39. Eden
EDEN
The weeks flew by like a dream we weren’t ready to wake up from.
Around mid-February, everything kind of blurred together in the best possible way.
Alana and I hung out all the time. Like, all the time.
She was still coming over to teach me how to bake—though most of the time we ended up making a mess, getting flour everywhere, and then… not exactly focusing on baking anymore.
We’d start off great, working on finessing my Mille-Feuille skills, teaching me how to fix a mistake, and somehow it always turned into me lifting her onto the counter and forgetting the oven was even on. I was honestly surprised we didn’t burn the apartment down.
But it wasn’t just the sex. I mean yeah, we were definitely… close. A lot. But it was more than that.
She started staying over more. Leaving a sweatshirt or two at my place. Making coffee in the morning while humming whatever song was stuck in her head under her breath.
It felt easy. Comfortable. Like she belonged here.
And maybe that should’ve freaked me out, but it didn’t. Not even a little.
If anything, it scared me how much I liked it.
Alana changed, too—subtly, but I saw it. She stood a little taller. Smiled more. Didn’t flinch when people looked at her in the halls. Fuck, she even said hi to Austin twice. Just a quick “hey” before ducking into her lecture, but still.
For her? That was huge.
She tried to act all casual about it afterward, but I could tell she was proud of herself. And while I was proud of her, too, I couldn’t be happy about it.
Because no matter how hard I tried to be happy for her, I knew that at the end of the day, she was working this hard to get with that stupid guy.
He threw a party every weekend, which was insane, if you asked me. We didn’t go to all of them, barely any even. Alana and I had been to one weeks ago, and it was great. Alana didn’t talk to him at all. Austin looked at her a few times, but that was it.
The party wasn’t even worth mentioning to be honest.
But now… I wasn’t sure Alana still wouldn’t talk to Austin at his next party. This time, we were actually attending, too.
I hated Austin.
I hated his smug smile, the way he acted like he was everyone’s favorite when we all knew that he was just my copycat. But most of all, I hated that Alana had this massive crush on him.
But then I thought about what Austin got from her. He got a “Hey!” in passing. He got awkward smiles and a returned wave when he saw her in the halls.
And what did I get?
I got her genuine smiles. Every stage of her laughter. I got deep conversations, stolen glances with knowing smiles that were so hard to hide, even our business professor rolled his eyes when he saw us enter his classroom.
Alana left some of her clothes at my place.
We made cookies for my line-mates on weekends. Or baked anything for my family, my friends, for just us.
We cooked together. We slept together.
She made fun of me for getting flour in my hair. I made fun of her for managing to get icing on her neck.
I licked it off.
We didn’t talk about that part. We didn’t talk about a lot of things.
But we did touch. A lot. We kissed like the world was ending, fell into bed without ever needing an excuse, and spent entire mornings tangled in sheets that smelled like her shampoo and my aftershave. She made my place feel less like a crash pad and more like a home.
And God, I was falling for her. Harder every day.
I tried to ignore it, tried to keep things light, casual, the way we’d agreed. But some nights, I’d lie awake with her breathing softly beside me, and I’d wonder what the hell I was doing.
Now it was April, and the Frozen Four final was only a few days away.
Everyone kept asking if I was ready, if I was dialed in. I gave them the usual answers—“Yeah, of course,” “Locked in,” “One game at a time”—but my head was all over the place.
I should’ve been thinking about the championship. Instead, I was thinking about Alana. About her in my hoodie. About her saying hi to Austin. About how my chest felt like it might cave in every time she looked at that guy and smiled.
I wanted to be the one she smiled at like that. Always. Only me.
And I had no clue if I already was.
So I just kept my mouth shut. Pretended like everything was fine. That I wasn’t falling harder every damn day.
Because if I said the words and she didn’t feel the same?
That’d hurt more than any hit I’d ever taken on the ice.
The Frozen Four final was just days away, and instead of being at the rink or watching tapes, I was out here with Alana.
We’d driven out to this random spot just outside of town, tucked between some old-ass trees and a still kind of muddy, half-thawed lake. Not exactly social media worthy or anything. Just quiet. Secluded. The kind of place where it felt okay to breathe.
Alana said she used to come here when she was younger. When stuff at home got loud and she needed space. She didn’t talk about her childhood much. And when she did, it was always in weird little puzzle pieces. Like it sucked to remember, but she still wanted me to get it.
“This was one of the only places I actually liked growing up,” she said as we climbed down this uneven hill toward the water. “It’s weird being back.”
I looked at her for a second. The wind pushed a few strands of her hair across her face, and she brushed them away without even thinking.
“Weird how?” I asked, my voice quieter than usual.
She dropped down into the tall grass and tugged her sleeves over her hands. “I used to come here to feel like I could get away. Like maybe things didn’t suck as much as they felt.” She let out a soft laugh. “Now I’m here with you and things don’t suck at all. I don’t know. It’s just… different.”
I sat next to her, close enough that our shoulders brushed. She didn’t move away or anything.
“So basically, I ruined your sad vibes?” I said.
She rolled her eyes, but there was a tiny smile tugging at the edge of her mouth. “You kinda did.”
We sat there for a while, not saying much.
The lake wasn’t frozen or anything, but it still looked cold—kind of silvery and still, with little ripples catching the light.
The wind carried that early-spring smell.
Damp dirt, old leaves, something sharp and clean.
No buzzing phones. No team noise. Just trees rustling and a bird chirping somewhere in the distance.
Just her. Me. And all the crap we weren’t saying.
I picked up a rock and chucked it toward the water. It skipped once. Sank.
Suddenly, Alana spoke. “You nervous? About the final?”
“Yeah,” I replied without hesitation. “Just not in the way I thought I’d be.”
She turned to look at me. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I should be thinking about tape jobs or who’s gonna try to take my head off in the first period. But all I’ve been thinking about is…”
You.
I stopped before I said it out loud.
“…Everything else,” I finished, eyes stuck on the water.
She nodded a little. “Yeah. Me, too.”
There was no way she was worried about my team not winning the Frozen Four at all.
But fuck, the way she said that? Like it meant more than it should’ve. Like maybe I wasn’t the only one lying in bed at night thinking about this… whatever this was.
But I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to mess it up.
A second later, she said, real quiet, “Do you think we’ll still talk after this?”
I blinked. “After what?”
She gave a half-shrug. “After the season. After school. After, like… everything.”
I didn’t expect that question to hit like a truck.
“I hope so,” I said. The thought of not talking to her ever again made me want to hurl.
She didn’t answer. Just leaned her head on my shoulder. And for a second, the world kind of stilled.
No games. No pressure. Just Alana, soft and close, and our breathing falling into sync like it always somehow did.
I didn’t say I loved her.
Didn’t even really let myself think it.
But in that moment—on a beat-up hill by a muddy lake, in the place she used to run to when everything sucked—I felt it. All of it.
She didn’t bring me here because she had to.
She brought me because she wanted to.
Because I wasn’t just some guy she hung out with in the kitchen or made out with in the backseat of my car.
I was her person.
At least… I really hoped I was.