Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
DAISY
“Are you sure about this?” I ask, my fingers tightening around the leather.
“What could go wrong?” Connor grins down at me, arms perched on the window, as if I’m not about to wreck his car.
“I could crash it.” Chances are pretty great on that one.
I swear I see him roll his eyes as he lets out a small chuckle.
I’m about to call him out on it when he leans in through the window and brushes a quick kiss against my temple.
And as if by magic, the anxiety in me over driving this beast home settles.
If it didn’t calm me so much, I would have told him off for doing it while we’re in full view of his teammates boarding the bus three parking slots over.
It’s been three weeks of dirty looks and delicious sex since that night in the hockey house bathroom.
With every day that passes, I find myself forgetting why I shouldn’t let him look at me like that when everyone else is around.
Why the butterflies in my stomach erupting whenever he touches me is a bad thing.
“Keep your eyes on the road and you won’t.” He pulls back out of the window in time for Ollie to appear over his shoulder, his ballcap turned backward and a goofy grin on his lips.
“Coach says to get your old ass on the bus before he decides to leave you behind,” he jokes, clapping Connor on the shoulder before his eyes swing my way.
“You know I’m younger than you, right?”
Ollie ignores him, beaming at me instead. “Hey Daisy, I didn’t think you could drive.”
I snort, tightening my hands on the wheel just to get them to stop shaking. “Tell that to Connor.”
“You’ll be fine. It’s like riding a bike,” Connor assures me for the fifteenth time as he reaches into the back seat to pull out his overnight bag.
I scoff. “If my bike turned into a tank overnight.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Don’t worry about it. He’s got good insurance.” Ollie chuckles, slapping his shoulder. Connor pushes him away with another eye roll, but he doesn’t argue. “Right, let’s go before they make us hitchhike all the way to Vermont.”
Ollie throws an arm over his shoulder and starts tugging him in the direction of the team bus. Connor turns halfway there, soft eyes finding mine. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
I nod absently to myself, fingers tightening against the steering wheel of his Bronco. “Good luck!”
I wait in the parking lot until the team bus pulls out, fiddling with my phone because I’m too chicken shit to try to reverse out of here with the whole of the Southbay University hockey team staring at me.
At least Connor hooked my phone up to the audio system before he handed over the keys.
I’d stared at him for a solid minute before it finally registered that he expected me to drive it home.
I’m not really sure what I expected—possibly that I would’ve trekked back to the apartment with his keys in my pocket and met him back here when the team bus pulled back in on Sunday?
Thankfully, I don’t crash his car on my way home.
Possibly only because I drive at a snail’s pace.
When I finally pull into Connor’s parking space, I let my head falls against the headrest and breathe a heavy sigh of relief.
He’s going to have to walk back from the bus on Sunday because there’s no way I’m getting behind the wheel of this monster again.
My phone rings the moment I slip out of the car, Mom’s caller ID lighting up the screen when I click the lock button on the fob. I take a deep breath before I press my phone to my ear.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Sweetie,” she exclaims, and I grimace when I catch the small hint of surprise in her voice that I picked up. I guess I can’t blame her. I can’t remember the last time we spoke—probably weeks ago at this point. “How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“That’s it? Just ‘good’?”
“Pretty good—is that better?” I laugh.
“Oh much,” she says sarcastically on the other end of the line. “When are you coming home?”
“End of May.”
“So far out? Are you sure you have to stay that long?”
I sigh. “Yes, I can’t leave halfway through the semester.”
“Mm,” she says, like she realizes I’m right but doesn’t want to admit it.
There’s a beat of silence then shuffling on her end of the line, like she’s repositioning the phone against her ear.
Sometimes I think she does it just to buy her some extra time with me.
I really should call more often, but every time I do, I feel the weight of a thousand decisions I could’ve made differently—for them and me. “We miss you.”
I swallow the lump at the back of my throat.
“I miss you too,” I tell her, hoping that she hears it for what it is.
That I miss her warm hugs and Dad’s cooking.
That I miss the boys running through the house, calling my name.
That I miss our quiet movie nights and our afternoon coffees on the back porch.
I don’t miss the weight of expectations on me.
As if on cue, there’s a crash and the sound of broken glass, followed by two frantic voices calling out for her shortly after.
“That’s me.” She sighs, and I can almost picture the way she hangs her head. “Call soon?”
“I promise.”
When we hang up, my chest feels tight and my feelings too big to be alone in our empty apartment, so I reach for my laptop, still on the coffee table where I left it earlier, and curl up with it on the couch, hoping that getting lost in someone else’s head will keep me out of mine the way it’s always done.