Chapter Forty-Two
Ali held JT’s hand as they drove up the driveway to the farmhouse she’d only visited a few times in her life.
It had been a second home for Tommy, but her trips to the Coxes were usually limited to having to pick her brother up.
She saw the Coxes around town but didn’t know them and was slightly terrified of JT’s mom.
She had an eagle eye for bullshit and didn’t suffer fools.
“You ready for this?” JT asked with a laugh. “They can be a lot.”
“JT, my mother was trying to get me to throw the race this morning because she thought it would help me win Kyle back. There’s no way anyone in that house can be as extra as my mother.”
JT nodded. “Point taken. But even with me telling them earlier how much they’ve hurt me, you have to be prepared for them to talk to me like I’m stupid. It will probably happen. I don’t expect some miraculous change in a matter of hours.”
Ali hated the idea that JT’s family would talk down to her or make fun of her for her lack of artistic ability.
But she shoved that aside because they had a job to do, and if JT could ask her family for help with this, the least Ali could do was be supportive.
Ali leaned across the car to kiss JT. “Hey, you can expect miracles. It’s allowed.
And besides, as a US hockey player, aren’t miracles kind of what you’re known for? ”
JT shook her head. “Cute. But no.”
Ali let JT lead the way into the house. She took her boots off in the back hall and left her snowy things to dry by the heater.
JT kicked off her own boots and handed Ali a hanger from the closet and helped her balance her gloves and hat on the heater.
Ali could tell she was stalling, but it didn’t make her careful tending to Ali any less adorable.
Ali didn’t need to be doted on. She knew how to deal with wet outerwear, but JT taking care of her was incredibly sweet.
JT grabbed her hand and pulled her into the house.
The kitchen was empty, the counters swept clean of any evidence of meal prep.
Ali looked around and imagined how her kitchen would feel when she finished unpacking and decorating.
She hoped it felt like this, inviting, calming, comfortable. “Do you want anything? Water? Beer?”
Ali shook her head. “Let’s find your family and then worry about drinks.”
JT squeezed her hand before dropping it as they made their way to the living room. JT’s parents sat reading in stuffed chairs by a roaring fire.
“Hi, Jas— JT. And you brought Ali. How are you?”
Calling her JT was at least a step in the right direction.
“Fine, Mrs. Cox.” Ali looked at JT, hoping she would speak for them.
JT poked at the fire.
“It’s fine, unless you want to bring in a load of wood,” her dad said, looking at her over his reading glasses.
JT put the poker back. “We just finished the first half of the final contest event.”
“Mmm-hmm?” JT’s mom said, barely paying attention.
JT looked at Ali, who nodded for her to go ahead. “It’s us against Kyle.”
Both parents looked up, first looking at JT and then at Ali.
“Kyle and Sharon, they’re the other team,” Ali said, adding a smile that she hoped would convince them that she was taking this seriously, but not to an unreasonable degree.
JT sat on the couch. “We need your help.”
Ali almost laughed at how weird and cryptic JT seemed, but maybe after a lifetime of not asking her parents for much she was out of practice.
“The first part of the event was shoveling snow into a massive form about the size of a refrigerator.”
JT nodded. “They had us shovel the sidewalks in the center of town until we filled our container with enough snow. Then we packed it down and filled it some more.”
JT’s mom placed her book on her lap. “Okay.”
Ali sat next to JT. “What JT’s trying to explain is that there’s a second part. We filled the giant box and it’s going to sit overnight to get set. Then tomorrow we go back and we have to carve it into a sculpture.”
“Ahh,” JT’s parents said simultaneously.
“Yeah,” JT said. “We’re allowed to consult any resources we want, but we have to do the carving ourselves.”
JT’s dad smiled. Ali wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him smile so widely or with such joy. “So you’re coming to us because…?”
JT rolled her eyes. “You know why.”
Her mom giggled and then stifled it. Ali had definitely never heard JT’s mom giggle. It was disorienting. “We want to hear you say it.”
“Fine. Because the two of you, especially you, Mom, are famously amazing sculptors known the world over for your talent, skill and artistic abilities.”
