OceanofPDF.com Fake Skating Lynn Painter

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The way you are doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. You are exactly how you’re supposed to be. YOU ARE PERFECT. And you might not have met them yet, but there are people who are going to love you BECAUSE of the way you are. OceanofPDF.com

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PROLOGUE Alec There was no way it was actually happening. Dani Collins was moving to Southview. “Impossible,” I muttered to myself as I stomped on the gas pedal. An hour ago life had been normal. I’d walked through the front door after practice, inhaled a few bowls of goulash while my dad talked about his buddy’s new duck boat, and I’d been just about to leave the table when my mom gave me the news. She’d excitedly lled me in on the details of how Dani’s parents were getting divorced and now Dani and her mom were going to move in with her grandpa. She squealed about how incredible it was going to be to nally have them close by. Just imagine how often we can see them now! I smiled and nodded like a good boy while trying not to lose my ever-loving shit at the thought of having to see her every day. Dani Collins. Was moving. To fucking. Southview. I made up an excuse to get out of the house as soon as possible, because I needed air—and music—while I tried to wrap my head around this unexpected turn of events. I had a cousin who neurotically made playlists for every waking moment of her life, and that slightly obsessive habit had rubbed o on me to the point that I couldn’t deal with the harshness of reality anymore unless I rolled it around in music rst. So I got in Burrito (my piece-of-shit ’03 Olds Alero) and just drove, cranking “Escorpião,” the Brazilian song that I didn’t understand but fucking loved. I

knew the translation was something along the lines of “‘I love you’ is bullshit,” so that seemed good enough for me. But almost as if Burrito had a mind of his own, I found myself turning down the barely there dirt road that wound through the woods next to the pond. I drove over the snow-packed path until I saw the old, abandoned shed that had once been “our spot.” What the fuck am I doing? The night was quiet, the deep snow insulating the world so all I could hear was the crunch of snow under my shoes as I got out of the car and walked toward the structure. It’d always looked like it was ve minutes from collapsing, and that hadn’t changed since the last time I’d been there. The summer after seventh grade. I pushed in the door of the abandoned shed and stepped inside, half expecting a pack of raccoons to y at my face. It was darker than dark, but when I turned on my phone’s ashlight, it felt like I’d taken a puck to the chest because how could it still look the same? The actual chairs we’d stolen from my dad’s shop to furnish our ridiculous little shed were still there, and so was the massive hole in the roof that we called our skylight. Holy shit. I swallowed and looked up at the moon. Everything about “our spot” remained the same. And, who was I kidding, so was the memory of her. Of Dani. And the last time I saw her. Five-ish Years Ago “I don’t want to go home.” I looked at Dani’s prole as she stared up at the moon and couldn’t believe she was already leaving. We were sitting side by side on a blanket in the pond shed and I uttered the understatement of the century when I said, “This sucks.” Dani and her mom came for one month every summer, one month where our mothers (best friends) hung out twenty-four seven and we got to do

whatever we wanted, every single day. We rode bikes, went shing, walked endless miles while debating everything, hung out at the pool… it was summer perfection. It’d been an annual event for longer than I could remember. Literally. The reason for their annual visit was to see Dani’s grandparents, but since she spent most of her time with me at our house (or in our shed hangout), it always felt like our vacation. And it was hands down the best part of summer break. Because for one month of the year, she was my best friend. We screwed around and laughed our asses o for thirty days, and then she went back to whatever Air Force base her dad was stationed at until the next season of the reies. But now they were leaving after only two days. This time their visit had been for her grandma’s funeral, and this time her prickish dad—the colonel—had come with them. Which was a big mistake, because his presence made everything blow way the hell up. It was epic in the worst way. Mick—Dani’s grandpa—lost his shit on her dad after the funeral, saying it was Mr. Collins’s fault that her grandma died of a broken heart because he took Dani’s mom away and moved her all over the country. Then Mick told them—in front of everyone—to go back to “wherever the hell you’re stationed now” and get out of his sight. Yep—nightmare. And now they were leaving in the morning. Which meant we wouldn’t be walking to Kriz’s Bakery, where we were supposed to sit at a sticky table outside and try to guess which donuts the customers were going to order by what they were wearing. One of our (many) annual traditions. “I know it makes me a garbage person,” she said, looking at me with brown eyes that were too sad, “but I think I’m more bummed about not getting my month here than I am about the whole family-ght thing.”

And then I saw it. She had tears in her eyes. Seeing anyone with tears in their eyes made me uncomfortable; I wasn’t good with serious. But seeing the most sarcastic person I’d ever met, looking sad? It was a little gutting, to be honest. “Collins,” I said, bumping her shoulder with mine, needing to nudge her back to a comfortable spot. “If you cry, I swear to God I will toss you out of this shed and into the pond.” She coughed out a laugh, and her voice was thick when she said, “Such a little badass, threatening me when we both know you couldn’t, come on.” “You’re so mean,” I teased. “And you’re so short,” she teased back, a painless joke because I wasn’t short; she was just taller than everyone else. “You’re not a garbage person, by the way,” I said, noticing that her eyes still had that emotional shimmer that made me want to kick her grandpa’s ass for being a dick. “You’re allowed to be sad that you don’t get to stay.” She swallowed and bit down on her lower lip, like she was trying to hold it together. “I mean, I’m sad,” I admitted, my voice cracking because I was sad. How was I supposed to summer without running all over town with Dani? “You are?” she asked, her voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. Her eyes moved all over my face. “Really?” I nodded and felt a stabbing pain in my chest when I watched a tear escape, because Dani Collins couldn’t be crying. She couldn’t. Suddenly everything in the universe shifted, and I just needed her to stop. Immediately. Everything was wrong if she wasn’t happy. Because Dani was sparkling eyes and contagious laughter. Dani was happiness. Before I knew it, my thumbs were on her cheeks, brushing away the tears, and I struggled to swallow as she stared at me like she was trying to gure out what was happening.

“I don’t know either,” I admitted, because we’d always been able to read each other’s minds, and I had no idea why I suddenly wanted to kiss her. “I don’t know what this is.” “Same,” she said, nodding. Her eyes went down to my mouth, and in an instant my pulse was pounding. “Should we?” I asked—no, breathed—as I realized my thumbs were still sliding over her soft skin. Did I seriously just ask (without saying it) if we should kiss? What the hell is happening? “I mean, we have to have our rsts sometime,” she said, reading my mind about the kiss and getting that look of resolve in her eyes that meant she was all in on something. No one committed to scheming like Dani. She was game to do nearly anything. I always wondered if that was just the “vacation” version of Dani, or if she was like that at home, too. “So maybe we… should?” She said it with a question in her voice, and I had no idea how we’d gotten here. Holy shit. “Are you serious?” I managed, my voice coming out a tiny bit strangled. Should my hands still be on her face? What the hell? Why did this sound like a great idea when it was Dani? “I think I am,” she said, her eyes dancing, pushing away the sadness. I might’ve been able to reverse it, to pretend for the sake of our friendship that we hadn’t contemplated it, but then she looked at me like that, and it was over. She looked at me like she wanted me to kiss her. Like she was waiting for me to lean in. And, God help me, I’d dreamed of kissing her far too long for me to be strong. “Then come closer, Collins.”

I inhaled through my nose as my brain rewound crystal-clear memories of lying back on that blanket and losing my mind with her. The smell of the shed—a mix of dirt and cedar and nostalgic longing—wasn’t helping, either. The scents were so fucking familiar that it felt like I should follow the walls over to the tiny section in the corner where we’d written nonsensical bullshit with paint markers, just to see if our long-forgotten artwork remained. But the second that popped into my head, I remembered the rest. And then I didn’t want to remember at all anymore. Because even though it’d been years, I was still pissed. Logically, it should’ve been water under the bridge by now. I should be over it. But as I drove home, I realized that I wasn’t. Like, at all. We might be older, and it might be illogical, but I still hated Dani Collins for what she did after the night we kissed. “Te quero bem” é o caralho Eu vou acabar contigo Or, in English: “I love you” is bullshit I’m going to end you OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER ONE February—Senior Year Dani “Wake up—we’re here.” I opened my eyes, but instead of seeing my bedroom, I saw snow and gray skies through the cold window that my forehead was resting on. The same things I’d stared at for countless hours before nally falling asleep. Damn it—it’s real. “Remind me again why we’re moving here,” I said, leaning down to shove my feet back into my Chucks. We drove seven hours in a moving truck full of our stu (that’d been incorrectly shipped to our old address in Minot—thanks, Air Force) so we could now live in a place where there appeared to be multiple feet of snow on the ground and the windchill was subzero—like, make it make sense. “I mean, why not California?” “We’ve been over this. Too expensive, too hot in the summer, and you’re going to love living here,” my mom said, shutting o the truck and pulling the keys out of the ignition. “You loved it when you were younger, remember?” The main reason I loved it was because of Alec. My stomach instantly knotted at the thought of him and the reality that I was going to have to face him after he’d ghosted our long-distance friendship. I was dreading that awkward reunion with every ber of my being, and still slightly pissed, but I was also hopeful that once the embarrassing moment passed, he’d be the best thing about the move. Or at least he’d help it be… marginally less nightmarish. Because Alec Barczewski had always been a hilarious ray of sunshine with the uncanny ability to make everything better. It’d been a long time and we were

obviously dierent people now, but in my heart I knew that my dorky friend would somehow make this okay. “Loving a place you visit once a year—in the summer—is totally dierent from living there year-round,” I muttered, opening the door and jumping down from the truck, the icy wind slapping at my cheeks as I jerked up the hood on my jacket. “Especially when the winter climate is abysmal.” Dear Lord, it feels like there are shards of glass in that wind. Whyyyyy do people choose to live in a place so cold? I’d lived in the cold before, so it wasn’t new to me, but I’d somehow managed to forget just how harsh it felt. “Quit complaining. I just drove through White Castle, so you’ve got a slider and fries in your bag,” she said, coming around to grab my arm and loop it through hers after I shut the door. “Seriously?” My stomach growled and I caught a whi of onion as I looked down at my tote. “Perfect last meal before I freeze to death, thank you.” “And we are now ocially residents of Southview,” she proclaimed with a terrifying amount of nality in her voice. “Like it or not.” I sighed and thought a thousand times NOT as I pulled out a tiny burger and lifted it to my mouth. I took a bite and stared at the big white house in front of us, my stomach heavy with dread as I chewed. Which kind of made sense, since the last time we’d been there, my dad and I had been loading the car in silence while my mom argued with my grandpa in the driveway. You traded in your family and your entire life to follow that asshole from base to base—was it worth it? Do you like your rootless existence, where Dani doesn’t even know what family looks like? “He doesn’t appear to be home,” I said, taking in the closed curtains and empty driveway. “He knows we’re coming, right?” “Of course he’s home,” she said. “He’s probably just parked in the garage.” “He never parks in the garage,” I corrected, taking two more huge bites and saying through a mouthful of food, “That’s where he keeps his tools.” Or it was where he used to keep his tools before he decided to cut us out of his life.

“It’s been a few years—he could have cleaned it out,” she said. “And don’t talk with food in your mouth.” “Then don’t engage me in conversation while I’m eating.” But when we went up to the door, he wasn’t home. My mom gave me a smile and acted like it was ne, but there was the telltale wrinkle between her eyebrows that let me know she was nervous. She dialed his number and raised the phone to her ear, nibbling on her bottom lip as she waited for him to answer. “Oh. Dad. Hey,” she said, her words making pus in the frigid air in front of her face. “We’re here with the moving truck—are you on your way?” I crossed my arms, trying not to freeze to death as I watched her listen to his response. This wasn’t good. The wrinkles stayed on her brow, and she started pacing. “Well, I know. Yes, that’s ne,” she said, “but we thought you’d be here to help.” Fabulous. Grandpa Mick was AWOL on the moving. I’d be pissed, only I was too cold to feel human emotion anymore. My rage was an icicle. “Sure. I get that,” she said. “But you knew we were coming, right?” Of course he knew we were coming, I thought. It was probably his way of giving us the nger. God, I still couldn’t believe we were moving in with him. To be fair, I had a childhood full of good Grandpa Mick memories. As quiet and surly as he was, the man had taught me to sh and skate and used to call me his “Danigirl” while giving me rides on his shoulders. But those memories had all been written over the day he literally kicked me and my parents out of my grandma’s funeral when I was in middle school. In front of a crowd of mourners. So it was still baing to me that somehow, some-freaking-how, we were about to move our things into his house as if that nightmare never happened. Technically, he’d built an apartment for us in the upstairs of his house—my mom loved to say this as if that made a huge dierence—but I still couldn’t

understand why this was a good idea. Yes, please, let’s move in with the grumpy old guy who doesn’t like anyone but especially not us. It was going to be so much fun. “Oh, okay,” my mom said into the phone. “It’s ne. There’s nothing heavy, so we’ll just get started.” She nodded and disconnected the call, but before I could open my mouth, her nger came up and she pointed at my face. “I don’t want to hear a word, okay?” “Oh geez,” I said, shaking my head. “What’s up? What’d he do?” “Nothing,” she said, shrugging like this was ne. “He just had to help a friend up in Minnetonka with his boat.” I waited for more, but that was apparently it. “And…? How far away is that? How long is he going to be helping a friend with a boat?” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I was irritated by how ridiculous it was. “Also, it’s the freaking tundra out here—what could someone possibly be doing with a boat in this weather? Every drop of water in the place is frozen solid.” “Dammit, Dani, this is Minnesota,” my mom snapped, her voice rising in frustration. “Boats are always in play!” I opened my mouth but had no idea how to respond to that statement. “I think I might’ve just come up with a kick-ass tourism slogan.” Her forehead smoothed and her mouth turned up into a little grin. “Let’s start moving our stu, and he’ll be here when he’s done.” “We’re seriously moving all our stu in by ourselves—is that what you’re telling me?” I burrowed my chin into the top of my coat, trying to block the icy wind. “I will buy you a large cheese pizza and a freaking pony if you cut the sarcasm and just help me carry boxes into the house,” she said, pulling a key ring out of her pocket. “Can I eat the pizza while riding the pony?” “As long as you’re safe.”

“Fine, I’m in,” I said, watching her open the screen door. “But I really feel like I was just hitting my stride on the negativity.” My mom used her key—yes, the key from when she was a child still worked in the door—and we went inside. The main level was like a throwback, everything seemingly unchanged from the last time I’d been there. The only dierence was that it didn’t smell like cookies anymore; my grandma always made chocolate chip cookies when we visited. But when we got to the staircase, instead of looking up and seeing the upstairs hallway like it used to be, we saw a pair of French doors. The glass was frosted, so you couldn’t see anything through it, but natural light shone from behind the doors and made them look like they were glowing. “Wow,” my mom said, running up the stairs. “Yeah,” I agreed, following. “Wow.” The upstairs had been completely transformed. Warm wood oors and white trim made it feel sleek and contemporary, the polar opposite of the old-person vibes of the main level. Two of the bedrooms had now been made into a living room, the walls removed so it felt like it’d always been that way. Big windows made it bright—too bright with all that freaking snow—and a white brick replace was centered on a wall of white bookshelves. “This is amazing,” my mom said breathlessly. It was hard to even remember how it’d looked before. The two remaining bedrooms were equally gorgeous, with new furniture and a huge shared bathroom, and the small kitchenette had everything the two of us non-cooking people could need. And when my mom opened the second set of French doors next to the replace, we found a deck with stairs leading down to the garage behind the house, where we’d be parking. It was actually an apartment with its own entrance. “Are you sure he did all of this himself?” I asked, truly in awe of the transformation. I knew Grandpa Mick had a woodshop and liked to build things, but this was next-level. “Positive,” my mom said, and for a split second it almost looked like she had tears in her eyes.

But then she gave her head a little shake and said, “Okay, let’s get moving.” We went out to the truck and started bringing stu in, but with just the two of us it felt like it was going to take forever. There were so many boxes of random things—books and clothes and pictures and shoes, and taking them in one at a time was just depressingly slow. “Dani?” I turned around when I heard the voice, and it took me a minute to recognize the tall dude in the blazer when I saw him smiling at me, breath pung out in clouds in front of his face. He was bigger and had a facial-hair thing going on now, but, holy crap—it was him. “Benji?” Benji had always lived next door to my grandparents. Well, actually, his dadlived next door to my grandparents, and Benji just spent random weekends there. His mother, who he lived with the majority of the time, was loaded and lived in a lakeshore mansion. In an exclusive gated community. Alec had always called him King Douche—long before we were old enough to even use the word “douche”—because he went to a fancy all-boys private school and acted like he was better than everyone else. You got a bike for your birthday? That’s hilarious. I got a racehorse named Titus. “I go by Ben now,” he said with a funny smile. “And can I help you with that? Please?” He gestured toward the saggy box I was holding, the box that appeared to be moments away from losing its bottom. “Thank you,” I said as he reached for it, remembering the last time I saw him. God, I’d completely forgotten about that day. It was a couple of years ago, and we’d own in so my mom could see Alec’s dad in the hospital after his car accident. We’d been days away from the move to Germany, so we literally only had a few hours to spend in the Twin Cities, and Benji had been on our ight from Minot. I’d been horried when he switched seats with a middle-aged guy so he could sit beside me, but after a few minutes we connected like the old friends we

weren’t. Which was a total shock because Benji had always been such a tool to me and Alec when we were little. But I was so lonely at the time that the mere fact he was kind to me was… well, nice, even if he was still a douchey rich kid (the guy showed me no less than fty pictures of himself on his phone, doing things like riding a horse on the beach while shirtless in Bali). And Alec had disappeared from my life by then, which was why I opted not to join my mom at the hospital when we visited, because I was worried Alec didn’t want me there—for reasons I still wasn’t sure about. Benji was kind and warm and comforting. It was surprisingly wonderful. I glanced over Benji’s shoulder and noticed the car that appeared to be idling at the end of my grandpa’s driveway. “Wow, is that your car?” I wasn’t into cars, but my dad was, so I denitely knew that was a Maserati Grecale. Of courseBenji had a hundred-thousand-dollar SUV. “It is,” he said with a smile so proud, you’d think he built the vehicle. “Want to go for a spin around the block? Warm yourself up on my heated seats?” Gross. “Sorry, but I have this whole thing going on.” And I pointed to the box he was holding. “Oh yeah,” he said with a disappointed smile. “This goes inside?” “Yep.” “Excellent.” He nodded and started walking toward the house. “What isthe story with the boxes, by the way?” “Oh, you know,” I said, grabbing a oor lamp as I followed him. “We’re kind of moving here.” “What? Are you serious?” He said it like he couldn’t believe it, but in a good way. Like he was happy to hear the news. “You’re moving to Southview?” “We are,” I said, reaching for the front-door handle and pushing it open for him. “My mom and I are moving in with my grandpa.” “No way,” he said, walking into the house. “Oh yes,” I said, my stomach sinking because I just hated moving so much. I knew from experience that I was about to hate the next couple of months of my

life, and after that it was TBD. Might get better, might get way worse. “Apparently, this is home now.” “Well, that is fantastic news,” Benji said, smiling with his whole face. “Staying with Dad just got a lot more interesting.” I didn’t really know what he meant by that, and to be honest, I didn’t really care. When moving to a new place, I welcomed anyone who could be moved into the “ally” category, whether they were a harmless rich douchebag or not. Too bad he went to a fancy academy, or I might’ve actually known someone at my school already. “Thanks, and we’ll stay o your lawn, I promise,” I teased. “Trust me, the last thing I’m worried about is my dad’s little yard,” he replied, his tone rich with condescension. He’d always seemed to be embarrassed that his dad was a regular middle-class guy, which kind of made me wonder how his parents ever ended up together— even for the short term—in the rst place. “It was great seeing you,” he said, setting down the box. I’d been kind of hoping Benji might help a girl out with the moving in, but that went up in ames as I watched him unironically pop the collar on his jacket. “Welcome home.” Ughhh, how is this home? I just smiled and nodded too, because I didn’t really know what to say to this version of Benji—ahem, I mean Ben. Please don’t linger. How can your teeth be so white? Is Titus still alive? “Do you want my number?” he asked me, and I must’ve made a confused face because he quickly added, “In case you guys need anything, being new in town and all that.” “Oh,” I said awkwardly. “Um—” “That would be great.” My mom suddenly appeared from nowhere, shooting me a be nice look. “Wouldn’t it be great, Dani?” “Yes,” I agreed, forcing a perky grin while pulling out my phone. “That would be great.”

