Unforgettable Player (Ivy League Players #4)

1. Connor

CONNOR

M y stomach flips as I wrestle the Volvo down another narrow beach road, huge birch trees and telephone wires hemming me in on either side.

You could drive for miles around here and see nothing but dense woods with little white houses, poking out from the trees like hairline cracks in a sheet of ice.

It was below freezing last time I was home.

My parents’ house had been surrounded by a thick blanket of snow, tracks from Mom and Dad’s SUVs and boots leading in a neat arc from the front door to the garage.

The lake out back frozen over, begging to be scarred by a pair of skates.

But, aside from my promise to Coach Garvin to assist him in the junior hockey camp, I won’t be going near any ice this summer if I can help it.

I let my mind wander to the way my parents’ house looks in summer. Sun beating down on a glistening pool, Mom’s rose bushes blooming along the driveway.

My parents’ neighborhood is quiet and pretty. There is a little variation in house color and style, but the neighborhood committee makes sure no one goes rogue and paints their garage door bright red or plants a cactus in their yard. No sunflowers either, for some reason.

When the beach road finally opens up, I feel like I’m being spat out.

The sun beams through the windshield as I skim the coast. The smell of salt and seaweed pushing through the open windows makes me feel twelve-years-old again—reminds me of washing sand from my toes and splashing Scout under the outdoor showers.

I think about stopping off for something to eat when my stomach rumbles, but Dad will have cooked something special for my big welcome home.

The prospect of ‘letting myself go’ while I was home for the summer break never bothered me before.

It always felt like a temporary blip before getting back on track.

But now … every cookie and missed gym session feels like a permanent landslide into Loserville.

I park at the end of the driveway when I reach the house, the familiar basketball hoop and the creaky porch swing a comfortingly familiar sight.

I hesitate before getting out of the car. The last conversation I had with my parents was tense. They didn’t come right out and say it, because they try to be supportive, but the question lingered between the lines anyway— why are you throwing everything away?

The front door opens and Mom comes down the driveway in her indoor shoes.

I paint on a big, fake smile, open the car door and step onto the driveway, bracing myself for whatever’s to come.

“Oh my God,” she says, coming to an abrupt halt.

“What?”

“Look at you.”

I glance down at the ratty Harvard hoodie and sweatpants I wore for the drive.

“You grew,” she says.

I scoff. I’m not sure why I’m surprised she’s acting like nothing’s wrong. It’s what our family does.

“I did not grow .”

“You did, too. You look taller.”

“I’m not taller. I’ve been this size since high school.”

She squints like she doesn’t believe me and pokes her head into the car.

“What are you looking for?”

She shrugs. “I had hoped you’d bring a girlfriend home this summer. What happened to that one from Chicago?” She snaps her fingers. “I liked her. What was her name?”

I spit out a laugh and grab the duffel bags from the trunk. “You don’t even remember her name. You can’t have liked her that much.”

“Well, it was a while ago now, I—” Her gaze lands on the gift bag I had tucked between the duffels, now dislodged in the trunk.

“What’s that?”

“It’s gifts—from California.”

I watch her for any signs of the tension I heard during out last conversation, but I don’t see any as she widens her eyes and starts rearranging the tissue paper in the bag to get a better look.

“Hey, no peeking.” I reach for the bag, but she pulls it close to her chest. “It’s a surprise.”

“Fine,” she huffs.

“There’s something in there for Dad, Scout, and Eli, too,” I add.

Mom carries the light gift bag while I lug the rest of my gear up the driveway.

Dad steps onto the porch just as I’m getting to the house.

He’s wearing his loafers and his favorite linen shirt.

He looks exactly the same as the last time I saw him, before I fucked everything up.

They both do. My nerves settle as I remind myself that these people are my anchor.

Everything does not have to change at once. Maybe I haven’t fucked everything up .

“Need any help with those bags, bud?” Dad asks.

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, Dad.”

I put my bags in my room, not hanging around long enough to get nostalgic. I don’t plan on staying here beyond the six weeks ‘mental health break’ my boss gave me. Just long enough to figure my shit out without the pressure of paying rent.

When I get back downstairs, Mom accosts me with a bag of cookies.

“Pistachio,” she says. “From Giuseppina’s.”

I hesitate just long enough for her smile to slip.

My sales job in Palo Alto has meant lots of travel, meaning lots of bad airplane food and midnight room service burgers.

Going from training as an elite college athlete to eating like a traveling salesman has already done a number on my body.

The last thing I need when I look in the mirror is another reminder of all the ways I’ve failed.

Before Mom can ask me what’s wrong, I stuff my hand into the bag and grab a cookie. Her face lights up again.

“What are your plans this summer?” Dad asks, stirring a wooden spoon in whatever’s simmering on the stove. It gives off the familiar tomato and oregano scent of Dad’s signature spaghetti sauce.

“I promised Coach Garvin I’d help with the summer camp kids, but aside from that, probably just catching up with some friends.”

Dad nods. There’s an awkward pause during which I can’t look at either of them. I chew the cookie and swallow the dry lump it’s turned into in my mouth .