“True, true.” Mr. Cox was loving this.
“And if we are going to do our best in the contest, we would be very appreciative of you sharing any of your wisdom with us.”
Mrs. Cox hopped out of her seat and hugged JT. “Wow, did it kill you to say all that?”
JT laughed. “No. It’s the truth. But there are a lot of parents who I bet don’t make their kids grovel when they ask for help.”
“Fat chance. Especially if they’re artists. We’re famously needy.”
Ali watched the scene unfold, with JT’s parents bantering with her in a way Ali couldn’t have imagined ten minutes ago.
JT relaxed as they teased her. She transformed from the shut off, grumpy woman who acted more like a petulant teen back to the warm, caring person Ali knew.
By the time her mom let go, JT was laughing along with her parents and seemed back to herself.
JT looked across the room at Ali and smiled. “Ali was the one who reminded me of what an amazing family I have.”
JT’s mom sobered. “I’m sorry we haven’t been as amazing as we should have. But maybe we can make up for some of that?”
JT nodded, finding tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. She never expected them to apologize, she never allowed herself to hope for it, so even this mild acknowledgment of fault was an unexpected gift. “I’d like that a lot.”
“Okay, what do you need from us?” her mom asked.
Ali stepped forward. “We have to take this block of snow and turn it into some kind of impressive thing—they gave us no real parameters—that the judges will like enough to give us the grand prize.”
“Where is the block?” JT’s mom asked, her sharp eyes focused on Ali. “Any time you make a piece of art in a location, you have to take into account your surroundings.”
Ali nodded. “The two pieces are on either side of the walkway up to the inn’s porch. Kyle and Sharon have one side, and we have the other.”
“And we won’t have an idea what they’re making until it’s done. So, we can’t coordinate or plan based on what they’re doing,” JT said, anticipating her mom’s question.
The Coxes exchanged some kind of telepathic conversation with their eyes.
Ali felt a pang of jealousy. She’d had that with Kyle, once.
When they were teenagers. They’d been so close they’d know the jokes the other was thinking before they said anything.
They’d know when it was time to go without having to say a word.
They could read each other effortlessly.
She wanted that again. She wanted that easy, carefree, “we don’t even need to talk to understand each other” kind of love.
She was jealous of JT’s parents. She was so jealous it flashed through her like anger.
And then she looked at JT and it flashed through her like possibility.
She could have it. The possibility was there.
JT was all possibility—she even tasted like hope.
But the next two days might be all they had to test her theory. Only a few days before JT left for her new team and Ali went back to teaching and avoiding comments about her divorce in the grocery store.
But she looked at JT and she smiled back.
Ali drank in all the hope and possibility and the most delicious hint of mischief in JT’s eyes.
And Ali knew it was love. It might have only been a few days, but if JT’s parents could have a whole conversation without any words, she could know she loved this woman after a week.
“If you two are done making googly eyes at each other, what were you thinking in terms of a sculpture?” Mrs. Cox, one of the most terrifying humans Ali had ever encountered was smiling at her. It was disorienting. But Ali liked it.
“I’m not sure we’d come up with anything. We drove straight here from the center of town. We knew we needed help.” Ali looked at JT to make sure she hadn’t gone too far.
“Oh, she understands how to butter up a couple of artists. I like her,” Mr. Cox said to JT. “Don’t fuck this up, kiddo.”
“Dad!”
“If you try to tell us you’re just friends, I swear to god we won’t help you. That would be an insult to our intelligence.”
JT looked at Ali and they shared a look of mortification that turned into laughter. “Okay, Mrs. Cox.” Ali giggled.
“Now that we have that settled, you better treat my kid well and you better not fuck it up, JT.”
“Mom!”
Mrs. Cox held up her hand. “I love you, but your dating life is pathetic. Now, let’s talk about how you two are going to carve a refrigerator-sized block of snow into something that will win you that prize.”
* * *
After two hours of drawing plans, learning about tools they might want for the contest, and way more arguing from JT’s parents about the proper techniques to use, Ali and JT walked into the kitchen to find something to drink.
“Do you think it’s going to be good enough?”