He put his number in my contacts—Ben Worthington—and then he was out of there, saying he had to get to practice. I could almost hear Alec making a joke about what kind of loser activity little Benji would be practicing—crumpet dipping? speed neckerchief tying?—because the guy seemed way too fancy for any sport where one might be required to sweat. “Benji boy got cute,” my mom said with a smirk. “And still looks just as smitten around you as he always did.” “It’s Bennow, Mother, and I thought we agreed ‘smitten’ was a terrible word,” I corrected, not sure why Ben was funny, but it was. It kind of made me want to call him Benji forever. “We did—my apologies,” she said with a smirk, her gaze on the front window. “Dear God, is that a Maserati?” “Yup.” Just as she said that, someone laid on their horn outside. I turned around in time to see a big black truck pull up behind the fancy car, and whoever was inside impatiently hit their horn—over and over—until Ben nally pulled away. It made me laugh, imagining Benji’s distaste for the slush-covered F-250, until I saw the truck whip into our driveway behind the moving truck. Then I saw him get out. The man somehow looked taller—and tougher—than I remembered, and I swear to God he was cursing as he slammed his truck door and gestured toward Benji’s house. Grandpa Mick. “Looks like Daddy’s home,” my mom said, but she was smiling like his behavior was amusing. I knew my mom had had a lot of phone calls with him since my parents separated and we ditched Germany, so it was possible that my grandpa had earned my mom’s tolerance for his grumpiness. But he hadn’t earned mine. Because what kind of grandfather just stopped talking to his grandchild? I braced myself for his entrance, dreading the reunion because there was no way it wasn’t going to be weird. He was probably going to make some big

apology, and I was probably going to have to lie and say oh, it’s fineand hug him and pretend that it was all water under the bridge. I hope he doesn’t cry. The door ew open, almost as if he kicked it in, and suddenly there he was, looking more like a character from an action movie than somebody’s granddad. “I can’t believe that little shit was blocking my driveway—why was Worthington here?” He pulled o his Ray-Bans, and in spite of the rant about his neighbor, I felt something warm in my chest when I saw his eyes. Probably because his eyes looked exactly the same as they had when he’d been my favorite human. Even though he was a colossal jerk, some part of me wanted to hug him. Desperately. “He helped Dani carry a box,” my mom said as she crossed the room to hug him. “Benji was being nice.” “Sure he was,” he muttered, sounding like a grump but wrapping her up in a big hug and kissing the top of her head. “How was the drive?” “Good. Cold,” she said, and when she pulled back, I couldn’t ignore the expression on my mother’s face. She looked relaxed for the rst time in… wow, maybe everas she grinned at her father and added, “Dani’s ocially an ice cube now.” “Eh. It’s not too bad out there today,” he said with a shrug, looking over at me. I didn’t know what to say, so I just made a weird noise, like a harrumph, because Grandpa Mick’s gaze was locked in on me and it was… unnerving. He stared at me like he was searching for something, like he was trying to nd an object that’d been hidden on my person or something. I bit down on my lip and dgeted under his hawklike watch, but then I realized he was probably just searching for the right words to apologize with. I mean, how does one intro an apology for years of absence? Listen, kid, I’m a dickcould work, or perhaps let’s talk about the jackass elephant in the room. I crossed my arms, and my breath felt a little bit stuck in my chest as the silence hovered, but then he nally opened his mouth. And said, “You got tall.”

You got tall. What? “You got tall”? That is all you have to say to me? I cleared my throat and tucked my hair behind my ears. “I’m ve-seven.” “Yeah,” he said, nodding like I’d conrmed something. “Pretty tall for a girl.” What is happening? He kept looking at me, and nodding, and I wanted to die from the embarrassment of this reunion. The man who’d let me steer his boat when I was four because I was his “Danigirl” could only muster up enough politeness to hit me with the small-talk gold of tall for a girl. Such a poignant moment. Such a glowing apology. “I’m going to go get more boxes,” I said, pointing toward the door, and then I quickly left the room before he had a chance to oer a follow-up inquiry about my shoe size or perhaps question whether I liked pickles on my hamburgers. “We’re right behind you,” my mom sort of yelled, but I didn’t care. I was suddenly all in on the box moving, because it gave me a reason to avoid my life for a couple more hours. And it worked. When the U-Haul was nally empty, I was about to go inside and close myself into the bedroom that was now ocially mine when my mom said, “You guys ready to go get some dinner?” I wanted to remain distant and unapproachable, really, I did, but the truth was that I was famished. And frozen. And exhausted. A hot meal sounded heavenly. “I’ll drive.” Grandpa Mick pulled out his key ring and hit the start button on his truck. “They still live on Fairacre, right?” Wait. “Yep,” my mom said. “I’ll go grab my purse and lock the door if you guys want to get in the truck.” Wait, wait, wait. Fairacre Road. What??

“Where are we going?” I asked calmly, even though I already knew the answer and my stomach had suddenly dropped to my feet. “We’re going to the Barczewskis’,” my mom said as if it was a given. “Sarah cooked us dinner.” “What? You didn’t tell me that,” I said, my voice a little louder than I’d intended. “I’m pretty sure I did, but do you have a problem with that?” She gave me a weird look, and I could feel Grandpa Mick’s eyes on me. “I thought you’d be thrilled.” “I mean, I am,” I lied, trying to be cool because I didn’t want my mom to question why I wouldn’t want to see Alec. As far as she knew, we’d happily said goodbye ve years ago and that was it. Which was true, but she didn’t know about the postcards we’d secretly exchanged since elementary school, postcards that had just stopped coming one day. That was what lled me with dread. The sheer awkwardness of the ghosting. “But we just drove in a moving truck all day and unloaded our stu,” I said, hoping for the thousandth time that Alec wouldn’t even remember the silly postcard thing. The silly postcard thing that hadn’t been silly to me at all. But whatever. “I don’t exactly feel fresh and ready to see people—I’m kind of a mess after all the moving.” I knew it was stupid to care, but I really didn’t want the rst time I saw Alec after all this timeto be when I looked like this—in sweats and a messy bun. “I mean, if you wanna hang back,” Grandpa Mick said slowly, “I can stay too, and we can grab a pizza or something.” At the exact same time, my mom and I both whipped our heads around to look at my grandpa because… well, that was absolutely unexpected. Was he trying to spend time with me? I didn’t know how I felt about that. “No,” my mom snapped, pointing at him. “You are antisocial and eat microwave food for every meal. Sarah invited you over and has cooked food for

us, so we are going, end of story.” “God, I forgot how bossy you can be,” my grandpa said, but something in the way he looked at my mom made me think he appreciated it. “I wonder who I get that from,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “I’m going to get my purse and we’re leaving. Get your butts in the truck.” She turned and ran for the house, leaving me standing there with Grandpa Mick in the driveway. He didn’t even look at me as he opened his door and said, “It’s probably warm already.” “Oh. Cool,” I said, opening the back door and climbing inside, trying to remain calm when I was about to see Alec. In mere moments, dear God. How can this be happening? OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWO Alec “Hey, sweetie. How was work?” “Good,” I said, shutting the kitchen door behind me and kicking o my shoes. “Quiet, thank God.” I worked at my uncle’s hardware store every weekend (and any other time I could squeeze in extra hours, to be honest). Usually it was only on Sundays during hockey season, but since we’d had a game the night before and just an early practice that day, I’d been able to get in a bonus Saturday shift. Which was perfect, because I needed new skates. Like, yesterday. “After you shower, will you make sure the twins look presentable?” My mom was rolling out dough on the center island—fucking beer bread, yes—and had three pots going full steam on the stove. Which made me want to cry little happy baby tears, because I was fucking famished. “They’re watching TV in the basement,” she said. “Dad was supposed to get them ready, but Andy swung by, so odds are good he forgot.” “Yeah, but why?” I pulled o my jacket, being extra fucking careful with my left arm, and put it on a hook. “Andy doesn’t care what they look like.” Andy was my dad’s best friend and basically like another member of the family. “The Boches are coming over for dinner,” she said casually as she focused on the bread. The Boches? “What exactly does that mean?” I was impressed by how chill I sounded when I felt like I’d been kicked.

She couldn’t mean Dani was coming over tonight. She hadn’t brought up Dani and Hannah since last month’s announcement that they were moving back, and I’d been delusionally hopeful that something had changed. I denitely wasn’t expecting her to come to my house for a meal. “Mick, Dani, and Hannah,” she said. “Duh.” “They’re ‘the Boches’ now?” I asked, because Dani and Hannah had never gone by Hannah’s maiden name before. Or at least not that I’d known of. “Well, Dani still goes by Collins,” my mom said, “but Hannah’s back to Boche.” She said it with a triumphant smile, probably because she’d always hated the colonel, but I was starting to feel like something was sitting on my chest. This couldn’t be happening. I knew I was going to have to run into her eventually, but why tonight, when my shoulder was fucking killing me and all I wanted to do was eat and fall into my bed? Doing anything sounded like too much, but seeing Dani? Nope. “And they’re all coming over for dinner tonight?” I opened the fridge and looked inside, trying to wrap my head around the knowledge that shewas going to be here, in my kitchen, within the hour. No fucking way. Seeing her was going to suck, but seeing her at a meal with my family, who’d always loved her and would kiss her ass and treat her like a long-lost beloved niece, was going to suck nails. “Hey, Sarah,” I heard as the door opened behind me and cold air whooshed in. I turned around as Doug (my dad’s other best friend) slammed the door behind him and said to my mom, “Is Mick Boche really coming over for dinner?” “God, I told John to keep his mouth shut,” she said, but she was grinning. Mick Boche—Dani’s grandpa—was a hockey legend. He’d been the best player to ever come out of Southview for sure, a superstar enforcer in the NHL

until an injury forced him to retire in his prime. And even though he lived in town, the guy was notoriously antisocial, which made him even more of an elusive icon. When spotted around town, people ID’d him with a Sasquatch level of excitement. “So it’s true, then,” he said as he took o his boots and went around me to grab a Busch Light from the top shelf. “We’re breaking bread with Mick Fucking Boche tonight, holy shit.” “Youare doing no such thing,” she said with a laugh, pointing a nger at him. “This isn’t a fan meet and greet; it’s a nice family dinner for my best friend, and he happens to be her dad.” “Am I not part of this family? Nice game last night, by the way, Al.” “No, you literally are not,” she replied. “Thanks,” I said at the same time. “Sarah. Come on.” Doug shot me a smile before he said to my mom, “You haveto let me stay. You’re having dinner with my hero, for God’s sake, and all I’m asking is to quietly sit at the table and witness the greatness. I won’t say a word, and I’ll—” “You alwayssay a word—too many of them, in fact—and the answer is no.” “He can have my spot,” I said, shutting the fridge. “Because I just want to sleep.” “And you can,” she said in her authoritative voice, “afterdinner. Besides, I thought you’d be dying to see them.” “I mean, I am,” I lied, “but if they live here now, I’ll see them all the time, right?” “I’m going downstairs,” Doug said, disappearing down the steps while yelling, “but I’ll be back up for supper, Sar.” “No, you will not, Doug—” “What’s this I hear about Mick Boche coming for dinner?” The back door opened and Ed, one of my dad’s other buddies, came inside and went straight for the fridge. “Hey, Al—great game last night.” “Thanks,” I said. “He is, but you’re not,” my mom answered, not even looking up. “She doesn’t mean it,” Doug yelled from below.

“But Big John said I could,” Ed lied, because everyone knew my dad would never have the balls to go against my mom. “He said I could sit directly across from Mick, actually.” “Bullshit,” I muttered. “Worth a shot, though, right?” he murmured to me with a smirk. “Go downstairs before I hurt you, Ed,” my mom said, which was basically her caving on the whole no-fanboys-at-dinner thing. Which would make it slightly less terrible. More people to focus on while trying to pretend Dani Collins wasn’t in my house. But, like, shit—it wasn’t fair. I had enough to worry about right now. Seeing her again—in my house—was just too damn much. I cannot believe she’s going to be here. That we’re going to have to speak. Fuck. I followed Ed down to the basement and was pleasantly surprised to see that the twins were fully dressed and not in need of my assistance. Thank God.I was good with helping my mom, but ve-year-olds were a lotsometimes. Cole and Ashton were staring at the small TV in the toy corner of the room, fully immersed in a show about crime-ghting dogs, while my dad and his buddies watched ESPN on the big screen. “How was work, kid?” my dad asked, grabbing the handle of his cane and slowly getting out of his chair. His eyes narrowed and he winced as he reached his full height, and I realized that I could barely remember what it looked like to see him moving without pain. “Slow,” I said. “Thank God.” “Killer game last night, Al,” Andy said from his spot on the couch. “How bruised is the shoulder?” Dude, if you only knew. “Fine,” I lied. “Deep purple but not black.” “Nice.”

“Mom told me to check on the twins before I get in the shower,” I said to my dad. “Are they good?” “Yeah—they’re under the spell of Disney, so go shower. The Boches are gonna be here in an hour.” “Is that what we’re calling them now?” I wasn’t sure why I found that so annoying. “The Boches?” We’d nevercalled them that. “I just repeat what your mother says, you know that.” But it bugged the shit out of me as I went back upstairs and turned on the shower, especially when the Bluetooth speaker cued up “Little League,” the song that always made me think of her. Of us, back then. When we were younger We didn’t know how it would be “Next song,” I shouted at my phone. Everything about this sudden social event was bugging the shit out of me. So they’d moved to Southview—why the fuck was this a big deal? People moved all the time, for God’s sake. My breath hissed out between my teeth when I lifted my shirt over my head because shiiiit. It was getting so much worse. I could handle my shoulder’s fuckery when I was playing, but for some reason, stupid things like lifting my arm over my head while getting dressed were nearly dropping me lately. Even with the steady rotation of ibuprofen, Tylenol, and ice. I was setting my phone next to the sink and about to step into the shower when I got a text. Vinny: Zack’s bonfire is tonight and it sounds like everyone’s going The word “everyone,” when paired with “bonre,” was no longer part of my vocabulary. I was supposed to be keeping my nose clean.

I neededto keep my nose clean and steer clear of any parties that could get out of control. But as I stepped under the hot water, turning to soak the throbbing shoulder that scared the shit out of me because I couldn’t aord—literally or guratively —to be taken out by an injury, I was tempted. Getting a little bit numb suddenly didn’t sound like such a bad idea. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER THREE Dani It looks exactly the same. Grandpa Mick put the truck into park and I felt transported back in time as I stared at the house. My favorite place in the world. Or, well… the place formerly known as. The Barczewskis lived in a small Cape Cod–style house, gray with white shutters and a curvy sidewalk leading to the door that was always lined with owers—daylilies and roses—in the summertime. Today it was lined with knee-high snowbanks, yet it still managed to somehow look ridiculously charming. But also terrifying. Intimidating. I was so unbelievably nervous to ring that doorbell. I was never at ease in social situations. Ever.I overthought each word that was spoken and worried too much about the tiniest of details. I stressed over what everyone was thinking about me, how I looked, what I was doing; on a normal day, social gatherings gave me anxiety. But tonight—this felt ten times worse. The idea of reuniting with these people whom I’d loved but who were now strangers was even scarier. Mostly because I didn’t know what things would be like with Alec. I stared out the window and just wished I knew if it was a distant memory for him now, where he barely remembered our couple-few years of correspondence and his departure from it, or if it would be all he thought of when he looked at me.

There’s the postcard-sending dork. God, I couldn’t believe I was about to see him. And how was I supposed to look at his always-readable face and decipher his thoughts when I hadn’t seen that face in ve years? And this was going to be happening in real time while the rest of the family watched us? It was too much, and I was starting to breathe too fast. Calm down,I told myself. I inhaled through my nose and counted slowly, trying to remember all the ways to stop myself from spiraling. “You okay?” I looked away from the window to see Grandpa Mick watching me in the rearview mirror. His face was as serious as it’d been all afternoon, but there also wasn’t any judgment in his expression. “Yes,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’m ne.” Though I was really embarrassed that he seemed to know something was up with me. “I’m so excited,” my mom said, jumping out of the car and slamming the door. She deserved this excitement. After so many years of living far away from her friends and family, she was like a kid at Christmas about this move. And I got it. My mom was a social person who’d settled into a solitary, unsocial life for a very long time. It’d pretty much been the three of us—Dad, Mom, and me—as we moved from base to base, and even though that might’ve been normal for me and the only life I’d ever known, it’d weighed on her. She’d had a lotof arguments with my dad about it. Just as I was climbing out of the truck, the front door ew open and there was Sarah. She yelled my mom’s name and ran down the walkway, not stopping until she’d wrapped my mom in a massive hug. The two of them squealed and said unintelligible words that made my mom look so damn happy. Once again I glanced at my grandpa and he was looking back at me. It felt like we shared… somethingin our silent exchange, watching my mom squeal in joy. Sarah hugged me next, smelling—as always—like dryer sheets. She said into my hair, “Look at you; you’re so gorgeous, Dani!” I lovedSarah and hugged her back so hard.

“And how are you, Mick?” she said to my grandpa. I think he might’ve said fine, but it was more of a grunt, to which she replied, “Oh good.” I wanted to laugh for the rst time since we’d pulled into town. “Dani, it’s about damn time!” Big John was standing inside the doorway, and it was impossible not to grin as he pulled me into a big bear hug. He’d always been my favorite uncle, even though we weren’t technically related, and just hearing the long northern vowels made me feel warm inside. It was a little shocking to see him with a cane—I hadn’t seen him since the accident—but from the way it sounded, it was a miracle he was standing at all. He asked, “How was the drive, kiddo?” “It sucked,” I said as he let go of me. “Too long, too cold, too boring.” “It’s only the beginning of February, hon,” he said with a grin. “This is like a crisp fall day. Better toughen up.” “You sound insane when you say things like that.” “You sound exactly like my favorite little smart-ass,” he replied. “It’s been too long. How’s it goin’, Mick?” My grandpa gave another grunt, to which Big John replied, “Right?” Sarah and my mom exploded into conversation after that, the way they always had, wandering toward the kitchen in a cloud of giggly exclamations. I followed, nervously wondering where Alec was. In the kitchen? Upstairs in his room? Was he going to pop out of a closet? God, I just needed to get this over with. “Who are you?” I heard, and when I turned around, there were two little kids —one boy and one girl—standing beside the staircase that led to the second level. They looked like they were probably four or ve years old, dressed alike in Vikings hoodies, and they were obviously waiting for me to answer the question. “I’m Dani,” I said. “No, that’s a boy’s name,” the girl said, her little eyebrows wrinkling together as a half-dressed Barbie dangled from her st.

