a woman who panics. Except I did this in a panic, and it resulted in something stupid. “What now? How long?”
“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”
“What does it look like?”
“Tonight?” He says it easily, like he’s read the playbook a hundred times.
“You walk back in there on my arm. You laugh when I say something. I introduce you to people. I do most of the talking. You drink water, you stay close, you let the whole room watch the show. Then you and I leave together, and Gavin watches us leave together, and the story tells itself.”
“I hate this.”
“You?” he questions.
“I hate this.” I cross my arms. “I’m only doing this because that man would not have stopped until he thought I belonged to someone else.”
“Got it.” He nods. “We can have every single hating-it conversation you want tomorrow. Tonight is a performance.”
Now, we’re looking at each other on a square of cold concrete.
“You love this,” I say, noticing how his face isn’t as tense anymore.
“Maybe I can get my hockey stick back.” Instant. No hesitation. “I miss her.”
And a breath comes out of me that is almost — but is not quite, I make absolutely sure it is not quite — a laugh, and I catch it before it can finish.
He holds out his hand.
I stare at it.
“Princess.” He’s almost gentle about it. “You screwed us both. Come on.”
I take it. His hand is warm and bigger than I expected. It closes around mine like it’s done it before.
“Two hours,” I tell him. “Until my roommates are ready to leave.”
“Yeah, about that.” He’s already turning us toward the door. “You’re not getting off the hook so easy, Linwood. He’s staying at my house. All weekend.”
My eyes go wide. My stomach drops straight through the concrete. “No. You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” He pulls the door open. “Stop freaking out.”
We walk back inside. He doesn’t let go of my hand, and he leads. The first thing he does — the thing I don’t expect — is he doesn’t take me to Gavin. He takes me to Benson.
Because Benson is his captain and his best friend. Stanley stops us in front of him and says, “You remember Aspen.”
Benson’s eyes move from Stanley’s hand to my face to Stanley’s face. He reads the entire situation in about two seconds flat. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t frown.
“Aspen,” he says. Just that. Like he knows exactly whose daughter I am.
And the thing that throws me is that he’s not suspicious, nor does he sound surprised.
Not even a little. He reaches out and grips Stanley’s shoulder, and the two of them hold a look I can’t translate, a whole silent conversation only best friends can understand.
Benson turns to Lucy. When I glance at her, she’s already smiling at me. I feel Stanley’s hand at the small of my back and try to adjust myself against it.
“Aspen,” she smiles. “Hi.” She looks up at Stanley and then back at me. “How are you?”
“Good,” I answer. “How are you?”
“Happy the guys are back. They played well tonight,” she says, looking up at Benson. Her hand comes to his chest and pats it.
“Yeah,” I agree. “They did.”
Stanley whispers to my ear, “He’s watching us.”
I stiffen, realizing that Lucy is still watching me. I stare forward, and then Gianna walks over with her head tilted. I can tell that she’s had one too many to drink.
“Aspen Linwood and Stan the man?”
Benson mutters, “G.”
She ignores him.
“Are you two dating?” Gianna scoffs, looking at Stanley’s hand on my back. Mara comes up beside her and looks between us. “Stanley, this is who you’ve been hiding?”
He shakes his head when I look up at him to see how he’s going to handle this. “I haven’t been hiding anything.”
Her eyes narrow, and Benson steps in. “We should go.”
“What?” Gianna scoffs. “No, I need to know when this started. How.”
Benson and Lucy grab Gianna. “Another time,” Lucy says, offering me a small smile.
I smile back as in thanks or bye. I’m not sure which one, but I’m relieved I don’t have to answer any questions right now.
I feel eyes on us around the room, so I look around and catch Gavin staring. He’s looking at Stanley’s hand on my back. He swigs his beer, and then he nods at me.
I inhale, watching him walk away. He wants nothing more to do with me now that I’m visibly someone else’s, and I can’t decide whether the relief I feel is a good sign or not.
Kirra and Bree come up to us and stare at Stanley. “Sorry, Aspen. We were outside doing keg stands. Are you okay?”
I glare at my two roommates and say quietly, “I want to go home.”
They look at me and then at Stanley. “Already? I wanted to dance.”
Bree says, “Why don’t you just go? We’ll find our own ride.”
“Are you serious?” I whisper.
Stanley wraps an arm around my neck now and says, “You heard the girls. They’ll find their own ride, so what do you say?”
I turn to them, and they both say in unison, “We’re sure.”
I roll my eyes and look up at Stanley. “Ready?”
He nods and turns to look for his friends. They’re already leaving.
The car is quiet for two whole blocks, and that, alone, is the most alarming thing that’s happened tonight.
Stanley Ermington does not do quiet. He fills every room he enters with the sound of himself. He narrates his own life like the whole world is the broadcast booth. And he currently has his head tilted back against my passenger seat, staring at the ceiling of my car without saying a word.
I make it another block.
“Are you going to be able to handle him?” I say it to the windshield. “All weekend?”
He doesn’t turn his head. “Gavin?”
“Yes, Gavin.”
A pause. “Yeah.”
“That’s it? Yeah?”
“Yeah, Linwood. I’ve handled bigger guys in worse situations.” He shifts. “Don’t worry about my end.”
“I’m not worried about your end.”
“Then what?”
I tighten my hands on the wheel. “I just —”
“Linwood.” He turns his head now, finally, and looks at me from the passenger seat. “I’ll handle him.”
I keep my eyes on the road. We don’t talk again until I’m pulling up at Hawthorne House. He puts his hand on the door handle and stops.
“Linwood.”
I look over at his stupid grin.
“Thanks for the interesting night.”
“Get out of my car.”
He grins wider and steps out. He shuts the door, hands in his pockets, and walks up the path toward his house.
Three steps from the porch, he stops. He turns his head and looks back at me.
I don’t know what to do or why I’m watching him, so I put my car in drive and drive three doors down to my garage.
I park inside and close the door behind me.
Then I sit in the dark with my hands still on the wheel.
I haven’t done a lot of stupid or reckless things in my twenty-one years.
Tonight, I broke my streak.