Ali shrugged. “If I had to bet, Kyle and Sharon will come up with some wildly elaborate thing they want to carve, and he will overestimate how good he is at this and they’ll end up with something terrible.
But I’ve been wrong before. I think keeping it simple is the right choice.
Not that I thought we could carve a unicorn or something like that in the time we have, but I think making it simple is smart.
That way we can be sure to make what we say we’re making and it’s less likely to have a major fuckup. ”
JT held up a beer and a bottle of wine. “Drink?”
Ali pointed to the wine. “A glass of that sounds great.” She waited for JT to pour it for her. “So, is there anywhere in this house where we can hang out? Or should we go freeze our asses off on your porch like a couple of teenagers?”
JT popped the cap off her beer and threw it into the trash in one fluid motion. “Are you trying to get in my pants, Porter?”
Ali struggled not to spit out her wine. “I… I wasn’t, but I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea. Mostly, I was hoping you’d show me your childhood bedroom or something.”
JT’s eyes went wide. “Oh my god, the kids! We were supposed to babysit!”
“Shit.”
“Mom, are the kids here?”
“Do you hear them?” her mom called back from the living room. “When you two got called in for the contest, your brother and sister realized they had lost their babysitters and came up with someplace to go together.”
“They wonder how I got to be such a smart-ass.” JT took a sip of beer. “Grab your glass. I can show you my room, but it’s not mine right now. I got stuck in the cellar, remember?”
They climbed the stairs to the second floor where the kids’ bedrooms were. JT pointed out Jonathan’s and Emerson’s rooms before they got to the door for JT’s room. Inside there were toys and books on the floor as well as a few piles of neatly folded clothes.
“Oh my god, those pj’s are adorable,” Ali said, pointing to the tiny pajamas next to the pillow on the bed.
“There’s nothing cuter than little kid jammies,” JT said, standing a bit awkwardly to the side. The room had a slanted ceiling, and she was too tall to stand except in the center of the room.
Ali looked at the walls. “Why are there no embarrassing posters? I want the boy bands you listened to or the cut-out magazine pages. It’s too grown-up in here.”
JT laughed. “When I left after college, I took most of that stuff with me and the rest of it went in the trash. Also, why would I have boy band posters? You do remember that I’m like super gay, right?”
Ali stepped closer to her and wrapped one arm around her waist. “Yes, I definitely remember that you’re a sexy lesbian, but lesbians can like boy bands, too.”
JT kissed Ali’s cheek. “I didn’t have boy band posters, but I did have Glee posters.”
“Glee?” Ali asked, trying not to laugh.
JT frowned at her. “Yes, I know that show is super problematic, but I was a teenager! There were hot cheerleaders who sang and danced and made out with each other! What was I supposed to do?”
Ali wrapped both arms around JT, careful not to spill her wine. “I take it back. You’re adorable. I can just imagine you with your nose pressed against the screen staring at… Okay, who was your favorite?”
JT blushed. “Obviously, I loved Santana, but Quinn…” She shook her head at the memory. “Seems like I have a thing for blonde prom queen types.” She looked down at Ali, her smile so sweet and earnest.
Ali kissed her, hard. JT’s hand snaked up her back and then cupped her face. She deepened the kiss and Ali pulled them together. For a minute they kissed with increasing intensity. “God, I wish I dated you in high school. It would have saved me so many years of bullshit.”
JT kissed her forehead. “Ahh yes, the famously easy time of girls dating in rural New Hampshire.”
Ali felt chastened. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. Teenage me wouldn’t have known what to do with herself if she got to date you. I barely know what I’m doing now.”
Ali wrapped her lips around JT’s bottom lip and sucked it into her mouth. She felt JT lean into her before letting go of JT’s lip. “I think you know exactly what you’re doing.” Ali held eye contact but stepped back. “But maybe I shouldn’t try to seduce you in your childhood bedroom…”
“Where my nieces and nephews are sleeping this week?”
Ali nodded, keeping her eyes locked on JT. “Especially when I have a whole house to myself and an actual bedroom.”
JT grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the stairs. “Now you’ve seen my bedroom, I think it’s time you showed me yours.”