“It’s also my name,” I countered, wondering why I was justifying my name to a preschooler. “I like your hair,” the boy said with a chin nod. “Your bun is real big.” “Um, thank you,” I said, raising a hand to my messy hair, and I swear to God when I looked over at my grandpa, he almost looked like he wanted to smile. But only almost. “Can you believe we had more kids?” John said, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe it himself. “Wait—these are yours?” I said, shocked to the core. “These two are your children?” “Whoa—don’t seem so shocked,” he said with a grin. “We’re not that old.” “No, it’s not that,” I explained with a laugh, my mind totally blown. “I just had no idea. My mom didn’t tell me.” She’d been very careful to not discuss anything Minnesotan around my dad because he blamed this place for everything, so it wasn’t especially weird that she’d forgotten to mention something so huge. I looked at the twins again, and now I could totally see it. They looked a lot like Alec. Dark hair, dark eyes, mischievous faces; they were like his little clones. Or clones of who he used to be. I wanted to ask John what Alec thought of being a big brother, but for some reason I was scared to bring up his name. But it was like he read my mind. “By the way, Al had to run his friends somewhere, but he should be back in a bit.” “Oh,” I said, not sure how to respond. I didn’t want to seem too interested, but I didn’t want to seem too disinterested, either. “I don’t think he’ll be back in time to eat with us, but he’ll be here before you leave.” “Okay, cool,” I replied, relieved he wouldn’t be there for dinner. I felt myself relax a little, knowing I’d have at least another hour to get used to the situation before he showed up. “Grab a seat at the table—the food is ready,” Sarah said, and my stomach growled, because she’d always been the most amazing cook, and it smelled like

that hadn’t changed. “You don’t have to ask us twice,” my mom said, and motioned for Grandpa Mick and me to come sit beside her. I sat on her left and my grandpa on the right, and as I scooted my chair in toward their big dining room table, I was a little surprised to see plates at every spot. Alot of other plates. “Go get your friends,” Sarah said to John with an eye roll, and he headed for the basement stairs. “Friends?” my mom asked, taking the glass of white wine Sarah was holding out to her. “As soon as I told John you guys were coming over for dinner, he opened his big mouth and told Dougie, Andy, and Ed. And even though I informed them multiple times that they weren’t welcome, the knowledge that you guys—and Mick Boche—were going to be here was too much for their hockey-addled brains and they refused to listen.” Just as she nished saying that, three guys followed John upstairs. One was wearing a Vikings sweatshirt, and the other two were in annel. “No way,” my mom squealed, jumping to her feet and running over to hug the guy in the Vikings hoodie. As soon as she let go of that dude, she hugged the other two. Which, to be honest, shocked the hell out of me. The four of them obviously knew each other, and it was a little bit of a mind blow to me, seeing her this way. My mom had been an ocer’s wife my entire life, not really having any friends of her own who weren’t just spouses of my dad’s coworkers who she occasionally attended base events with. But here she was, beaming at this man trio as they gave her shit like they were the oldest of friends. I guess I’d always known she’d had a life before us, but I’d never thought about what it might’ve looked like. “This is my daughter, Dani,” my mom said, “and my dad, Mick.” These grown men smiled politely and said hi to me, but then they turned to beam at my grandpa like he was a god. They immediately launched into NHL game recollections and statistics without even pausing for small talk, stumbling all over themselves to kiss his ass and tell him how good he used to be at hockey.

It was so bizarre. Like, I knew my grandpa played when he was younger, but these guys were acting like he was Wayne Gretzky. Grandpa Mick still only gave them one-word answers and grunted replies, but he also didn’t look uncomfortable with their attention. Obviously people treated him this way a lot. “Will you shut up so we can eat?” Sarah said to Ed, gesturing toward the line of Crock-Pots on the counter. “You said you’d be good.” “I am being good,” he said with a huge smile. “You think I’m being good, right, Dani?” I was a little surprised as he gave me a conspiratorial smirk and a wink. “I mean, sure,” I replied. “See?” he said to Sarah, pointing at me. “Dani thinks I’m being great.” “I don’t think that’s what I—” “Dani thinks you should lighten up and let us talk freely,” Doug said, also giving me a grin. “Right, kid?” I coughed out a laugh as these grown-ass men—strangers—pulled me into their jokes. “Don’t let them speak for you,” Sarah said, pointing a big spoon at me. “They’re overgrown children who need discipline.” “Don’t talk to our Dani like that,” Andy said with a big smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back at him. Who were these guys? As someone who usually hated chaotic gatherings where I didn’t know anyone, I was surprised to nd myself having a decent time. I sat there, shoveling food into my face, having trouble not smiling as these guys all talked over each other about hockey, hockey, and more hockey. What is the deal with the hockey insanity? Fifteen minutes later they were still recapping someone’s game from the night before, and I wondered if they realized that hockey was literally the only thing they’d talked about. Even Sarah—and my mom—were in on the conversation.

Since I didn’t know a puck from a Popsicle, I was able to listen to everyone else without having to contribute. I was relaxed and enjoying the show, so much so that I kind of forgot to be nervous about seeing Alec. He’d completely slipped my mind until I visited the restroom and saw his bedroom across the hall. And—no way—it’d barely changed. I couldn’t stop myself from stepping through that doorway, because seeing his room was like stepping into a time machine. There was still a twin bed in the center of the room, though it was now covered with a gray comforter instead of the Vikings bedspread that’d been there the last time I visited. Hockey posters still hung on his walls, though they made a lot more sense now. I used to think it was funny that unathletic Alec had a sports-themed bedroom, but now I understood that hockey was obviously part of life up here, whether you played or not. I looked at the little desk in the corner, the same oak desk he’d always had, and my ngers itched to open the drawer. To see if there were still postcards and stamps. Does he still have them somewhere the way I still have mine? A shiver of nervousness slithered through me, but what came with it was a bright side. At least the unknown, with Alec, was almost over. By the time I went to bed that night, I’d be back to having him in my life again. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FOUR Alec “Why are you being an antisocial dick?” Richie dropped into the chair beside me, giving me a look like I was ruining his fun. Which was ironic when he seemed to be having the time of his life. I swear to God he’d already gone down that hill fteen dierent times. Every year for as long as I could remember, the Novotnys had a massive February bonre out at their place, where all their friends brought their discarded Christmas trees and they basically burned random shit all day and drank beer while the little kids took sleds down their massive hill. We used to be the little kids sledding during the day, but for the past few years Zack had taken over bonre duties after dark, when the adults went inside, and had his friends over for sledding and burning. “I’m not,” I said, reluctantly taking out my AirPods and shutting down the “hell of a good time” I’d been listening to on repeat while staring into the re. I considered myself to be a social guy on most days, but tonight I wasn’t feeling it. I pulled my beanie down to my eyebrows because even though the bonre was roaring, it was fucking cold. And Richie wasn’t wrong. Not the dick part, but I was being antisocial because—dammit—I couldn’t stop thinking about Dani. And it wasn’t helping that my mom kept texting to see where I was. Mom: Are you on your way? Mom: Dani looks bored—you need to hurry. The joke was on her, because I wasn’t planning on going home until Dani was gone. I knew I was going to have to face her eventually, but I’d prefer to do it

at school. From afar. I didn’t need to participate in a freaking welcome dinner for the prodigal blonde. No, thank you. “The only person you’ve talked to since you got here is Tawnee, and she said —and I quote—that you’re ‘too drunk to be fun.’” I looked over in Tawnee’s direction, and, as if hearing her name, she glanced back at me and smiled. She and her best friend, Kylie, were wrapped up in blankets, standing on the other side of the re, and I knew I probably should ask her out before someone else beat me to it. “Bullshit,” I said, raising my cup and smiling back at her. “The drunk is my attempt at being fun.” But I wasn’t drunk. I was attempting drunk, I was working my ass o to get myself drunk, but I was way too sober and in my own head at the moment. Vinny, who I hadn’t even noticed behind us, asked, “Didn’t you say you were done drinking until after the season?” “Can you please get o my ass, Ma?” “Oh, but you’re not being a dick, right?” Richie said with a smart-ass grin. “Touché,” I muttered with a shrug, because they were right about everything. I had committed to dry December and January (and February) because there was too much at stake for me to enjoy partying. Everything was lined up for me, and I couldn’t risk a mistake, not when everyone—every fucking one, I swear to God—was counting on me. But tonight the risk had taken a back seat to the burning annoyance with my inability to stop thinking about her. “Shut o the music and join us. It’s like you kind of set the tone at a party, as much as I fucking hate to admit that,” Vinny said, shaking his head like it was a ridiculous concept. “When you’re having a good time, everyone’s having a good time. Remember the massive sled train last year?” “The one that broke Dex’s thumb?”

“I don’t give a shit—it was fucking epic, and that was all you,” he said with a laugh. “But when you’re quiet and dickish, everything is chill and no one gets crazy.” “(A) That’s not true,” I said, “and (B) if it were true, that wouldn’t be my fault. Maybe you should be more interesting, and then youcan set the tone.” “I’m so fucking interesting it’s ridiculous, assbag,” he said with a grin. “If hockey didn’t exist, you would so be in my shadow.” That was probably true. Between his stupid-long mullet (hence the nickname Vincent the Flow) and the way he looked more like a linebacker than a hockey player, he was probably the most interesting man in the room at all times. My phone buzzed, and I sighed before pulling it out of my pocket and taking a look. Mom: They’re leaving soon—when are you coming back? I think Dani thought you’d be here. “Yeah, well, I don’t give a shit what Dani thought,” I muttered under my breath. “What?” Richie asked, his ratty mullet looking like straight-up ames in the glow of the bonre. Calling him a redhead was like calling the pope slightly spiritual: a wicked fucking understatement. “Who is Danny?” I sighed and gave my head a shake. “She’s Mick Boche’s granddaughter.” And my former best friend. “Wait—Boche’s got a granddaughter? How old is she?” “Our age.” “No shit?” Vinny nished his drink and tossed the paper cup into the re. “Yeah. I kind of knew her when I was little, and she just moved here.” It wasn’t a lie. “She’s going to be going to Southview now.” “The hell you say—what does she look like?” “I’m picturing Mick with long hair, and it’s fucking terrifying,” Richie said with a laugh. “I have no clue,” I said, not wanting to think about it. Her hair, her freckles, her height… has she gotten even taller? “So why are you pissed about her?”

“I’m not,” I said defensively, knowing I sounded like a pouty little shit. “My mom is just all on my ass to go over there and see her when I don’t want to leave this party.” “And you shouldn’t,” Zack said, stepping into our conversation and lowering his voice. “Because Reid brought megabong.” “Of course he did,” Vinny laughed, shaking his head. Reid was the only guy I knew who legitimately behaved like he was something out of an eighties stoner movie. He didn’t really drink, but he was all about it when it came to smoking. I was the opposite. I didn’t mind having a few beers when I wasn’t driving, but contrary to popular belief (because of a few shenanigans that got blown way the fuck out of proportion), I really wasn’t into partying. Especially not Reid’s version of partying. But an hour later, when the beer had yet to slow the steady stream of Dani- focused thoughts (and my mom texted Dani is GORGEOUS now, btw), it suddenly felt like a good night to make a few mistakes. “Has anyone ever gotten lit while going down this hill?” Richie asked, falling into the high-pitched giggle that only came out when he was buzzed. “Reid would look like a fucking steam locomotive if he megabonged on a sled in motion.” “He’d never have the balls to try something that legendary,” Vinny said, shaking his head. “Are you kidding with that?” “No lies detected, Vincent the Flow,” Reid agreed, nodding while wearing a half-baked smirk. “But I bet I know who would.” “Who’s that crazy?” Zack said, throwing a handful of sticks into the re. “Our boy Zeus.” OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FIVE Dani I’m not nervous; I’m focused. I looked in the bathroom mirror and repeated the reminder, even though it was total bullshit. Nothing was worse than the rst days at a new school, and nervous didn’t begin to cover it. But over the years I’d discovered that if I focused on what Ineeded to get out of a new school, it made me feel more in control and marginally less… well, powerless. Instead of worrying about things like people judging me or where I was going to sit at lunch, I zeroed in on what mattered. For example, I wanted to go to Harvard next year. I wanted to go to Harvard so badly. I wanted to go to Harvard like Lorelai wanted Rory to go to Harvard. When I was in grade school, my dad was stationed at Hanscom Air Force Base, just outside Boston. My mom used to take me to Harvard for fun, and we’d spend entire autumn days exploring the campus while the leaves were in full color. She fed me Lunchables in Harvard Square, and I fell madly in love. I’d never been able to put my nger on exactly whatI loved about it, but Cambridge was my happy place. So, yes, my only goal in life at the moment was Harvard. I’d discovered over the past few years that when everything in your life sucked, making an absurd college goal your primary focus became an extraordinary diversion. Lacking in the friends department at your new school? Who cares? You need to focus on getting into Harvard. Is that volleyball player mocking you behind your back again?

Who cares? You need to focus on getting into Harvard (and that bitch could never get in, by the way). So what I needed from Southview was Harvard insurance, since I’d been freaking deferredand was still waiting on acceptance. I needed to maintain my perfect GPA, meet with a counselor to keep my goals on track, and make sure that the only thing admissions saw when they nally reviewed my application again was that I’d landed in Minnesota with my Harvard-destined nose to the grindstone. The focus of my rst day was to solidify those important things and not worry about anything else. I put my hair in a clip and turned o the bathroom light. But when I walked out to our little apartment kitchen, there was a note on the microwave from my mom. The electrical in the new kitchen still isn’t working, so come downstairs for breakfast. Wonderful. Last night, as soon as I’d climbed into bed, I’d realized that I still hadn’t had a single one-on-one conversation with my grandpa. Aside from “you got tall,” we hadn’t really exchanged any words. Which left me with this annoying nervousness about how things were going to be with him. Mick Fucking Boche. I rolled my eyes as I thought of everyone’s attitude toward him Saturday night, the way a table full of grown men had behaved as if he’d been Taylor Swift popping in for dinner, instead of an old man with a bad attitude. Obviously, hockey made people nuts. I grabbed my coat and backpack and went downstairs, wondering if I should even bother with breakfast. Seemed like a bad idea when my stomach was so knotted. Grandpa Mick was sitting at the table when I entered the kitchen, reading the newspaper while my mom appeared to be making scrambled eggs at the stove. He had reading glasses on the end of his nose, glasses that should’ve made him look old but instead just accentuated how intimidating he was.

“Good morning,” my mom said in a singsong voice, glancing over her shoulder and giving me a smile. “How’d you sleep?” “Great,” I said, not knowing what to do, so I sat down across from himat the table. “The beds are so comfy, right?” she said, sounding like a Disney princess with her happy breathlessness. “The comest,” I muttered, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “You don’t like the bed.” I looked across the table, taken aback by the quiet rasp of his voice and the way it hadn’t sounded like a question at all, and Grandpa Mick was watching me with his eyes narrowed. “N-no, um, I do,” I stammered, shrugging and adding, “It’s great.” “Because I can get a dierent bed.” He pulled o the readers and said, “You need softer or what.” What is a bed again? I felt like I was under the harsh lights of an interrogation room as my grandfather looked at me like I’d murdered someone and he wanted to know where the body was buried. “No, really, I love the bed.” “Oh.” He crossed his arms over his big chest, giving me hardcore direct eye contact, then said, “Today’s a blackout.” “What?” He gave my bulky sweater a chin nod. “At school. The kids are wearing all black because it’s rivalry week, starting with Simley.” “Oh.” I crossed myarms and said, “I’m just going to wear this, but thanks.” The thick, warm wool of my sherman sweater seemed more important than school spirit. “You sure that’s wise.” I thoughthe meant it as a question, but there was a period at the end of his statement. What was happening? “It’s warm and I don’t even know what a Simley is, so yes—it’s perfect.” “Dani,” my mom said, “it’s rivalry week. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to wear black today.” Oh well, if it’s rivalry week.

I knew my mom meant it in the best way. She knew how much I loathed rst days of school, so she was more concerned about me tting in than anything else. But the truth of the matter was that I knew all the rules of tting in at a new school; I could write the damn rule book. Rule #1—It’s not about fitting in; it’s about blending. Be invisible. That wasn’t me being melodramatic; it was me knowing how to survive. As a new student, you need to be relatively in style so the assholes won’t see a clueless dork and move in for the kill, but you can’t be too in style or it might look like you think you’re cool. And you don’t want to be ugly because the jerks love that, but prettiness can be perceived as a threat too, so it’s best to be vanilla. To look like everyone else. To be utterly forgettable and absolutely uninteresting. “Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “I’m too new to care about rivalries.” Wearing spirit-week clothing on your first day might be perceived as try-hard. “Southview should win,” Grandpa Mick said, his eyes on the newspaper. “Simley’s got no answer for Zeus.” “I’m assuming you’re not talking about the Greek god…?” I regretted it the minute the words left my mouth, because I couldn’t care less about sports. “Helluva defenseman,” he said to me with his eyebrows up like he genuinely thought I wanted to talk to him about sports. “The kid backpedal hits like Kronwall, I swear to God.” “What’s a Kronwall?” I asked. “Niklas Kronwall,” he said, his eyebrows scrunching together in disgust. “Played for the Red Wings? Legendary checker?” Now, I knew what he meant by “checker,” because even Iknew the Red Wings were a hockey team. But I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Wait, ‘hits’—is this baseball? What’s this Kronwall’s batting average?” “Hockey. It’s hockey.” He managed to scowl at me while also looking confused by my stupidity, like he couldn’t fathom that someone might actually respond that way. “I’m talkin’ about hockey.”

Minnesota men and their propensity for droppingg’s, I swear to God. “Are you ready to go?” my mom asked, giving me a look that told me she knew I was being a pain in the ass on purpose. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, wishing I could just be homeschooled. I tried very hard to convince my parents to let me do online high school when they decided to divorce, but good ol’ Mom and Dad were adamant that the things you learn socially are just as important as what you learn in your textbooks. Sure, I thought. It’s super important for me, as a senior, to continually relearn that I hate high school. My mom chattered the entire drive to school. I knew she was trying to distract me, but all I could do was stare out the window at the snow and houses while trying my hardest not to throw up on my own lap. My heart started beating faster when my mom turned into the parking lot, as I stared up at the ridiculously large brick high school that loomed in front of me. Everything about it looked ominous. Foreboding. So freaking cold. “It looks so dierent from when I went there,” my mom said, leaning forward to look up through the windshield. “But it’s a great school. And I gave you Alec’s number if you want to text him, right?” Alec never showed up the other night, which was a relief at the time but left me still dreading the reunion. My mom gave me his phone number so I could text him if I needed anything, and I was contemplating sending somethingin hopes of getting the awkwardness out of the way before we had to meet face-to- face. “Yeah,” I said, reaching down to grab my backpack as she drove closer to the doors. “Text me as soon as you can, just to let me know how it’s going so I can stop worrying, okay?” “Okay,” I said. “But don’t worry—it’ll be great.” I didn’t believe that, but what was the point of letting her into my stress? It wouldn’t make anything better for her, and she was already struggling to bounce back from the whole failed-marriage thing.

“I’ll text you later,” I said, reaching for the door and climbing out. Only the air punched me in the face as soon as I straightened. God, how can it be so freaking cold? “Bye, sweetie,” she said, giving me a wave before pulling away. I swallowed and headed for the doors, careful to take deep breaths in through my nose to try to keep the panic at bay. An anxiety attack on day one would be a nightmare, so I was going to make sure that didn’t happen. Please, God, no panic attack. As soon as I entered the school, I saw the oce. Which was nice in that I didn’t have to wander around looking more lost than I felt. But as I walked over, I couldn’t help but notice the massive amount of hockey… enthusiasm decorating every surface of the school’s interior. It was ridiculous. An enormous poster of the school’s hockey team hung from the rafters of the high ceiling, and posters of individual players were slapped up all over the walls. I understood school spirit, but it was laughable that a bunch of high school boys were taped up all over the place like they were actual celebrities. I opened the oce door, only to see even more hockey signage inside the bustling administrative area. IT’S PACKER GAME DAY!! Calm down, people. “Can I help you?” asked the woman behind the desk, who was holding a phone up to her ear. “Hi, um, my name is Dani Collins, and I’m new. It’s my, um, my rst day,” I stammered. “Well, good morning, Dani,” she said with a big smile, her tone laced with familiarity, like she’d been expecting me. “You’re a little early, so if you want to take a seat in one of the chairs, I imagine Cassie will be here in the next ten or fteen minutes.” “Cassie?” I asked, wondering if I was supposed to know who that was. “The student who’ll be showing you around,” she explained. “You’ll love her —Cassie’s a doll.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding. “Good.” “She knows everyone and everybody loves her, so she’ll be a great point of contact for you.” “Awesome,” I said, nodding again. I sat on one of the chairs and looked out the oce window, where it was getting busy in the hallway. Students yelling to each other, groups walking together… God, I hated it so much. Because on day one, there was no way to know who the threats were. The group of four girls who were laughing, with their pretty hair and perfect teeth? At this moment, they looked harmless. Nice, even. But they could actually be the girls capable of making someone’s life hell. My life. And the same went for guys. The four dudes standing by the trophy case, smiling and looking cute—they could either be nice guys, or the ones with the potential to ruin everything. There was no way to know, no warning signal to give you a hint of danger. A group of dudes in hockey jerseys walked by, strolling down the hall like they were icons. They walked past the multiple banners with their own images on them, moving like they ruled the world. Which wasn’t shocking after the hockey-themed dinner Saturday night. It was clearly the culture. Still… spare me. To be fair, I knew that I was prejudiced when it came to jocks. It was wrong to judge an entire group of humans by the actions of a few, but over the years, it’d been my experience that the overcondence that accompanied athletic successes created narcissistic social monsters. If mean girls were a thing (and they were), then cocky jocks were even worse. Because they wielded ridiculous amounts of power. A jock could ohandedly say “the new girl is hot,” and even if he meant it in a complimentary way, it just led to all his friends feeling the need to contribute their opinions as well.