Sinking onto a stool at the counter, Mom lets out a long sigh. “Don’t worry about all that now,” she says. “I know you’ll end up doing something great. You always do.”

The heat on the back of my neck intensifies, because that isn’t true and she knows it. But she keeps smiling, fiddling with the corner of the cookie bag as she speaks. “It’s just nice to have you home for a change. Tell us about Palo Alto. How are things there?”

My heart sinks, but I force a smile and start talking.

When my draft team dropped me and I remained buried in the fourth line at Harvard with no chance to show what I can do, my agent suggested I try out for a minor league team. After a heated disagreement, we parted ways.

Then I was put on academic suspension after failing some classes. I took the first good job I could find—California, working in sales for a start-up tech company.

I’m good at sales. I know how to bullshit with the best of them and I can turn a megawatt smile on at the drop of a hat, no matter how shit I’m actually feeling.

But despite the occasional high I’d get after making a big sale, it never made me feel the way hockey did.

No matter how much I tell myself that hockey is no longer in my future, it doesn’t make it any easier to let go.

I don’t realize I’ve been zoning out until Mom says my name.

“Connor, honey, everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I run a hand over my face, catching on the stubble I haven’t shaved since yesterday.

“You sure?” She reaches out and smooths down a stray tuft of my hair.

The gesture is so natural, it makes me feel like a little kid again.

I have to force myself not to nuzzle into her hand.

I’m a grown man, for fuck’s sake, I can’t go running back to Mommy every time something goes wrong. I have to fix my own shit.

“I’m fine,” I say, clearing my throat and moving my head out of her reach. “Just tired from the drive.”

“We said we’d get you a plane ticket,” Dad calls from the stove.

“I like driving.” The last thing I wanted was to ask them for anything else. Not after I threw away what they already gave me.

I can feel Mom watching me with concern.

“I’m gonna go wash up before dinner.” I take a deep breath as soon as I leave the room, tell myself to man the fuck up.

There’s a text from Brad waiting when I get out of the shower, asking if I want to hang out.

I’m messing around with the basketball outside the house when he shows up.

Brad still has that same, short, blond hair and beady, blue eyes that are always looking shiftily at everything.

I don’t know why I expected him to look different.

It’s only been a year since I last saw him.

While I was traveling the world selling new tech software to fortune 500 companies, Brad and all my other high school friends were here, doing the same thing they’ve always done.

And yet, somehow, I’m still embarrassed, on edge waiting for him to ask about Harvard or hockey.

Instead, he welcomes me back with a slap on the back and we slip easily into old habits, playing ball and shooting the shit.

“How was Cali?” he asks .

“It was good,” I lie. I throw the ball over his head and get one in the net.

Brad whistles. “Nice shot.”

I bounce the ball to him and he takes a shot, it spins around the rim before going in.

“What were the girls like out there?” He pumps his eyebrows.

I shrug. “They were cool.”

“Cool? Come on, man. Give me some details.”

Everything in me squirms. It’s not like I didn’t hook up when I was in California, but I don’t want to talk about it with him.

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” I ask.

“Exactly. Let me live vicariously through you.”

I shake my head and he laughs. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Heather. But a guy can have an imagination, can’t he?”

I take another shot without answering. The ball drops cleanly through the net.

We’re getting competitive, shoving each other out of the way to steal the ball, when a car screeches to a halt outside the house.

I recognize that music—and the reckless driving—right away.

Scout’s parked her powder blue, VW beetle diagonally across the driveway. I really wish I didn’t recognize the music blasting through the windows, but growing up with Wednesday Adams didn’t give me much choice.

Scout climbs out of the car wearing a ridiculous pair of heart-shaped sunglasses, a band t-shirt, a plaid skirt, and Doc Martens. She pushes her glasses down to glare at me and Brad just as the music stops playing.

The person with her has climbed out of the passenger side and is walking around the car toward the house .

Logically, I know this has to be Elliot. Scout has a strict, ‘I hate everyone as a general rule,’ policy, and Elliot is one of the very few exceptions. She adopted him on the first day of kindergarten and they’ve been joined at the hip ever since.

But when I look at the guy walking toward me in a long-sleeve, black shirt and loose-fitting jeans, it doesn’t look like Elliot. At least, he doesn’t look the way I remember ‘little Elliot’ looking.

Elliot’s carrying a paper bag the size of a record under one arm. Like Scout, he’s wearing sunglasses. His are plain, black Ray-Bans. They somehow accent his elegant jawline and sumptuous lips.

“Hey.” It takes me a beat to realize that Scout is snapping her fingers in my face. “What are you staring at?”

The back of my neck prickles as I spit out a garbled protest.

“Whatever. Come on, Eli, let’s go inside before we catch whatever these two losers have.”

“Pleasure as always, Scout,” Brad calls after her.

I’m too stunned to say anything.

I’m used to my sister’s acerbic personality. What I’m not used to is little Elliot looking like that. When the hell did he get so hot?