No she’s not. She looks like a bitch. Her nose is weird. Those nerdy glasses, though, come on. “Just breathe,” I told myself, trying to keep the anxiety at bay. Watching the hockey players strut down the hall, I noticed another huge banner hanging from above. This one was strung all the way across the common area, and it had an image of the back of a hockey player on it, the name ZEUS stretched across the broad shoulders. Ridiculous. I took another deep breath, slowly inhaling through my nose. Everything is going to be fine. As if on cue, a girl with long brown hair walked into the oce. She was wearing black leggings and a black SOUTHVIEW HOCKEYcrewneck, and she went straight for the secretary. “There you are, Cassie,” the woman said. “This is Dani.” She gestured toward me and added, “Dani, this is Cassie.” Cassielooked over and smiled like she was happy to see me, which was better than her looking irritated, I supposed. Of course, it was also my experience that the student who volunteered to show new kids around was usually either (A) a genuinely nice person who liked their extracurriculars, or (B) a control freak who was insane about their extracurriculars. Hopefully she was the former. “Hi,” she said with a grin. “Do you have your schedule yet?” “Yes, they emailed it to me,” I said, gesturing toward my pocket like she would somehow know my phone was there. “Same, and I’m in awe of the way you’re taking AP and honors everything,” she said. “By the way, I love your sweater—it’s very Harry Burns rolling out the rug with Sally while discussing dating.” “Thank you,” I said, wanting to smile at the reference but knowing it was better to keep my mouth shut. Because another important rule?

Don’t share personal information with the volunteer who shows you around on your first day.No matter how nice they might seem, you don’t know where they t into the school’s social hierarchy. One minute you could be sharing with someone you think is friendly how When Harry Met Sally is still your comfort-watch, only to discover two days later that she mockingly told all her friends that you are a loser who still watches old rom-coms with your mother on DVD. The less you share, the better. Cassie led me out into the hallway and immediately turned on her tour-guide persona. She pointed out everything we passed, and I did my best to focus on her while being very aware of people looking at us. Just as she was showing me where in the cafeteria you could get breakfast, we walked by a few more hockey players, and one of them yelled her name. “What?” she said with a smile. “Can’t you see I’m busy?” “Yeah, but we have a question,” the red-haired guy said. “And it would be…?” “Where did you go Saturday night after you left the bonre?” he asked. “One minute you guys were there, the next second you were gone. And we couldn’t help but notice Kyle was gone too. So we were wondering…” “So don’t do that,” she said, rolling her eyes and kind of pushing him a little bit, but in a teasing way. “I have no idea what Kyle did after the party—don’t be an ass.” “I’m not an ass,” he said around a little laugh. “I just wanted to make sure you both got home safely.” “Sure you did. By the way, this is Dani—she’s new.” “Hi,” I said. “This is Richie,” she told me, pointing to the redhead. “And this is Vinny.” Vinny had a blond mullet that was so long it went halfway down his back. As if that weren’t jarring enough—what was withthat hair—he was ginormous. “Wait—your name is Dani?” Vinny asked, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah…?” I replied, my cheeks warm as they looked at me. Richie said, “Oh shit—are you Mick Boche’s granddaughter?” Okay, this is weird.

“Yes…?” How would he know that already? “Do you guys know each other?” Cassie asked, looking back and forth between me and these strangers. “No, but Zeus mentioned her the other night at the party,” Richie said. What? “You know Zeus?” she asked, her eyes wide like this was a very big deal. “No,” I said, unsure why this dude thought I did. “No, I think he must have me confused with someone else. I have no idea who this Zeus person is.” Richie said, “Yes, you do! He’s—” But then the bell rang and all I could hear from Richie was… absolutely nothing. Because it was like we were standing inside the bell, it was so loud. “Later, Cassie! Dani”—Mullet Boy smirked before bowing—“it was a pleasure.” What the hell… And with that, the hockey guys immediately dispersed, leaving me with unanswered questions. How would some puckboy named Zeus have ever heard of me? “Okay, let’s get you to class so you’re not late on your rst day; no one likes being the center of attention that way, right?” Oh, thank God she gets it,I thought. “Right.” “Okay, so I’ll walk you to your rst class, and then I’ll be waiting when it ends to get you to second period. Cool?” “Perfect,” I said. “Thank you.” But as we walked and she pointed out classrooms and hallways, I couldn’t shake the annoyance that some hockey jock had mentioned me. Like, howwww? I mean, it didn’t make sense, because I’d literally met no one since I’d been here, but I supposed the tie-in to my grandpa made it possible. Maybe Richie’s dad was one of Big John’s friends. It irked me because I just wanted to be invisible. I needed whoever the hell Zeus was to forget he’d ever heard my name, if he had actually heard my name at all.

“Here we are: AP Lit,” Cassie said, interrupting my thoughts by pointing to a classroom. “That’s Mr. Hunter and he’s really cool, so I’m sure you’ll have no problem with him. Actually, let me help you.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the classroom. “Hey, Mr. Hunter—this is Dani, and she’s a new student.” He looked down at the piece of paper Cassie was holding out, which pretty much just had my name and schedule on it, and he narrowed his eyes. I tried my best to pretend the people in the classroom weren’t looking at us, even though I knew they were. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Dani Collins,” he said. I nodded and smiled, wishing he would lower his voice and let me go sit down. “There’s an open desk in the back of the room—have a seat. I’ll get you a textbook as soon as the nal bell rings.” “Awesome,” I said, my face on re. “I’ll be back when it’s over,” Cassie said with a smile. I was torn between being relieved she was leaving, because she was outrageously perky in a way that made me feel like a noncommunicative boob, and wanting to grab her arm and beg her to stay and protect me. “Cool—thanks,” I said, then headed toward the empty desk in the back of the room. Where I would do my very best to become invisible. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SIX Alec Is that her? I walked down the hallway, listening to Vinny’s conspiracy theory about Kyle and Cassie while my eyes stayed glued to the back of an unfamiliar blonde’s head. From what I could see, she was shortish, with wavy blond hair, and she was walking toward the history hall. “Are you listening to me?” Vinny asked. “Nope,” I admitted, my eyes laser-focused on those curls. “Not at all.” It wasn’t because I was interested in anything about her—hell, no—but because I wanted conrmation of whether or not it was her. For some reason, I needed to know. Was she here? Was Dani actually walking the halls of Southview this very minute? That just seemed impossible. God, seventh-grade me would’ve fucking flipped at the idea. “Zeus!” I turned around and Tawnee was smiling, walking toward me, holding the scarf I gave her just before I left the bonre. “I told you I’d return it,” she said, and I had to force myself to smile. And not look over my shoulder to track the blonde’s progress. Tawnee was hot, Tawnee was cool, so why did I just want to crane my neck and see where the curls had gone? Dani was nothing to me, so I denitely didn’t need the mere idea of her to screw up any chance I had with Tawnee. Although, to be fair, it was a long shot that Tawnee wanted something with me in the rst place, because everyone knew she was still hung up on her ex. “Thanks,” I said, and shoved it in my pocket.

“How’d you feel yesterday?” she asked, her expression telling me she thought I’d been wasted at the bonre. I hadn’t been, but I’d gone harder than I should have. “Fabulous,” I said, smiling like I meant it. “Like a ray of sunshine, thank you for asking.” She gave a little laugh as the bell rang, and I was glad when she went in the other direction. Dammit. I shouldn’t be glad. I needed a reset, because two days ago Tawnee Flanigan was all over my radar, but this morning I just wanted her out of my sight so I could play Where’s Waldo? with some blonde’s head. Dani was messing with my mind and I hadn’t even seen her yet, which was stupid. She was nothing to me anymore, literally nothing, and the sooner I stopped even remembering she existed, the better. I put in my AirPods and cued up Hippo Campus. “Brand New” was the perfect song to make me stop wasting time and brain cells on someone who’d proved to me a long time ago that she wasn’t worth it. “Dude, I met Mick Boche’s granddaughter.” “What?” I nearly shouted the word at Richie as we walked into the lunchroom, but the conrmation that she was within these walls fucking rocked me. “Yeah, Cassie’s showing her around, and Vin and I ran into them on the way to rst period. She’s fucking cute.” Vinny arched his eyebrow at me as if to say, Typical Richard, our hopeless romantic. Richie grabbed a stack of like ten napkins because he was a neat freak and said, “She’s got that whole librarian thing working for her, where you just want to see what’s going on behind those glasses.” “This isn’t Hallmark or Pornhub. Glasses are just glasses,” Vinny said. “She’s got bad eyes and probably a little stamp she uses in her home library that says

‘This book belongs to Miss Boche.’” “No less interested,” Richie said with a laugh. “How do you know she’s Boche’s granddaughter?” I asked, unsure why I felt like I’d been zapped by a stun gun. “Cass said her name is Dani; isn’t that what you said her name is?” “Yeah,” I said, grabbing a tray and sliding it past the salad bar, though I suddenly had zero appetite. “That’s her.” “I didn’t really get to talk to her because the bell rang,” he said, “but trust that I’m going to nd her by the end of the day.” That pissed me o for no good reason. “I’d keep my distance if I were you,” I cautioned, the idea of Richie going after her making me insane even though I didn’t give a shit about her. “Because she was kind of a sketchball the last time I saw her.” “What do you mean, ‘sketchball’?” he asked. “I don’t know,” I said, trying to sound casual as I reached out to grab a chicken sandwich. “Just one of those people where you can’t really trust them because they’re all over the place. Sketchy.” “Ooh, did the librarian dump you?” Vinny asked with a smirk as he set three pieces of pizza on his tray. “No,” I said, because that was the absolute truth. You have to be withsomeone in order to dump them, and Dani was never with me at all. “We never went out; we were friends when we were kids, that’s all, and she was—” “Sketchy, yeah, we get it,” Vinny interrupted. “Tell me they have estadas today,” Kyle said as he ran up to us. “I need my lucky lunch.” Kyle was our starting goalie and superstitious as fuck. Like, worse than all of us put together. “They have estadas,” Richie conrmed. “I saw three on Bauer’s tray when I came in.” “If that skinny fuck made them run out, I’ll have to destroy him.” “Are you even capable of destruction,” Vinny asked, “if you don’t have your lucky lunch rst?” “Oh shit,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “I don’t even know.”

I pretty much didn’t hear anything anyone said at lunch because I was irrationally annoyed that Richie had called her cute and my mom had called her gorgeous. For starters, I didn’t give a shit. But also, like, she shouldn’t be cute. She wasn’t allowed to be gorgeous, dammit. The last thing I needed was for Dani Collins to be beautiful and a student at Southview. I had no room for distractions like that in my life. I put on my headphones and tried drowning out the chaos with “Come Apart,” but it was useless. The idea of her drove me nuts for the rest of the day, my head turning every time there was blond hair in my peripheral vision. But by the time we got out early for the pep rally, at least I convinced myself it was normal behavior. I was curious—that was all. It was absolutely normal to wonder what a childhood friend looked like as an adult. This wasn’t pathetic little Alec, searching for the girl he’d had a crush on since birth. No; this was totally dierent. I was dierent. This was just me—Zeus—being curious if my shitty ex-friend had grown into a cute chick or not. No big deal. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SEVEN Dani Thank God pep rallies aren’t mandatory. I made my way toward the doors, excited for this unexpected reprieve. I’d gone into the gym with everyone else when we were dismissed for the event, and I didn’t realize until we were three cheers and a ght song deep that I had the option to leave. Talk about a bonus. It was weird, though. Even though it wasn’t required, it looked like the entire school was sticking around for the pep rally. Not only that, but Grandpa Mick had been right: Nearly every person in that gym was dressed in black. I actually stood out in my o-white sweater, though I still stood by my tiny little act of rebellion, because it made me feel like I had a shred of life control. Just as I reached the exit doors, the hockey team was announced, and I swear to God the entire student body jumped to their feet, screaming like they were at a concert and not a school-spirit event. I turned back when it sounded like the crowd was booing, but as it turned out, they were just chanting “Zeus!” like a bunch of zealots. I mean, even if “Zeus” was great at hockey, this adoration was absolutely unhinged. And there was no way the boy wasn’t a total egomaniac. I narrowed my eyes and went down the row of players, curious to see if by some chance I might recognize the guy who’d apparently mentioned me. But the tall dude wearing aviators and raising a st in the air like Bender from The Breakfast Club was no one I’d ever seen before. Thank God.

I left and headed for the counselor’s oce, grateful for the empty halls and the extra time to get something accomplished. And when I got there, not only did I discover that my assigned counselor (Joan Hrznski, according to her name plate) had also chosen to skip the pep rally (obviously she was smart), but she had time to talk. “Come in, Dani—have a seat. What can I do for you?” I sat down, took a deep breath, and launched into the whole nightmarish story of how I was still in limbo. I’d applied under Restrictive Early Action because I was all over my Harvard shit, but the divorce nightmare had had me so upset that my application hadn’t been as strong as it might’ve been. As it shouldhave been. Which led to me not being accepted, but being deferred. God, I still couldn’t believe it. When I freaked out over the news, the counselor at my school in Germany had recommended not only that I keep my grades up—Harvard is always watching—but that I beef up my résumé with extracurriculars at my new school. “Well, I’m inclined to agree with her.” Ms. Hrznski nodded and said, “Keep writing to them, keep calling and pursuing the admissions oce, and I’ll do the same on my end. Nail down the extracurriculars here at Southview, keep your GPA up, and I’m condent we can still make it happen.” I had my doubts about her condence, but I was going to delusionally believe her because what was my other option? I wasn’t about to face reality, for the love of God. I would rather call admissions every other day until the breath left my body. I’d pictured my rst year at Harvard for longer than I knew what the word “freshman” meant; failure was not an option. “Do you know of some clubs that might be easy for me to get connected with?” I asked. I’d always been good at nding activities that looked great on admissions applications—environmental club, math club, Amnesty International—yet didn’t require a lot of social interaction. Hopefully Southview would have the same.

“Well, it’s February, dear,” she said, her usage of the word “dear” irritating me because I wasn’t some annoying spouse or child who was asking for the moon, for God’s sake. I just wanted to join a damn math club. Then she added, “It’s a little late to join a club.” So… why did you tell me to find an extracurricular if it’s too late? I swallowed down my frustration and calmly said, “What would you suggest for extracurriculars, then?” “Maybe a spring sport—that’d be great,” she said, nodding like she’d come up with the perfect solution. Yes, Joan, that would indeed be great if I were magically athletic all of a sudden. “Yeah, um, I don’t play any sports,” I said, trying to sound positive and not like I wanted to bang my head against a wall. “Isn’t there like an environmental club or yearbook—” “No, those are all closed by now,” she said, cutting me o with a smile and a head shake. “If I were you, I would go home and rack my brain for potential activities that you might not be thinking of. Maybe track and eld…?” Do you seriously think if I were a runner I wouldn’t have thought of running, Joan Hrznski?? “Okay, thank you,” I blurted out, climbing to my feet. I needed to get out of there before I lost my mind and did something stupid, like cry. I walked out of the oce, fuming because how ridiculous was it that my Harvard aspirations could be dead in the water unless I joined a team? It was absurd. It was just as absurd as the fact that legacy students were able to get in simply by being related to a former smart person, and jocks could get in on scholarship because they were able to dribble a ball while wearing a Harvard jersey. How were those people seen as fantastic candidates, yet someone like me, who’d studied my ass o my entire life, could maybe only get in if I added to my permanent record that I’d bowledat a high school somewhere in Minnesota? Insane.

I stepped out into the hallway and gritted my teeth as crowds poured out of the gym. Fabulous timing. I just wanted to be left alone to pout and be unhappy—was that so much to ask? The last thing I needed was to be surrounded by students losing their minds over whether or not the hockey team was going to be able to outpuck Simley’s hockey team that night. And how stupid a name is Simley anyway?! Just as I was mentally raging, a group of hockey players walked by and I was suddenly surrounded. They didn’t even notice me as I was absorbed into the center of their saunter pod, stuck because they were each hauling a huge hockey bag that served as some sort of duel perimeter. Please kill me. I clutched the straps of my backpack, keeping my head down while trapped in the middle of the swagger sandwich as everybody in the hallway cheered them on as if their mere presence was the greatest thing to ever happen to the world. The exit doors were just ahead, so I needed to keep my head down and make it a few more steps and then I’d be free. “Zeus!” One of the guys in front of me—the tallest guy—turned, which made his ginormous hockey bag come around and knock me to the oor. Literally. His body-bag-sized duel laid me out. “Oof” was the moronic noise I heard myself make as I fell to my ass, and something about that duel slamming into me—and a random laugh I heard from somewhere behind me in the hallway—was the nal straw. “Can you maybe watch where you’re going?” I snapped, too frustrated to hold back. “Just because you know how to hit a puck with a stick doesn’t mean you’re allowed to just mow people down in the hallway with your stupidly huge bag.” I wouldn’t have thought he’d hear me, because it was so noisy in the hallway, but the guy stopped. The huge dude in the hockey jersey turned his head and looked down at me, and I gasped when those brown eyes met mine.

Brown eyes that were sort of amber and absolutely familiar. Brown eyes that’d looked into mine countless times during those summer months. Brown eyes that I’d never forgotten, even when I tried my hardest. His mouth kicked up into a cocky smirk, and he held out a hand. “Nice to see you too, Collins.” Alec. Alec was Zeus. Zeus was Alec. I was too shocked to move, to speak. Words escaped me because the everything of us hit me harder than his hockey bag. Alec, myAlec, was standing right in front of me, close enough to touch. After everything and all the years, it was nally happening. We were back. “Zeus! You comin’?” yelled one of the guys ahead, breaking me from my trance. “The bus is here.” Alec’s eyes narrowed as he took in my face. Silence lingered for too long until he lowered his hand away from me. The crowds in the hallway moved in slow motion, their cheers and yells a blur of noise. But I heard Alec’s voice clearly. “Yeah,” he yelled back, his lips lifting teasingly. “I knocked some chick over with my bag.” Some chick? His Adam’s apple moved around a swallow. The smirk stayed on his mouth, but his eyes went hard. Um. I might not know him anymore, but I recognized that look. He… denitely wasn’t happy to see me. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER EIGHT Alec How dare she? How dare she look up at me like that? It was almost game time, but my mind was still on her face as I took a few laps, taking shots at the open net while picking up speed. God, her face. Richie was wrong. She wasn’t cute—she was fucking gorgeous. Dani had always been pretty because of her laugh and the way she was so carefree. Her Dani-nessmade her impossible to look away from. The girl I’d knocked down in the hallway, though—she was a drop-dead stunner. All that wavy blond hair, those big brown eyes and black glasses… it fucking worked. Not that I cared. I wasn’t a dick, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t felt good to turn around and walk away like I’d never seen her before. Because she didn’t matter anymore. “Fuck,” I muttered under my breath when I heard the whistle, because warm-ups were over and I’d barely registered any of it. I was on fucking autopilot, which was the last thing I needed to be when I had a game. I needed to be on. I needed to be intentional. I needed to be proactively on top of every move being made by every player in a fucking blue jersey. Shutting down Simley was the only thing that mattered, especially when I knew there were scouts in the seats. Fuckingfocus, dipshit.

A few years back, I used to get myself pumped up by imagining Dani watching me play in the NHL someday—while she was married to some loser and regretting her decisions. Regretting what she did. It’d worked at the time, but I didn’t need that motivational shit anymore. She was nothing, and hockey was everything. I jumped the boards and took down some water, redirecting my thoughts from her to the game as Coach started drawing out plays on his clipboard. And by the time the puck dropped, she was long gone from my mind. We struck rst as Bauer snapped a shot past Simley’s goalie on an odd-man rush, and then Richie made it 2–0 as he nished o a pretty passing play with Kirchner and Hardina. We had a shitty second period overall, and Vinny had to make some saves when we were leaking oil a little bit, but in the end we pulled it o and got the win. A gutty eort, an ugly fucking dub. But a win was a win. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER NINE Dani “You came back,” Cassie said with a smile, standing just inside the front doors as if she’d been waiting for me. “Wait—did I have a choice?” I replied as I lowered my hood, welcoming the warm air on my face. But the truth was that I was no less nervous today than I’d been yesterday. Southview had A-days and B-days, with a dierent rotating schedule for each day, which meant that since yesterday had been an A-day, today was a B-day and yet another day of new classes. Like a second rst day of school. And the fact that Alec hadn’t looked happy to see me yesterday was messing with my head. I didn’t understand his reaction—if anyone had a reason to look unhappy, it was me—but it made me nervous to run into him again. And, as if all that wasn’t bad enough, one of my B-day classes was public speaking, a requirement for all seniors at Southview. So, yes—I was actually more nervous for my second rst day than I’d been for my rst. Because I was the type of person who would’ve been queasy over public speaking even if I’d attended this school my entire life; speaking in front of other people just wasn’t my thing. But having this class at a new school—total nightmare. I just prayed I didn’t have one of those speech teachers who thought it would be great to force you to tell people a little bit about yourself on the very rst day. “I suppose you didn’t, but I’m happy to see you, regardless,” Cassie said. “Showing you around is way more interesting than just going to my boring classes.”

“Yeah,” I said, still a little unsure how to talk to someone so outgoing. Human nature made me want to open up because she seemed so nice, but experience had taught me that was a terrible idea. “Let’s head toward your rst class,” she said. “Because it’s over on the northwest side of the building, which is a little farther.” We started walking, and I felt slightly less conspicuous than I had the day before, thank God. Cassie was so incredibly nice that even though I knew better, I found myself telling her about my visit to the counselor’s oce. And dammit—it felt nice, having someone sympathize with my diculties. “So did you do anything last night, after that letdown?” she asked as we passed by the library. “I feel like everyone was at the hockey game, but I suspect you were not.” “No, I just stayed home and unpacked some boxes,” I said. I actually managed to get my entire room unpacked andtalk to my dad on the phone, although that ended with me feeling emotionally drained. I had such a weird, complicated relationship with him. Ninety percent of the time, I thought of him as “the colonel” in my head. He was strict, by the book, a pretty distant father but a very good man. Upstanding citizen and born leader, absolutely impossible to relate to. But the other ten percent of the time, when he let his guard down… that was when I missed him so much it hurt. Because during those rare moments, he’d do things like send a funny meme that I suspected he didn’t understand but somehow knew I’d love, or have owers delivered that let me know he was actually thinking of me. My entire life had been me watching him with wide eyes, breathlessly waiting for those few and far between occasions when he was “Dad” instead of “the colonel.” Yesterday had been one of those times. He’d FaceTimed after I got home from school to see what my room looked like, and instead of saying my mom’s name or the word “Minnesota” in the tone he always used that told me he didn’t approve of the move and everything that went along with it, he told me that Germany wasn’t the same without me. And as nice as it’d been, it’d made me miss him so much that hours later, I still hadn’t been able to sleep.

Because the thing I found so hard about the divorce was the lack of forced proximity. In a normal, intact family, both parents being nearby was the default, whether you liked it or not. But in a divorce, that was never the case and never would be again. I felt my dad’s absence every day, just as strongly as I felt my mom’s presence. And it sucked. “Well, the game was crazy,” Cassie said, assuming I would be interested. “Yeah?” I asked, trying to be a good conversationalist. Hockey was apparently interesting to everyone in Southview except for me. “Did we win?” “We won, but we were down the entire third period until Zeus scored with ve minutes left in the game.” “He did?” How could Alec be Zeus, the player my grandpa was going on about and the one who’d inspired a thousand posters? He’d been absolutely unathletic as a child, adorably clumsy in an I’d rather play Roblox kind of way. So how could he be not just an athlete, but a varsity hockey player? It didn’t make sense. I’d replayed our reunion scene in my head over and over again since it happened, getting angrier every time I thought about it. Not only had he notapologized for knocking me down with his bag, but he’d walked away like he didn’t know me and laughed about it with his friends. He’d called me “some chick.” I shouldn’t care, but the knowledge that my childhood bestie had turned into an oversized, arrogant jock was just straight-up depressing. So much for the one good thing about the move. “Oh yeah—he single-handedly won the game for us, but that’s not new. That’s kind of his thing.” “So Alec is actually really good at hockey.” It just seemed impossible, even though the new version of Alec certainly looked like a hockey player. “Are you kidding me?” She gawked like I’d just asked if the earth was round. “Saying Alec is good at hockey is like saying LeBron James is an okay basketball player. He’s broken a zillion high school records and he’s a potential NHL prospect. He’s like the best.”

“Alec Barczewski.” It was just too out-there to believe, even after witnessing the school’s reaction to him at the pep rally. “Shut up!” He’d been as unathletic as me. “So do you know him?” Cassie asked, her eyes narrowing. “Yesterday you said you didn’t.” “That’s because I didn’t know him by the nickname,” I claried, in total shock. “I knew him when I was a little kid, before he was Zeus. He’s like an… honorary cousin of mine, if you know what I mean.” I didn’t want her to think there was any tie between us, because the last thing I needed was for people to link me with the popular jock; that could mess me up before I made a single friend. I added, “I haven’t seen him in years, so he’s basically a stranger.” Right as I said that, we walked by yet another poster of the hockey team, and this time my eyes found him immediately. Zeus. Ugh. Something about his expression in that image made me think of his black eye, the one he got playing baseball the summer after fth grade. A y ball came right to him, but instead of catching it with his glove, he caught it with his face. And he’d been happy about it because he got to sit out the rest of the game, and his dad bought us Dairy Queen afterward. That had been my buddy. I couldn’t believe Alec (sorry, Zeus)had become the exact kind of guy I’d learned to avoid at every single school I went to. I guess it’s time to avoid my former best friend. Although, that was apparently going to be easier said than done. Oh, universe, what did I ever do to you? I thought when I walked into my speech class later that day and saw him. I already wanted to vomit because of my aforementioned terror of public speaking and rst days, but there he was, sitting in the back with two other guys, each smirking with legs stretched out under their desks like they owned the room.

“This is Dan Collins,” Ms. Sykes said to the class, “and she is a new student. Everyone make sure to say hi to Dan and help her out. There’s a desk over there for you.” I knew I should correct her—it’s Dani—but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. So now I’d probably be known as “Dan” for the rest of the year. I looked in the direction of where she was pointing and it was on the other side of the room from Alec, which was good, but the chairs were arranged in a big U shape, so I could still see him and his friends at all times. Wonderful. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at him when I walked by his desk, just as he tilted his head and met my eyes. While smirking, like he was the king who found himself amused by the presence of a lowly peasant. I clenched my teeth and was about to look away when he winked. Winked at me. He might’ve even made a clicking noise with his mouth, but I couldn’t be sure my brain hadn’t added that douchebag sound eect. My face was on re as I sat down and unzipped my backpack, torn between nervousness, embarrassment, and kind of wanting to rip his face o for winking at me. Who did that? What kind of eighteen-year-old senior in high school winked at someone? The arrogance it took to throw out a wink in response to someone looking in your direction was truly astounding. Thankfully, the teacher started in on a lesson, and since we were required to take notes, I was able to forget about the freaking winker on the other side of the room. I threw myself into notes, writing every single word because it was a far better option than looking up from my paper. Halfway through the class I glanced his way, only to see that his head was down on his desk, and he was asleep. Alec was sleeping in class like he didn’t give a shit. And it kind of made me want to cry, honestly. It felt like I’d lost something (even though I’d technically lost him a long time ago), because over the past ve

years, through all the bad days, I’d imagined that my best friend still existed somewhere, even if he wasn’t in my life. I was able to think that somedaywe might be friends again. But now I was forced to face the reality that the possibility no longer existed. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TEN Alec “I can’t believe you fell asleep again,” Kyle said. “I can’t believe Sykes let me,” I replied, relieved as we left the classroom. Because I’d needed that nap so badly. Last night, after the game, my throbbing shoulder kept me up until my alarm went o, I swear to God. I was fucking exhausted, and that nap during speech had done wonders. The only shock was that I’d been able to fall asleep at all after getting punched in the gut with Dani’s presence. Somehow, even though I knew she went to my school now, I hadn’t considered the reality that she might actually end up in one of my classes. When she walked into public speaking, I could barely breathe. How the hell was this happening? I didn’t want her to be in Southview at all, but denitely not in my life, in my fucking speech class. It was unbelievable. Her cheeks had been bright red, and her eyes were down when she walked to her desk, and if I didn’t know her, I would’ve thought she was super shy. But Dani Collins wasn’t shy. At all. I wasn’t sure if it was an act or if she was unhappy to see me, but it didn’t matter. She was just another girl at my school, and I would ignore her like I did any other girl I wasn’t friends with. I loaded a little Connor Kauman into my playlist and moved the hell on. Only for some reason, when I saw her through the library window at lunch, I couldn’t do it. She was sitting all by herself at a table, and dammit—I couldn’t ignore her.

“Hey, I’m going to go in the library for a sec,” I said to Kyle, my eyes on blond hair and glasses. “I’ll meet you in the cafeteria.” “I’ll go with you,” he said with a smirk. “I see what you’re doing.” “It’s not what you think,” I said as he gestured with his head toward Dani. “I just need to grab a book.” “Sure, me too,” he said, walking beside me as I pulled open the library door and went inside. For a half second, I was able to look at her without her seeing me. Her eyes were on the book in her hands, so I took a moment to really take in my old friend. Holy shit. I might not give a damn about her now, but the kid who’d spent his entire childhood following her around like a puppy needed a minute to catalog this updated version of her. The curly hair that used to stick out all over now fell in long waves around her face, like she’d gured out how to relax the wildness. Which could maybe be said for her personality, I supposed, since I’d yet to see the wild-ass grin that used to be her default expression. She looked good in the black turtleneck sweater she was wearing. It was plain, nothing remarkable about it at all, but it was like it fucking showcased her soft skin and the— “Dude,” Kyle said, grinning at me like he just caught me staring at the new girl. Because he had. “Kiss my ass,” I said, walking over to her table. “Hey, Collins,” I said, dropping down into the chair across from her even though I had no idea what I was doing there or what my plan was. She was like a magnet pulling me toward her. I hated it. She raised her eyes from her book, and for the splittest of seconds it looked like she might smile. The moment held like a pause, long-lashed brown eyes I’d known sowell watching me from behind black glasses, and I felt almost homesick for the

person I used to know. But then her eyes went to Kyle, and back to me, and then she blinked fast before quietly saying, “Hey, Alec.” “So how come you’re hiding in the library at lunch?” I asked, telling myself to get it together and knock o the homesick bullshit. “I’m not very hungry and I wanted to read,” she said with a shrug. Then she lowered her eyes back to her book, brushing me o. Like she was nished with me. Like she’d been finished with me back in the day. And just like that, I wanted to get under her skin. To mess with this unfamiliar quiet composure that I found to be irrationally irritating. “Have you met Kyle yet?” I asked. “This is Kyle. Kyle, this is my old buddy Dani. Say hi, Dani.” She raised her eyes again, and annoyance was all over her face. “Hi,” she said to Kyle. “Hey,” Kyle replied, smiling but looking confused. Which made sense because the vibe between Dani and me was awkward as shit. “So how do you like Southview so far?” I asked, setting my chin on my st like I was dying to hear her answer. “It’s ne,” she said, a crinkle forming in between her eyebrows as her eyes dropped down to my mouth, cataloging what I was sure appeared to be an asshole grin. Good. “What’s this about?” I asked for no good reason, reaching out to ick the front cover of her book. “The Blind Assassinisn’t actually about a visually impaired killer, is it?” “No.” She cleared her throat and closed the book, her eyes narrowing a little. “Is there something I can help you with? I’m trying to get some reading done before my next class, but I can totally move to a dierent table if you guys want to chat.”

“But we want to chat with you, Dan,” I said, unable to stop myself from being a tool. “I don’t think you do, though, Al,” she snapped, but quickly covered it with a fake smile, seeming like the old Dani for a second. “It feels a little bit like you just want to interrupt me.” “You look fun to interrupt,” I said, wondering as I looked at her frosted pink ngernails if she still insisted that her toes always match. “What can I say?” “You could say nothing,” she replied, so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it. “Jesus, you guys are old friends,” Kyle said with a laugh. “You sound like siblings.” “There you are!” All three of us turned as Cassie breezed through the library doors and ran over to the table. “I was looking for you everywhere, Dani, because I thought maybe you’d want to sit with me and my friends at lunch.” She was friends with Cassie already? Shit.The last thing I needed was Dani showing up everywhere I went with my friends. “Actually, I think I’m just going to read through lunch, because this is a really good book,” she said, her cheeks getting red as we all looked at her. “But thank you.” “Sure,” Cassie said, looking at me and adding, “I see you ran into your old buddy.” Dani looked embarrassed, glancing my way as she said, “Oh, um—” “You already told her about us, eh?” I couldn’t help myself. “Your Zeus connection?” That made her nose wrinkle like she smelled something bad. “It denitely wasn’t like that.” “Yeah, she didn’t even know you at rst,” Cassie said, then grabbed a chair and pulled it so she was sitting beside Dani. “By the way, I was thinking about your Harvard problem.” “Ooh, what’s your Harvard problem?” I asked, grabbing Dani’s book and picking it up. Dani shot me a butt out look. “It’s nothing—”

“Dani’s been deferred by Harvard, the only school she’s ever wanted to go to,” Cassie explained. “So she needs to get in a couple of extracurriculars here at Southview so she can lock it down, but it’s too late to join most of the clubs.” The only school she’s ever wanted to go to. I cleared my throat, forcing away the memory of how for the entire summer after fth grade, Dani wore a bright red Harvard T-shirt almost every day. I started to open the book I’d snagged, but Dani snatched it out of my hand. “Hrznski didn’t even help, she just told her to play a spring sport, which is ridiculous, right?” Cassie made a face and said, “Like someone can just start a new sport their senior year.” It pissed me o as I listened to Cassie talk about poor Dani, because I had zero choices regarding my education. It didn’t matter where I wanted to go to college, because unless something changed, it wasn’t the plan for next year. It was just assumed I’d play juniors or train over in Michigan. And yes, it was a dream come true that I had these insane hockey opportunities, but no one had ever even asked what Iwanted. If I was being honest, I wanted to go to college next year like everyone else, so fucking badly. I wanted to study history, to get lost in old libraries and sleep in university dorms, but I felt like shit even thinking that, because how many guys would kill to be in my shoes? Still, Dani complaining because she might not get to attend the Ivy League school of her dreams didn’t exactly have me bleeding sympathy. “Regretting the unathleticism, Collins?” I asked. “Maybe you should’ve practiced skating instead of reading all the time.” “And risk ending up an egomaniac with a stupid nickname? I’d rather go to community college, but thank you.” Holy shitballs, there she is—the girl who used to play with me every summer. “Whoa,” Kyle said, laughing. “Did the new girl just destroy you?” “I think she tried,” I said, torn between irritation and wanting to smile. “I think she succeeded,” Cassie said around a laugh. “I’m telling your mom,” I said, dropping her book on the table in front of her.

“Snitch,” she said with a tiny smirk, and then I watched as she realized what she’d just said. Oh, the fast blink of regret. We’d used “snitches get stitches” for an entire summer because it’d been hilarious in the way that middle school jokes were hilarious when on repeat. It was interesting that the words had naturally fallen out of her mouth. She might’ve left me behind, but she hadn’t forgotten. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER ELEVEN Dani “Come eat, kiddo!” I set down my pen and stretched, because I’d been working on homework since I got home at three thirty and it was almost seven. Southview’s AP classes were no joke, and I needed to stay on top of the curriculum because I had no room for anything less than an A+. But I was starving and something smelled really good, so I ran down the stairs. When I got downstairs, Grandpa Mick was twirling spaghetti around his fork, my mom doing the same beside him. “Oh, praise God, spaghetti,”I said under my breath, starving. I was famished because I hadn’t eaten lunch at school. It’d been years since I’d consumed lunch in a cafeteria. It was another one of those important lessons of starting a new school. Far better to lose yourself in a library book over lunch than navigate a crowded cafeteria. It was peaceful and unthreatening, and a little bit of hunger beat a heaping helping of mortication every time. Although today the mortication had nearly happened inthe library. Even after discovering he’d become some arrogant jockish version of his former self, I was still surprised that he’d seemed to nd it entertaining to mess with me. I would’ve assumed our family connection would at least make him ignore me, since he’d clearly decided I wasn’t worth his jock-star time, so his plopping down and inserting himself in my life just for funsies had been a total surprise. I hated that a tiny part of me just wanted to know why. And why he so clearly didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Maybe Zeuswas just too cool for me now.

It was also driving me crazy, wondering if he’d laughed to all his friends about the postcards. “How was school today?” Grandpa Mick asked, pulling me out of my spin. “Good,” I said, glancing over at him because the way he’d asked didn’t feel like small talk. Did he know something? “How do you like Southview?” he asked, picking up his garlic bread and taking a bite. “As much as I like any school,” I said, grabbing a plate and scooping a pile of pasta from the colander still in the sink. I didn’t recognize the pot or the colander or the smell of the sauce—had he made dinner? My mom was all jar sauce, all the time. “It’s Grandma’s recipe,” my mom said, reading my mind as she lifted a forkful of noodles to her mouth. “He nailed it, and the meatballs are to die for.” “You made this?” I asked my grandpa. “What, you think I can’t cook?” I couldn’t tell if I’d oended him or if he was messing with me. “I think I have no idea,” I said, which was the truth, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I realized they sounded like a jab about his absence from our lives. Which was deserved, I supposed, but unintended. “Did you make friends today?” my grandpa asked as I sat down across from him and my mom, but he was looking at his phone. Why was he asking me questions about school? “Sure,” I said, even though the only person who’d been friendly to me was Cassie and it was because it was her job. “Are there any concerns you have that you would like to, um, to talk about?” Was he serious? Maybe my interaction with Alec—ugh, Zeus—made me suspicious about everything, but why all the questions? “What do you mean?” I asked. “I think he’s just checking in to see if you want to talk about anything,” my mom said, reaching out to grab a piece of bread while giving me a be nicelook. But he was stilllooking down at his phone and not at me.

“Is… that what you meant?” He sighed and nally looked up. “Hell if I know.” So I shrugged and said, “I’m ne,” just as the words “how to talk to your teenager about school” caught my eye before his phone buzzed with a notication and he snatched it up. Wait. Was he googling how to talk to me? I watched him looking at his phone, and I was dying to know if that was the case. Can that be it? Something warmed in my chest at the thought of it, because the idea of him actively trying to know me better was… well, nice. But my body immediately sent a dose of anxiousness to my stomach, because it was foolish to toss hopefulness into this wildly confusing relationship, right? “Oh shit,” he said as he read whatever message had just come through. “What is it?” my mom asked, leaning over to see his phone. “Oh shit, this is not good,” he said, holding it out for my mom to see. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Is that Alec?” My mom grabbed his phone and squinted as she looked at the screen. “What has the hockey god Zeus done now?” I asked, stabbing a meatball with my fork. “Walked on water?” But when I raised my eyes, they were both looking at me like I was a jerk. “What?” “I’m going to go call Sarah,” my mom said, and then she jumped out of her chair and ran upstairs. “What happened?” I asked Grandpa Mick, suddenly worried. “Is everything okay?” He gave his head a shake. “Someone posted this on social media.” He held up his phone, and there was a picture of Alec. A picture of Alec holding what appeared to be the world’s biggest bong, and his eyes were only half open; he looked hammered. And happy. With a raging re in the background. “What was he thinking?” I said under my breath, relieved he wasn’t hurt but also disappointed, because how was it possible that Alec had become that guy? “He wasn’t,” my grandpa said. “And now he totally fucked over his future.”

“But isn’t weed legal in Minnesota?” I didn’t know anything about it, to be honest, but my grandpa’s response seemed like a bit of an overreaction. “I mean, I know he’s a minor, but I doubt something like this will ruin his future. Like, he’s not going to go to jail for drugs, right?” “No, I’m talking about his hockey future.” “Oh. That,” I said, and I must’ve sounded too casual, because he looked at me like I was an uncaring ass. But I wasn’t. Even though I didn’t know this stranger Alec had become, I didn’t want bad things to happen to him. My grandpa said, “He might’ve just screwed up his shot at making the US training team.” “I don’t know what that is. Like, the Olympics?” “Mm-hmm,” he said. “There is literally a board of old hockey dudes who decide the roster, and if they think he’s going to crash and burn once he gets to the next level or be a locker-room cancer, they’ll choose someone else.” No way. TheOlympics. He was thatgood? Like Olympic traininggood? Alec may have grown into a complete tool, but this could not be good for him or for Big John and Sarah. I hated this for them. Not for Zeus, but for the old Alec who used to be my best friend. “Is there anything he can do?” I asked. “He’s a teenager. Can’t he just apologize?” “I don’t know,” he said as he scooped up a meatball. “If this was the rst issue, they might let it go, but my buddies said he got an MIP last year, and he’s been in a few ghts, so he might seem like too much of a risk.” Fights. Like plural? As in multiple ghts.“I cannot believe Alec has become someone who ghts and parties all the time,” I said, shaking my head. How much had he changed from the last time I saw him? “He’s not,” my mom said as she walked into the room, looking absolutely oended by my words. “He got in a couple of ghts back when John was in the hospital and things were super tough for their family. And the MIP was just teenagers being dumb. It looks bad when you put it all together, but he’s still a good kid.”

Her words punched me right in the gut. I reached for my water and wondered if she was right. Maybe I was being too judgmental. “Sarah said all of Alec’s coaches are on their way over right now to talk to him and come up with a plan.” “All of them? Like, an entire coaching sta is en route to yell at him over a random photo?” “I’m sure,” Grandpa Mick said. “Because it’s not just his future that’s at stake.” What is that supposed to mean? “But we’re talking about hockey here,” I claried. “Not his entire future.” “They go hand in hand. It’s hockey with the potential to change the trajectory of his entire life,” my mom said in a scolding tone, her eyes narrowing at me. “Now eat your spaghetti.” OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWELVE Alec “Are you okay?” my mom asked, pushing open my door, letting the light from the hallway ood into the dark bedroom where I was lying on my bed. Was I okay? Fuck if I know. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, watching me with the same overworried, overprotective look she’d worn for most of my life. Especially since the accident. Everyone had nally left, thank God, so she was checking in after witnessing me getting yelled at for two hours straight. God, it was so stupid. I hadn’t even put my mouth on megabong. As much as I’d wanted to get hammered at the bonre, I’d been a good boy and steered clear of Reid’s party favors. I’d laughed my ass o when I saw his ridiculous apparatus, of which Tawnee had snapped a photo, but I’d hardcore passed on that nonsense. In the end I’d known better, but now no one believed that I’d just been holding it. Not even my dad. I mean, my biggest lapse in judgment had been letting Tawnee take a photo at all. I didn’t have any social media accounts (that were public or searchable) because of potential situations like this. I knew better than to post anything about my personal life for the world to see. But shedidn’t know better. Tawnee’s harmless “photo dump” had ensured that half the hockey players in the Twin Cities—a large number of them my rivals—laid eyes upon that picture of me holding a fucking bong. And now the guys up north, the ones with all the power, had already seen the photo.

Gee, I wonder how that happened? Fucking Maserati-driving douchebag. I was so screwed. I paused my playlist—“undressed” by sombr didn’t feel right while talking to my mom—and took out my AirPods. “Yeah,” I said, staring up at my ceiling. “I mean, I deserved that.” “You did,” she said with a smile in her voice, “but you’re just a kid. Screwing up is part of growing up.” Her understanding made my throat tight, because she of all people needed me to be on. Out of everyone in my life, she and Dad were the ones who should’ve been yelling the loudest, because I was potentially fucking things up for them. But here she was, asking if I was okay. “Do you think they can x it?” I asked, hating how weak I sounded. How unsure. “I do,” she said. “I know it’ll be ne.” After my coaches hollered at me for an hour, they came up with a tentative plan. I was going to behave like an angel and be fucking perfect—perfect grades, perfect behavior—and they were going to see if they could get the newspaper to do a story on me and my family and the whole ride we’d been on. They thought maybe if they showed who I was—and the shitstorm we’d (sort of) weathered— the decision makers would be more prone to forgive the stupid things I’d done. “Just do everything they said, kiddo. You’ve got this.” Her faith in me almost made it worse, because it just added to the pressure that’d been crushing my skull for the past year. A tiny part of me wished this mistake would ruin everything. Then I wouldn’t have any more pressure to get the wins and make the training team and eventually get the NHL deal that was going to change my family’s life forever. I could go to community college next year while working at the hardware store, and no one would even notice my presence. Finally, I’d be able to breathe. But my hockey future had become the most important thing to my family’s long-term security. It was the thing with the potential to make the grind less grinding. I didn’t think my parents had even realized that we’d stopped talking about other options for me a long time ago.

Which was fair, because life had been hard since the accident. My dad still couldn’t work, aside from part-time, because his back seized up if he sat too long (or stood too long). And the medical bills we still owed from all those surgeries and hospital stays weren’t going away, especially since my mom was a teacher and not a millionaire. I’d been doing my part to cover hockey expenses by working a lot, but the Barczewskis as a whole were way the fuck away from being in the black, so the life-changing lotto win of a future contract would mean everything. God, I wanted to deliver that so fucking badly. But what if I failed? What if things never got easier for my parents? “I promise not to screw up again,” I said, my voice cracking. “I know you won’t, honey,” she said. “By the way, you didn’t even tell me how things went with Dani. I’m assuming you two have run into each other by now?” Like I need this right now. “Yeah, I saw her,” I said, rolling with her attempt to change the subject without going too deep into a Dani discussion. “It was ne.” “Just ne?” She sounded shocked. “What’d you expect?” I asked. “I haven’t seen her since middle school.” “I don’t know—you kids were always like two peas in a pod, so I think I imagined you immediately going back to business as usual, the way you did every summer.” “Yeah, well, it’s been a long time, and I only saw her for a few minutes.” “Oh.” “Don’t sound so disappointed,” I said, smiling in spite of everything because sometimes my mom was so ridiculously delusional that it was kind of adorable. She always had an attitude like she knew everything was going to work out. Even in the worst of times. “Well, now that you’ve seen her, I’m sure you’ll get to know each other again.” “Maybe,” I said, just wanting to end the subject. For some reason, talking—hell, even thinking about Dani hurt my chest.

“Well, if you have the chance, make sure you go out of your way to be nice to her. Make sure she’s hanging out with good kids and making friends.” “She’s a senior in high school—I’m sure she can handle this,” I said. “Yeah, but Hannah said she’s changed. Apparently she’s not the same outgoing kid she used to be.” Ugh. There was that pain in my chest again. “What do you mean?” “I don’t know, she didn’t really go into it, but I get the impression that all the moves kind of messed with her. She sort of closes herself up, and has some social anxiety.” “I can’t imagine Dani being an introvert,” I said, and the idea of it made something in my heart pinch as I pictured her red cheeks and lowered eyes in the library over lunch. Nope—not my problem,I quickly reminded myself. “Yeah, me either, but I’ve never had to switch schools every two years. That’d really have to screw with your head, y’know?” “I’m sure she’s ne,” I said, unable to sympathize with Dani when I had enough shit to worry about. “Yeah, I’m sure she is too,” my mom said. “I’m going to go check on the twins, but get some sleep, kid.” “I will,” I said, even though I wouldn’t. Between the ache in my shoulder and the stress in my brain, I could tell it was going to be a long night. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Dani “Grandpa’s going to drive you to school today,” my mom said as I walked into the kitchen. “Because I have an interview, remember?” “Oh yeah,” I replied, though I hadn’t realized it meant having to ride with him. “You look nice,” I said. “That dress screams ‘I would be an exemplary employee.’” “Sure it does,” she said, walking over to pull me into a hug. “I think it screams ‘I don’t know what’s cool anymore,’ but thank you just the same.” “Anytime. You’re going to totally wow them.” My phone buzzed. Ben Worthington: I’ll be at my dad’s tonight if you need anything. What? I could not imagine any scenario where I’d be needing Mr. Maserati, but also, like, why would he just send me a random text out of the blue? I supposed it was nice that he was checking in, but his message felt a little too familiar when we were basically strangers. “She’s the best bullshitter I’ve ever met,” my grandpa said, smiling at my mom. God, he should smile more. He almost looks… nice. “Ready to go, kid?” His smile disappeared when he looked at me. Of course. “Yes,” I said, sliding my arms into my winter coat. Yesterday had been pretty uneventful at school (thank God), without any Alec sightings. His name was impossible to avoid because everyonewas talking

about the bong picture—I wondered how he was handling it—but I hadn’t seen him at all. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be so lucky today because it was a B-day: public speaking day. Not only would I be seeing him, but there was a chance I’d be called upon to give a speech to the entire class. Please, God, no. My grandpa turned on a hockey podcast when we got in his truck, which was good because I still hadn’t gured out how to talk to him. It seemed like we talked around each other a lot, but never directly toeach other. We rode in silence, which was helpful because I started going through my speech in my head, over and over again. Ms. Sykes had told me I still needed to give the intro speech that everyone else had given at the beginning of the semester, so I was practicing what I’d written out, trying to make myself sound somehow interesting but boring, unremarkable but not mockable. But the closer we got to the school while I practiced, the more nervous I got. By the time we pulled into the parking lot, I felt almost dizzy with stress. “You okay?” I looked over at my grandpa, who I’d kind of forgotten was there, and he was once again watching like he knew what was going on with me. I just nodded, unable to speak; that was how close I was to a full-on panic attack. No. No. No. Not in front of him. “Just take deep breaths through your nose,” he said, his hawklike gaze on mine. “They always save me.” Wait. Is he saying…? I cleared my throat, and all the questions I had must’ve been in my eyes, because he simply said, “I guess you get it from me. Sorry about that.” He didn’t say anything else, just met my gaze. And I could tell he wasn’t going to expand on that, which was okay, because it was enough. For the rst time since arriving in Minnesota, and in the midst of my panic, I smiled at my grandpa.

“You should be,” I said. “Because this sucks.” “Like I don’t know that.” He winked and said, “Now get out of the truck and go to school. Just keep breathing and you’ll be ne.” “Okay,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt with unsteady hands. “Thanks.” His reminder helped, but only short-term. Because the minute I walked into speech and saw Alec and his friends, draped across their desks like nothing fazed them, my ngertips felt numb. I breathed in through my nose and took my seat, desperately hoping I wouldn’t get chosen to give my speech that day. But the universe was clearly out to get me, because Ms. Sykes sat down behind her desk and as soon as the bell rang, she called on me. “All right, it’s a day full of speeches, so let’s not waste any time. Since one more student needs to give their intro speech, let’s knock that out before moving on. Miss Collins, why don’t you start us out for the day?” I swallowed and stood, grabbing my notes, praying I wouldn’t do something like pass out or throw up. I walked to the podium at the front of the class, and my chest felt tight as I looked out at all the faces. Unfamiliar faces that didn’t look especially friendly. And then I made eye contact with Alec, who just swallowed and stared at me but didn’t even smile. I took a deep breath, but my heart was beating so fast. I could feel it. It was too fast. Too fast. “My name is Dani Collins,” I said, my voice thin and shaky. “I—” “Louder, please,” the teacher interrupted, smiling but holding her chin up like she was trying to show me how to project my voice. But I couldn’t catch my breath. I knew what this was—I always knew what this was—but it still felt terrifying. It’s just a panic attack, I told myself, but at the same time I wondered if I needed to go to the nurse or dial 911 because I just couldn’t get a good breath. Help!

I tried taking another deep breath, but it wasn’t working. A wave of dizziness came over me, and I clutched the sides of the podium and tried it again. “My name is—” “Ms. Sykes!” Alec yelled, and when my eyes shot to him, he was waving his hand in the air like he desperately needed the teacher’s attention. “What?”She looked at him like he’d lost his mind and snapped, “Mr. Barczewski, can this wait?” “I am so sorry,” he said, kind of in my direction but also to her, “but I just got a message that I have to leave early for an appointment, and I really, really want to get my speech done today. Since she’s new and obviously not too excited to do this, is there any way I can go in front of her?” A few people laughed, and I didn’t know what to think as he stared at me. His brown eyes were serious and direct, like he was trying to tell me something. “I’m not going to make her stop just because you want to get your speech done today, Alec,” she said. “I appreciate your—” “I—I don’t mind,” I interrupted, a little shocked I was able to nd my voice at all. “He can totally go now.” I let my eyes move over Alec’s bizarrely familiar yet unfamiliar face, not sure if he was aware that he was saving my ass. The teacher gave a heavy sigh before saying, “Well, if you truly don’t mind,” her tone both beleaguered by his request but also amused. “Then, Alec—get up here and get your speech nished.” A few people laughed as my shaking hands grabbed my notes and I went back to my desk, passing by Alec, who wandered up there with empty hands (not a single note card) and a condent smile like this was no big deal. “Thank you, Ms. Sykes, for letting me do this,” he said, to which she gave a closed-mouth smile and tilted her head. “Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work in a hardware store?” he said, causing snickers around the classroom. “It sounds wildly fascinating, I know, but you’d be surprised that a lot of the things that occur inside the walls of your local Ace Hardware are actually not that exciting.” Even though I knew I was still next, I felt my heart rate slowing down as I took in a deep breath that felt so goodthrough my nose while he casually delivered his speech.

Which almost didn’t feel like a speech at all. I was a little frozen while I listened, because hearing him speak that way, relaxed and self-deprecatingly funny, reminded me so much of my friend Alec. And the little half smile he wore was exactly the same. I missed him as he spoke, missed being someone he spoke to. I knew he was either a full-time jerk now or at the very least uninterested in rekindling our friendship—which was ne—but as someone who’d never had a lot of friends, I was homesick for the ease I used to feel around him. As soon as he nished the speech, he left, briey arguing with the teacher because he couldn’t seem to produce the pass that proved he was allowed to leave. But he was so good at insisting that she ultimately let him go (while smiling). As soon as he was gone, she called on me to give my speech. I still had all the butteries, and my hands were still shaking, but this time I managed to do it. I wasn’t sure if it was because I didn’t have to look at Alec because he was gone, or if his distraction had been enough to convince my body I’d be ne. Whatever it was, I made it through the speech without passing out or throwing up. Which felt like a victory. Until lunch, when I looked up from Invisible Man and saw him entering the library. Dammit. Not only was it Alec, but he had three hockey guys with him. And Cassie. I quickly looked down at the book that I was rereading in preparation for AP Lit, pretending I hadn’t seen them while I delusionally hoped that they were either in the library for some other reason or were going to ask me a quick question and leave. “Can we sit here?” Alec asked, pointing to the chairs at my table. “Sure,” I said, my eyes moving to his friends, who were all looking at me as they pulled out chairs and sat down. “I can move to a smaller table if you guys need the big one.”

“No,” Cassie said. “Alec said it was too noisy in the cafeteria and he wanted to go to the library, so we came too because, well… why did we come again?” She grinned at the other three guys, and I realized she was impossible to dislike. “Well, I came because I wanted to ask Dani here about her grandfather,” said the enormous wall of a human with the ridiculous hair. I thought I remembered that his name was Vinny. “Yeah, okay, that was why I came too,” the redhead (Richie?) agreed, grinning in a way that made me think maybe he was okay. “I was just following Cassie,” Kyle said with a shrug. He was the one who’d been with Alec in the library the other day, and he also had a mullet, though his was normal compared to Vinny’s. Just a dark-haired version of the whole business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back ugly hairstyle. “Silly me,” Cassie said, smiling at Kyle. “I came because I actually agreed that it was noisy in the cafeteria and thought it would be fun to eat my lunch quietly in the library.” “The only one without an ulterior motive,” Alec said. “I need to grab a book.” Without another word he walked over to the history section—was he seriously getting a book?—while his friends gave me shy smiles like they were little boys. “So what was it like growing up with Mick?” Richie asked. “Is he always intimidating,” Vinny asked, “or is he super real when you know him?” “Um, he has always been a little intimidating, to be honest,” I said, surprised that they just wanted to talk about my grandpa. “And I didn’t really grow up with him. We moved a lot, so I kind of only saw him once a year when I was a kid.” I wasn’t sure if I should lean into this interest or downplay everything. Having a sort-of-famous grandfather had never come into play before, so I had no rule book to check for this. “So you don’t really know him any better than anyone else—is that what you’re saying?”

Kyle was looking at Cassie when he said that, but she was listening to me and had no idea that her admirer was staring at her with the real-life equivalent of heart eyes. “I mean, I did when I was little,” I said. “He used to take me shing and let me drive his boat and stu. We were pretty close until I hit middle school.” “Does he talk about hockey all the time?” Vinny asked. “Tell me he’d sit at Thanksgiving dinner and talk about bashing Guy Gustafson’s face in.” “Can you even fucking imagine?” Richie said with a laugh. “‘I busted the shit outta his nose—hey, pass the stung.’” I glanced at Cassie and she was grinning at me, rolling her eyes at her friends. “Actually, he never really talked about it—Guy’s face bashing or anything else. It wasn’t until recently that I even realized he was more than just, like, someone who played hockey when he was a kid.” “Are you kidding?” Vinny asked. “No way. You can’t be serious.” “Totally serious,” I said, kind of realizing for the rst time how strange that was. “Wow,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “So, Dani,” Cassie asked, playfully nudging him out of the way. “Did you come up with anything on the extracurriculars?” “No, because I honestly can’t think of anything that will work,” I said. I’d spent a lot of time trying to gure something out, clicking through all the teams on the Southview High website, hoping to nd some random activity that might be an option, but so far there was nothing. Cassie lled the guys in on my situation, which made Richie say, “Can’t she just be another manager?” “Oh my gosh,” Cassie said, her eyes going huge. “Why didn’t I think of that?” “Think of what?” I asked slowly. Very curious what they could be talking about. “I mean, you’ve been doing it by yourself since Lillie quit,” Vinny said. “Couldn’t Dani just take her place?” “What?” I heard from behind me. Alec came over with a couple of books in his hand and a scowl on his face. He sat down, his eyebrows furrowed like he’d just overheard us saying something obscene.

“Dani’s still trying to nd an extracurricular, and these guys thought maybe she could be a co-manager,” Cassie said excitedly. “And that seems like a really good idea.” “A co-manager?” I asked, suddenly slightly panicked by Alec’s reaction. “Of what?” “Hockey,” Cassie said. “I’m the team manager.” What?I couldn’t be a hockey manager—was she kidding? No, no, thank you. Nope. “Well, I’m sure it’s too late,” Alec said as if it was out of the question. “I don’t think Coach would be into bringing on someone new that he doesn’t even know.” “It couldn’t hurt to ask, though, right?” Cassie said with a shrug, looking at him like he had a say in the decision or something. “You should totally ask.” NO! I wanted to shout. You definitely shouldn’t ask. Because not only did I know nothing about the sport, but I had zero interest in frequenting a world where Alec was the king. Especially not when he was looking at me as if that was the last thing in the world he wanted. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Alec “I don’t know,” I said, trying to sound casual and open to the idea when I absolutely was not. “Maybe.” Yeah, I’m not fucking asking. It was too bad that Dani was having issues making her Harvard dream come true, but that wasn’t my problem. The last thing I needed was to have her in my world, messing with my concentration when I’d already jeopardized every fucking thing with megabong and needed to focus now more than ever. Hell, just seeing her for three seconds had almost messed with my focus against Simley; I denitely didn’t need to see her during every practice and game. It wasn’t my problem that she was having problems. I was actually pissed at myself for letting her get under my skin during Sykes’s class. I hadn’t plannedon giving my speech early, and I was probably going to get a C now because I hadn’t even had my note cards, but after what my mom said the other night, I couldn’t stop myself from helping her. Because, I swear to God, she’d looked like she was ve seconds away from fainting, vomiting, or having a massive heart attack as she stood in front of the class. Before I’d known what was happening, my hand was up and my mouth was moving. It was probably because the girl I used to know had a stubborn grin and attitude for days, and that girl was notin my speech class. And she wasn’t hiding out in the library at lunch like she was scared of the cafeteria, either. Aside from a eeting moment the other day when she’d thrown me some snark, that girl was missing. And the girl in her place seemed to need me. Correction: She seemed to need someone.

Or something. Which explained why I was in the library—fucking again—at lunch. As soon as we turned down the hallway and I could see her through the window, sitting at a table all by herself with her eyes on her book, all I could hear were my mom’s words. Social anxiety. And I couldn’t help but wonder what’d made her go from the Dani I’d known to this quiet version. Had she been bullied? I didn’t want to talk to her, but I hadn’t been able to suppress the need to make sure she wasn’t hiding out all alone every day during lunch. God, I was as big of a chump as I’d ever been. Only—no. No, dammit. I wasn’t chumpy little Alec; I just wasn’t an asshole. It was entirely possible not to give a shit about someone, yet still behave like a decent human being. But I sat there for the rest of lunch, regretting my decision to be nice, because while my friends exchanged small talk with Dani, I looked at her face and couldn’t stop the memories. The barely there freckles that were sprinkled across her cheeks reminded me of the Eighteenth Avenue pool and the way she’d always lied about wearing sunscreen because she hated the smell. And her dark eyelashes reminded me of the way they’d bunched together in wet triangles when we ran around in the pouring rain. But when my eyes dipped down to the cursive scrawlings on her notebook, memories of the idiotic postcards clawed at me and I had to look away. Because, God, those postcards. I was a grown-ass man with a car and a job, for God’s sake, but every time I accidentally came across that bundle in the back of my closet, I was reduced to a little boy with a thousand fucking feelings. I blamed the Como Zoo. After she’d bought a postcard at the zoo one summer morning (we’d been nine-ish at the time), I—of course—had to make fun of her. Hey, Grandma, are

you going to send that to your pen pal? “I love postcards,” she’d said, shrugging while leading me toward the polar bear exhibit. “You get to send a cheesy picture and get credit for being thoughtful, but the tiny square keeps it short and sweet.” “But everyone can read what you write,” I said, eating (and dropping) handfuls of popcorn while trying to keep up with her. “True,” she agreed, then pointed at me and said, “Unless you come up with a code.” We never made it to the polar bears, because we stopped to sit on a rock and brainstorm the code idea instead. We went back to our shed that day and proceeded to spend hours—and the entire next week—creating our own alternate alphabet of symbols, which Dani made into two decoders that she had laminated at the library. We were out of our minds over the idea of sending each other coded messages. By the end of our month, the postcard pact was enacted. Once a week, we would send each other a postcard—in code. Fucking little dorks, I thought as I remembered how committed we’d been to our plan. One postcard a week, and they had to adhere to our strict guidelines. The guidelines: one sentence of greeting, two sentences describing random things that’d happened to us that week, and one sentence of goodbye. That was all that was allowed. It was asinine, but we’d sent those weekly postcards to each other for years. Years. We’re talking hundreds of motherfucking postcards. I sent cards I picked up at truck stops; she sent back vintage cards she had to have found in thrift stores. I bought meme postcards online, and she sent me cards that gave tiny hints about what life was like where she was living. They started in messy elementary-school chicken scratch and ended in artistic freshman symbols where she dotted her i’s with tiny hearts. So, so idiotic.

Alec— Hey, loser! 1. Yesterday I found a cat in our backyard and gave him tuna, which he wolfed down and then proceeded to immediately barf up on my shoe, leaving me no choice but to name him Sir Pukesalot. :D 2. This morning, my dad told my mom that he was disappointed that she’d never cared about him enough to learn to cook, leaving me no choice but to name him Lieutenant Colonel Pukesalot. Counting down the days until summer, Dani And then they just stopped. I kept sending them like the chump I was, convinced it was a post oce issue because I was a delusional little shit, but apparently she was just done. And a couple of weeks later, when she came to town and fucked me over, I realized that was just who she’d become. The girl who’d laminated our decoders had left the chat, and now Dani Collins was just somebody that I used to know. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Dani “Okay,” Cassie said, “but you really need to listen to me.” I walked down the hall with Cassie and two of her friends—Liz and Lillie— after school, pleasantly surprised that not only had Cassie yelled my name when she saw me so I could walk with them, but her friends seemed nice. Like genuinely nice. And they’d invited me to go with them to Applebee’s for half-price apps later. It wasn’t in my nature to trust this, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “I know you know nothing about hockey, but being a manager is so easy. Sometimes I lm practice, sometimes I keep stats, sometimes I go on a hot dog run if someone’s hungry; anyone can do it.” “For sure,” Lillie agreed, nodding. “You don’t have to know hockey at all.” “I’m sure Alec is right, though,” I said, remembering how unhappy he’d looked when she’d suggested it. “It’s probably too late.” “Yeah, but that’s the thing,” she said as we went past the oce. “First of all, I don’t think that’s true; Coach Osman is super chill. But second of all, you’re friends with Alec.” I felt like I should correct her—all of them—because that denitely wasn’t true, but I kept my mouth shut. “Zeus is hockey around here,” Cassie said. “And he’s the captain. So if he brings it up, they will totally let it happen.” “I get that he’s good, but he’s still just a student, right? He can’t have that much power.” “Are you serious?” Lillie said, making a face like I was absolutely clueless. “I know you’re new here, but trust me—if Alec Barczewski wants something

related to hockey, he’s going to get it.” “But I don’t think he—” “You need to ask him,” Cassie said, cutting me o. “Even if you guys don’t know each other anymore, your parents are still friends, right? I’m sure he’ll happily do you this tiny little favor, because he’s a good guy. I’m positive that if you ask him, he’ll make it happen.” Butis he a good guy? “I don’t know,” I said, dreading the idea of swallowing my pride and going to him for a favor, because if he’d wanted to even be a simple acquaintance, he would have at least smiled at me by now. But so far he was all cold sarcasm and avoidance. “Do this for me because I’m sick of doing it by myself and I think we’ll have a blast,” she said. “Pleeeeeeease. Come on.” “And I won’t have to feel guilty anymore for quitting,” Lillie said. “Do it for me, too.” “And for me so I don’t have to listen to this ever again,” Liz added. “Hmmm.” My stomach was heavy with dread as they tried convincing me, because it sounded like a terrible idea. Not only did I know nothing about the sport, but the last thing I wanted was to be around Alec on a daily basis. In a cold arena. I was stressed at the mere idea of it. But I wanted Harvard—so badly. “How about this: Go with me to practice today,” Cassie said. “They have a game tomorrow, so it’s shorter than usual, just a run-through. Ride over with me, see what I do, and then you can make the call. If you want to do it, you can wait for Zeus and beg him after practice to talk to the coaches.” “Maybe I should wait—” “Think about it,” she interrupted, emphasizing her words with hand gestures. “If Harvard said you needed to lick the oor to get in, would you?” “Eww,” Liz said with a look of disgust. “Eww, but you would, wouldn’t you?” Lillie said, pointing her nger in my direction. “Wouldn’t you? You might go behind a locker so no one could see

you, but you’d denitely touch your tongue to the tile, right? Don’t lie, you know you would.” “Gross,” I said around a laugh. “But yeah—I guess I would.” “So be willing to ask a simple favor, then,” Cassie said. “It’s way less disgusting.” It was a stupid analogy, but she was right. Of course I could beg Alec for help if it meant getting into Harvard. Who cares if he’s a dick now? Swallowing my pride and begging him to help me was nothing if it gave me the extracurricular I needed to get in. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t even have to see him at practice because I’d be too busy doing manager-y things and he’d be… like, hitting pucks with sticks and stu. “Okay,” I said, nodding and suddenly kind of excited. “I’ll do it.” “See? This job is so not hard,” Cassie said as we walked around the hockey arena. “If you can ll water bottles, take skates to get sharpened, and press play on a video recorder, you’ll be ne.” “I can do all those things,” I said, relaxing a little. “Of course you can,” she said with a smile. “Let me show you around.” She showed me the girls’ locker room, the maintenance closet, the equipment room, the snack bar—basically every nook and cranny of the Doug (what everyone called the Douglas Gowo Arena, apparently). She walked me past the huge mural that stretched all the way down the back wall, a photographic history of Southview hockey. “I think that’s your grandpa, isn’t it?” she asked, pointing at a team from the seventies. I narrowed my eyes and, holy shit, the big guy in the back row was, in fact, Grandpa Mick. He was grinning—something he rarely did now—but his eyes were exactly the same. He was young and handsome, sweaty, holding up a nger just like everyone else in the picture. It was shocking, in a way, to see him looking so unabashedly happy, like he’d burst into laughter the second the photo was snapped.

What happened to change him so much?I wondered. “Yeah,” I said, running my hand over his image, curious if he’d been here when they’d unveiled the mural. Surely he had, and I wondered how he’d felt. I knew so little about his life, aside from being my grandpa, and suddenly I wanted to know more. “Come on.” After that, Cassie did a quick tutorial of the skate-sharpening machine—the Sparx—which she talked about like it was the easiest thing in the world to use (but it terried me). “What if I screw up someone’s skates?” I asked. “You won’t,” she said with the wave of a hand. “Most of the guys have a specic preference on how they want them sharpened, and the ones who don’t usually go with the average. It’s not a big deal at all.” It was so a big deal, I suspected. “Okay, let’s go closer to the ice and I’ll show you how to lm.” Yes. Filming. That I could handle. And as I followed her, I knew this was manageable, that this extracurricular was something I could do without screwing up. Every muscle in my body felt more relaxed, less tense, because I could nally check the “nd an activity” box on my whole “make Harvard love me” list. That wasif Alec would help make it happen. As if my brain conjured him just by thinking his name, suddenly the guys started coming out of the locker room and onto the ice. I felt… breathless as I watched them warming up, and I wasn’t sure why. Surely it had everything to do with the impressive speed as they took a few laps and nothing to do with my eyes locating the tallest player as he appeared to sprint down the ice in skates. Cassie showed me the camera and let me do the lming while she sat down beside me and started her homework, which was apparently what she did at practice a lot of the time. But my eyes kept wandering to Alec, even as I told myself I didn’t care. I knew nothing about hockey, but it was easy to see he was the leader and insanely

good. In every drill, he seemed to go faster and harder than everyone else. It was like the rest of the guys were playing a high school game while he put on an exhibition of the sport. And how did he skate that fast? Backward?? A tiny part of me was proud of him—my little Alec—but it was hard to remember that version of him while watching him be so big and physical. Those were two characteristics I never would’ve linked to my former best friend. “So he actually is good, holy shit,” I said to myself, watching as he shouted something to the guys who were doing the drill he’d just nished doing. I couldn’t make out his words, but he was denitely cheering them on or yelling something… athletic. The job really waspretty easy. And the time went by pretty quickly. “I think we’re done,” Cassie said after she locked up the camera. “I have to leave to pick up my little brother, but you’re waiting around to talk to Alec, right?” “Right,” I said with a smile and a nod, even though the word “dread” didn’t begin to cover how I felt about the idea. “Make sure you’re veryconvincing, okay?” she said, pulling her car keys out of her coat pocket. “I don’t want to do this alone anymore.” “Okay,” I agreed. “By the way, he’s always the last one out, just FYI,” she said. “He reads scouting reports and does… hockey shit after practice, I don’t know, but he’s usually the last one in there. So don’t feel like you missed him.” “Got it.” It was loud for a few minutes while players led out of the locker room, but then it got quiet, as in I was literally the only one left at the rink. For what felt like hours. Where is he? I nearly had a heart attack when my phone started ringing with a FaceTime call, sounding crazy loud in the big empty rink. I was shocked to see it was my dad, because this was the second time he’d FaceTimed me since we’d arrived in Minnesota.

We didn’t usually dothat at all, much less twice. We’d always been way more into tense telephone calls lled with guilty silences. “Well, hey,” I said in a perky voice as I answered, smiling when his face appeared on my screen. “Hi, honey,” he said back, wearing the beige T-shirt that was like a second uniform for him after-hours. He squinted and said, “Where the heck are you?” It was dumb, but I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to tell him I was at a hockey rink. My dad had always acted like Minnesota, and everything tied into it, was a problem. My grandparents, Sarah, my mom’s childhood… it was all bad in his eyes. When I was a kid, Southview was something he rolled his eyes about but begrudgingly let my mom run away to for a month every summer. He’d always had zero interest in joining us, but he accepted it for what it was. His wife wanting to go home. But the more they argued and didn’t get along, the more he behaved as if it was part of the problem. It was like he was jealous of the things that’d mattered to her before him. “I’m actually at a hockey rink,” I said, smiling as if I’d never wanted to be anywhere more. “I might be helping out the hockey team just to keep my extracurriculars where they need to be for college.” “Dear God, there’s not anything better than hockey for you to do?” he said disapprovingly, his dark eyebrows down. “I would think something like math club would be far better, wouldn’t it?” “Yeah, it’s a whole thing here where it’s too late for me to join most clubs,” I said. “So your mother picked a fantastically backward school—got it.” I didn’t want to have a conversation about his opinions on Southview or my mom, so I said, “How are you doing?” I wanted to say I miss you, but we didn’t talk to each other like that. “Everything is going well, Daniella, but something came up that I need to discuss with you. Do you have a minute or should I call when you are notat an ice rink?”

He said it with the same tone he would use if I’d said I was at a circus. “Actually, I’m waiting around for things to nish, so your timing is perfect. What’s going on?” “Well,” he said, “I was in a meeting earlier, discussing my potential next assignment, and as it turns out, there is a very good chance that I might end up at Outt.” “Really?” Outt Air Force Base was in Omaha, which was only like a ve- hour drive from where we were. That would be amazing. Because I hated the reality that I couldn’tsee him if I needed to. I knew he was hard-edged half the time, but he was my dad and I wanted him around. I wanted him to be able to come to my graduation and I wanted to be able to smell the mix of aftershave and soap that’d always made him seem like the cleanest man on the planet. So him moving closer was the best news I’d heard in ages. “When will you know?” “Really it’s less a question of when I’ll know and more a question of when I’ll decide what I want to do.” “Wait—you get to decide?” I asked with a laugh. “That’s very un–Air Force– like.” “It’s a complicated situation, but basically there are parties who would really like me in both places, so I kind of have the upper hand. That being said, I want to discuss where you would like me to end up.” “At Outt for sure,” I said, looking around to make sure nobody heard what an excited little kid I sounded like. “This is the best news!” “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, sort of smiling but maintaining his composure like the ocer that he was. “Because if it were simply about location, I’d probably stay here; I likeRamstein.” It was true—he did. My mom and I, on the other hand, had notliked Ramstein. Germany had been incredible, but on a daily basis we’d felt a million miles away from everything familiar, stuck on a faraway military base.

“But the opportunity to be with youtrumps location,” he said, and warmth shot through me, because my stern father was admitting he missed me. That meant everything. “Obviously your mother and I will have to carve out the details on how it would work, because it’s too far to do the every-other-weekend type of thing, but I think it’d make sense for you to come live with me at Outt until school ends. It’s ne if she wants to run around up there, but you shouldn’t have to be stuck in the tundra just because she’s reliving her childhood, right?” I looked at his face on my phone and was confused for a second. “You can spend the summer with her before you go away to school, once the weather’s nice up there.” “Wait. What?” I couldn’t be hearing him right. He wanted me to leave my mom? “Well, I prefer Germany, but I prefer my daughter’s company more, of course. So if you want to live with me, then I will take the oered assignment. If you want to stay up in Minnesota with your mother, then I will probably re-up my assignment at Ramstein.” “Those are the only options?” I asked, hating that my voice sounded thick and like I was going to cry. “You’re only coming back to the States if I leave Mom and live with you full-time?” “There’s no need to get emotional, Daniella; I’m just trying to have a conversation.” “I’m not emotional,” I said, fully aware of how defensive I sounded. “I’m just trying to understand.” “It’s simple. I’m happy to leave Ramstein to spend time with you, but if that’s not what you want, I’m probably going to stay here. Does that make sense?” God, I hated the way my dad always said that. Does that make sense? He never failed to make me feel like a stupid little kid when he threw out those four words. He was watching me with zero emotion on his face, sternly observing my pathetic attempt at holding mine in. Why couldn’t he ever make things easy? All

I wanted was an easy relationship with him, and it felt like all he wanted was the opposite. Or that he wanted me to prove my devotion to him by hurting my mom. “Yes, it does,” I managed, lowering my voice to sound chill while I struggled to keep it together. He couldn’t really be serious about this, could he? “I know your mother won’t be thrilled with this plan,” he said, “But I think if she knows it’s what you want, she’ll be okay with it. She’s so determined to live with your grandfather that I don’t think she’s focusing on anything else.” “Um, when do you need to give an answer?” I asked, forcing my face not to fall, hating how high-strung I sounded. “I’d prefer to knock this out as quickly as possible,” he said, steepling his ngers under his chin like he was having a business conversation and not asking his daughter to tear out her mother’s heart. “Since you just moved there, the pieces should still be simple to recongure.” “I don’t think I can do this to Mom,” I admitted in an almost whisper, trying to blink away the tears that were lling my eyes. “But you found a way, with me,” he said quietly, and I was shocked by his words and how hurt he looked. Colonel Collins didn’t gethurt; he was a robot. Wasn’t he? “That’s not—” “Sometimes choices aren’t easy, Daniella.” “I know, but…” I turned the phone away from me, pointing it toward the roof so he couldn’t see me wiping away the tears. “Okay, so now we’re crying,” he said disappointedly, sighing loudly, and I was glad I couldn’t see his face. “I’m sorry if you’re upset, and I’m not going to force you to move. I thought this might be something you’d want.” My chest was so tight it hurt. “I dowant to—” “No, I don’t think that you do,” he interrupted. I couldn’t believe I was crying in the middle of a hockey rink, like full-on crying, but I couldn’t seem to stop the emotions as I listened to his voice. He went back and forth between making me feel guilty and making me feel sad; it was an innite loop that had me in a choke hold.

I kept wiping at my cheeks and trying to get it together, but I felt precariously close to sobbing when I heard him disconnect the call. And then—shit, shit, shit—I heard voices. I didn’t have a visual on who was coming or where they were, but I also couldn’t see through my tears. All I knew was that I couldn’t have anyone at this school or on this hockey team see me bawling like a baby at the hockey rink. I got o the bench and ran for the maintenance closet. I needed to lock myself in a dark room and get my shit together before I saw anyone. Please be unlocked please be unlocked. As someone who didn’t cry a lot, I found it alarming how freely the tears were owing. There was no hiding that I was crying, and there was no stopping my eyes from whatever they were doing. I reached for the handle—thank you for being unlocked—and opened the door, then quickly slipped inside and shut it behind me. But I immediately knew I’d screwed up when, even through the tears, I could see that the room was big and bright. Not a closet at all. And it smelled like dirty socks in a heater. I wiped at my eyes and realized I was in a locker room, holy shit. Thank God no one is in here. I leaned my forehead against the cold wall and took a big gasping breath, but it came out as a hiccuping sob. I covered my eyes with my hands, giving in to the despair for a second. “Dani?” Fuck!I quickly wiped at my eyes before turning around, hoping somehow I didn’t look as bad as I knew I looked. But when I turned around, my heart sank to my feet. It was Alec. Oh God. Not only was I mortied that he was seeing me bawling, but also—dear Lord —he was naked. Not completely naked—he was wearing black boxer briefs—but his hair was wet and his muscles were everywhere and I could smell his soap or shampoo; he’d obviously just gotten out of the shower, shit shit shit.

“Oh my God,” I said, hating that I was still crying. I could hear the crying in my voice as I muttered, “I’m so sorry, I did not mean to come in here.” “Dani?” He took quick steps toward me and grabbed my upper arms in his hands, his voice so serious when he asked, “What’s wrong?” His dark eyes swept over my face, and it felt like he was holding his breath, waiting to hear what had happened. And I was mortied that it was nothing. No terrible thing had just happened to me, I was just a sad little girl who couldn’t please her dad. “Nothing. Really, my dad called and… I mean, I’m ne,” I said, sounding like a frog because my throat was so damn tight. “You’re not, though,” he said, and something about the concern in his voice did the opposite of helping me get myself together. His concern made me shatter. “Collins,” he said, almost with a question mark, pulling me into his arms as the stupid tears wouldn’t stop, wrapping himself around me. His hug felt like home, like something I could count on, and there was nothing I could do but snake my arms around his neck and take refuge. Anyone else in the world, including my mom, would’ve told me all the ways that it was going to be okay, that it was ne and everything was going to be great. But Alec knew me and the way I felt about my father. Or at least he used to. He just hugged me tighter as I attempted to get myself together. “I’m s-sorry,” I managed to hiccup out after a few more minutes. The tears were nally stopping, thank God, so I pulled back, wiping my cheeks, and gave him what I knew was a pathetic smile. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I said, sniing, “but thank you for being cool about my little breakdown.” “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, his voice scratchy, his forehead creased. And as he looked down at me with those dark eyes and that impossibly handsome face, I realized that I was still wrapped around his nearly nude body. “Sorry—” I managed, but when I tried pulling away, I was jerked forward.

“Your necklace,” he said, and I looked down and saw that his chain was tangled up with my necklace. I literally couldn’t pull away from him because we were tied together by jewelry. “Oh,” I breathed, incapable of more than that, because it was so absurd that my face was literally right next to his neck, which smelled really freaking good— holy shit—and I could feel his breath on my collarbone. “Hang on,” he murmured into my neck, and then after a second I felt the necklaces separate as he said, “Got it.” “Thank you, Alec,” I said, looking up at his face but not letting go of his shoulders. Not yet. I was thanking him for more than the necklace, and I could tell by the way he was looking at me that he understood. “I didn’t mean—” “Whoa!” I heard from behind me in a deep, growly voice. “What the— Barczewski…?” We both whipped around, and I wanted to die as I saw not only the hockey coach standing there, scowling at us, but three other grown men beside him who stared like they’d just caught us having sex in the locker room. “What the hell is going on here?” the coach yelled, and we quickly jumped apart. “This isn’t what it looks like,” Alec said, and I was amazed at how calm he sounded. “Really?” the coach said in a near shout. “Because it looks like there’s a girl in my locker room.” I said, “I—I accidentally—” “Dani,” Alec interrupted, his face absent of the kindness I’d seen moments ago. His jaw exed and unexed, like he was ghting to hold it together, before he said, “You should go.” “But—” “Go,” he repeated, his dark eyes on mine. “He’s right,” the coach agreed. “You shouldn’t be in here, young lady.” “I’ll explain what happened,” Alec said to me, but he looked volatile, like he was about to lose his shit. I nodded dumbly, because what else could I do? I was standing in front of four scowling men and my former friend, who I kind of suspected hated me. I

nodded one more time and turned, walking so fast out of the locker room that it was almost a run. I texted my mom and told her to pick me up as soon as she could, and she said she was on her way, but I felt sick as I realized what I’d done. The hockey coach was a teacher. A teacher who’d found me in the boys’ locker room, where one of those boys was changing. I was in so much trouble. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Alec Fuck, fuck, fuck. I swallowed and rubbed the back of my neck as the door shut behind her. What the hell had just happened? I’d been getting dressed when I remembered I left my chain in the shower. I went back, put it on, and when I returned to my locker, there she was, holy shit. Facing the wall, but I’d have recognized those blond curls anywhere. And when she turned around, her tears took me straight back to the night when I dried her tears and kissed her. I almost couldn’t breathe as she blinked up at me, and then I was hugging her while fucking “sweat” played on the Bluetooth speaker in my locker like some kind of joke. Sweat, get into it Let me show you how to use your legs I still wasn’t sure how it’d happened when I was committed to keeping my distance, but in an instant I was punched by the owery smell of her hair, buzzed on the warmth of her body in my arms, fucking hypnotized by the slide of her hands on my skin, dear God. What the fuck even wasthat? I’d gone from zero to under-her-inuence in three seconds. Although in my defense, it had to do with the colonel. Dani’s dad was a controlling dickhead, a controlling dickhead she’d always been insanely devoted to even though he didn’t deserve it, and I’d always had a soft spot for her daddy issues.

Because while she’d do anything to please him, that man wouldn’t lift a nger to throw her the tiniest of crumbs. So color me unsurprised that he was still making her cry. But how the hell was I going to x this? Coach looked like he wanted to kill me, and I couldn’t blame him. I mean, talk about your shit timing. This would have been bad enough if Oz were alone, but he was with two coaches from Wisconsin and with Gordy Frye, a local sports reporter who was super connected. Like, the dude knew everyone in hockey. “I know that probably looked weird,” I said, working hard for a casual smile like this wasn’t a big deal, but the bottom line was that this was huge. I was supposed to be xing my reputation, but now these dudes were thinking they’d just witnessed me fucking around with a girl in the locker room—the night before a game—like my head wasn’t in it. And just after the picture of me with the bong. Dammit, Dani. Fuck, even thinking her name made me feel unsteady. Coach said, “If you guys want to step into my oce, the stat sheets we were talking about are on my desk. I just need to yell at my player really quickly and then I’ll bring him in and we can all have a nice conversation.” They gave big laughs like this was all fun and games, but I could tell by the way they were looking at me that they thought I was screwing up again. As soon as they went into his oce, coach went o. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Barczewski? All you had to do was keep your nose clean—that’s it. What has it been, like, a day? These guys are here to watch you, and it was a perfect opportunity to prove you’re not what you seem, but you screw it up by bringing a girl into the locker room,” he said, his yelling kind of a spitting growl because he was trying to keep the volume down. He was totally in my face as he raged, “As if that isn’t bad enough, you’re not even dressed. Like, what the fuck? And who the hell even is she? I’ve never seen that girl in my life. Please tell me you didn’t bring a Simley girl into our locker room or someone from another school.”

“God, no,” I said, a little pissed that he didn’t know me better than this. Like why the fuck did everyone always assume the worst? “She’s new here and wants to be a team manager. She was trying—” “Was she or was she not in the locker room while you were changing?” “It’s not like that—she’s Mick Boche’s granddaughter!” I said—yelled, actually. “She just moved here, and I’ve known her since we were kids.” “She’s Boche’s granddaughter?” he said, his eyes narrowing like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Yes,” I said, glad that little nugget had slowed him down. “She and her mom moved in with him last weekend.” “No shit?” he said, squinting like he couldn’t keep up. “Does she play hockey?” “No,” I said, hoping he’d stay distracted by her pedigree. Maybe if I talked about her he’d forget what he thought he just walked into. “She’s a brainiac goody-goody who’s going to Harvard next year. Like the opposite of Mick.” He crossed his arms. “You said you grew up with her?” “Our moms are friends,” I explained, “so I’ve known her forever. We were childhood buddies until she moved away.” “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Gordy popped out of the oce wearing a huge grin, the Wisconsin coaches behind him. “I couldn’t help eavesdropping, and did you just say that the girl you were with in the locker room—your childhood sweetheart—is Mick Boche’s granddaughter?” “Childhood sweetheart” wasn’t exactly right, but it was interesting the way everyone’s faces changed. Suddenly they didn’t look like they were accusing me of being a screwup; they looked like they were interested in the story of me and Boche’s granddaughter. Whatever it takes. I wasn’t about to lie, but I wasn’t about to skip away from a bailout, either. I gave my best version of a secretive smile when I said, “Yes, Dani is a direct descendant of Mr. Boche.” “No way,” Gordy said with a grin. “If you’d told me he had a granddaughter, I’d have thought she’d be a girl who ghts, spits, and curses like a sailor. You’re telling me that blonde with the glasses comes from Mick?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, leaning into it. “Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and would rather read a book than watch a game. The apple fell faron this one.” “That’s hilarious,” he said, shaking his head. “Who would’ve guessed.” “Gentlemen…” Coach said. Gordy pointed to the oce. “I know, I know—back to the oce so you can nish your lecture.” “I’ll be right in, thanks,” Coach said, but his smile disappeared as soon as the door closed. “Coach, I swear to God—” “Shut up and listen to me, Zeus,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’m about to go in my oce and make sure those guys understand that you’re tight with Boche’s granddaughter. That doesn’t make this okay, for God’s sake, but at least it’s her.” Her. “Maybe the fact that you’re seeing a Boche will distract them from not only the picture that people are still whispering about, but also what we walked in on, since the two of you’ll be like goddamn hockey royalty, I don’t know,” he said, glancing toward the oce. “But I like what you said about her. You dating someone more into books than parties is exactly what you need right about now.” Dating? Oh, shit, he thinks I’m seeing her…? I tried deecting with, “I was telling the truth about what you walked in on, though.” “And I believe you,” he said, and I hoped he meant it. “But Gordy talks to everybody, and if the committee is already wondering about you, we don’t want the news he brings them to be that instead of watching game lm, you were making out with a girl in the locker room. Isn’t it better if he goes back with the news that you’re dating a serious girl who just happens to be a direct descendant of Mick Fucking Boche?” His eyes bored into me, willing me to understand the importance of what he was saying. But I didn’t want to believe it. Refused to believe. And yet, deep

down, I knew that as fast and wild as the gossip had spread about that stupid picture, this was going to be much, much worse. Shit. He’s right. I didn’t have a choice. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Dani I almost had a heart attack when I heard the tap on the front door. It was after ten, and I was the only one in the house still awake, doing homework. We had a massive test in calculus next week, but if I was honest with myself, I was studying to avoid thinking about my dad. And the locker room. And I was too emotionally exhausted to start crying again. I half expected it to be Cassie, because she hadn’t wanted to take no for an answer when I backed out on Applebee’s, but when I looked through the window atop the door, I saw Alec peering through. Shit shit shit, I did notwant to face him. It was bad enough that he’d seen me bawling, but the whole… thingthat followed was mortifying. Mostly because, for a split second, I’d forgotten about everything in the world except his brown eyes and the way it felt to have him hug me again. Idiot! But what choice did I have? I’d been freaking out all evening, expecting a call from the superintendent telling me I’d been expelled. I went over to the door and pulled it open, my stomach full of butteries. And God, there he was. He was so tall now, so big as he looked down at me with a smirk on his mouth and amusement in those dark brown eyes. “Wow,” he said without even saying hi. “You look hot.” I rolled my eyes. I was wearing annel pajama pants and a threadbare Philadelphia Eagles jersey, and my hair was still wet from the shower I’d taken twenty minutes before when I’d been too cold to concentrate.

Yes, I looked atrocious, but that wasn’t important. “What happened after I left?” I asked, lowering my eyes to the zipper on the front of his jacket because I couldn’t bear to look directly at his face for another second. “Can I come in?” he asked. “Because it’s a long story and your hair is going to freeze if the door stays open.” “Oh. Sure,” I said, stepping back to hold open the door. “But my mom and grandpa are asleep, so you have to be quiet.” “Yeah, I wasn’t planning on yelling the house down,” he said as he walked inside, and I wasn’t sure if he was joking or being a sarcastic ass. I quietly shut the door and went into the living room, hyperaware of him following me. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I sat down on the couch and crossed my arms over my chest. “So what did he say? How much trouble am I in?” I asked, knowing my cheeks were bright red because it felt like my skin was on re. “You’re not in any trouble, actually,” he said, dropping down into the chair across from me. “What? But he seemed really mad,” I said, confused. “And I shouldn’t have been in the locker room.” “Okay, so let’s just say things got weird after you left. I’ve got a lot to tell you, so I need to ask—respectfully—for you to just be quiet until I’m nished. I need you to hear everything I have to say before you respond.” This can’t be good. “All right,” I said, grabbing one of my grandma’s owered throw pillows and hugging it to my chest. “I’m listening.” “So you were right—Oz was crazy pissed. He thought I brought some random girl into the locker room for… um, reasons that were not hockey-related. Like he saw—” “I get it,” I snapped, wondering how much more mortication I could take without spontaneously combusting in shame. “Okay, good,” he said, and it annoyed me that it looked like he wanted to laugh. “He was livid, so I had to explain that we knew each other when we were

kids and that you aren’t some random girl. I explained to him who your grandpa is—” “Oh my God, is he going to tell my grandpa?” Just when I’d thought the embarrassment couldn’t get worse. “No,” he said, then added, “Well, I mean, I don’t think so. He didn’t really say.” “What did he say, then?” “You were going to be quiet while I told you, remember? From ve seconds ago…?” “Go already,” I said with a sigh, just wanting this to be over. “Thank you,” he said, and when he ohandedly rubbed his shoulder, I noticed how exhausted he looked. “What I was saying is that Coach didn’t respond the way I thought he would. When I said I knew you when we were kids, he and Gordy mistakenly thought that meant we were, like, childhood sweethearts or something.” “Weird,” I said, looking down at my lap and trying not to remember the kiss. We hadn’t been childhood sweethearts except for that one night. “For sure weird. But the guys who were with him are hockey dudes. Two of them are D1 scouts, and the one with the bad haircut is a sportswriter who has ties to everyone who matters in USA hockey, right?” “Okay,” I said, remembering what Grandpa Mick had said about those guys. “They came to see me play, which was great, because I’m trying to convince them I’m not a fuckup, because a picture that, uh, might’ve made it look—” “Like you were smoking the world’s largest bong?” His eyebrows went down. “You saw the picture?” “Yeah, it was our dinner entertainment the other night,” I said. “Shit—did Mick see it?” he asked, looking panicked. “Would it really matter if my grandpa saw a picture of you with a bong?” “Mick Fucking Boche?” He looked at me like I’d just said something ridiculous. “Of course it would matter.” “He’s just a man, you know.” “Oh, okay,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Back to the story,” I said, gesturing with my hands for him to get going.

“They came to see me when I’m supposed to be proving I’m not a locker room distraction, so the fact that they walked into the locker room and saw what they thought was me hooking up with a girl is a fucking nightmare.” “I bet,” I said, almost feeling bad for him. Almost. “But when they heard who you were from my coach and his incorrect assumption that you and I are maybe an item—” “What?”This day was a nightmare. “They think we’re an ‘item’?” “Shhhh and listen,” he said, shaking his head. “It was inferred by my coach because he misunderstood what I said. Anyway, once they heard that you’re a genius who’s going to Harvard and Mick Boche’s granddaughter, all of a sudden they started looking at me in a dierent light. Like maybe I wasn’t a fuckup and maybe I’m dating somebody who’s going to be a good inuence on me.” How could four dudes have it all so wrong?I wondered. “But we aren’t dating,” I said dumbly. “No shit, Sherlock,” he said. “No shit, Sherlock,” I mocked in a stupid voice under my breath, irritated by his attitude. “Dani.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and said very seriously, “Obviously this is a shit show, a misunderstanding that got way out of hand.” “Obviously,” I said. “But while I’m trying to get people to see who I really am—not a partying fuckboy—this could be a good thing.” “For you,” I said, trying to keep up with his direction. “So, what—you want to just let them think the wrong thing because it makes you look better?” “You promised to be quiet until I was done,” he said with raised eyebrows and a tilted head, like he was reasoning with me. “No, I didn’t,” I argued. “I believe I said, ‘I’m listening.’” “Dani,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please?” “Fine,” I said with another eye roll. “So,” he said, clearing his throat. His face got super serious as he put his big hands together like he was praying and said, “I have a proposition for you. I will

get you the hockey-manager job so you can have Harvard, if you agree to go along with this and maybe, like, let people think we’re kind of dating a little bit.” “What?”Whatwhatwhat the hell?? “You want me to pretend we’re dating?” “I mean, it’d be low-key,” he said, looking oended by my reaction. “It’s not like we’re going to make a formal announcement or anything. We’d just, y’know, kind of act like we’re seeing each other.” “Absolutely not,” I said, irrationally irritated by his nerve, his assumption that I’d just do him the tiny favor of ruining my own not-yet-formed reputation. I could just imagine how it would go. I’d be his little nerd beard, giving him the credibility he needed, yet all his friends would know the truth and laugh behind my back about the way Miss Four-Eyes was fake prostituting herself for an extracurricular. Meanwhile, I would be on display for the rest of the school to notice me— who even is she?—and make judgments about me because I was suddenly dating their superstar. Talk about landing on everyone’s radar in the very worst way. The new girl is dating Zeus? Ew. And eventually, when he didn’t need the alliance anymore and fake dumped me, I’d be left alone to deal with whatever my undeserved tattered reputation might look like. “Don’t shut it down without considering it rst,” he said with narrowed eyes, like he found my reaction to be ridiculous. He was ridiculous. And then he said, “Keep in mind that regardless of what we do, people are going to hear about what the coaches thought they saw earlier. So do you want the rumor to be about two people who barely know each other, or two people with history who might be reconnecting?” I wanted to hit him. I wasn’t a violent person, but I wanted to hit him for saying something I hadn’t considered, for speaking out loud something that was a freaking nightmare. People were going to be talking about me tomorrow, about me and Alec in the locker room together. I knew he was right, but I was too mad to give in.

“Listen,” I said, my throat tight because everything was going south at Southview so freaking fast. “It sucks that you’re having to face the consequences of your actions, but I’m passing on this opportunity.” He squinted a little more, looking like he was trying to see in the dark as he glared at me. “You’re not at all interested in helping when it might actually help you, too?” “Nope,” I bit out, glaring back at him. “Harvard isn’t worth a tiny little favor to you?” he asked. “Not even a tiny little bit,” I replied, overwhelmed by the stress of what tomorrow was going to look like at school. “Wow,” he said, his lips turning up in a mean smile as he gave his head a slow shake. “Some things never change.” “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, because I’d alwaysbeen Team Alec until I couldn’t be anymore because he’d disappeared. “Just that I thought maybe this one time you could think of someone other than yourself, maybe like a cool new thing for you to try out, but obviously I was wrong.” “You cannot be serious.” Was the guy who’d ghosted me after a lifetime of friendship actually calling mean asshole? “You’re saying Idon’t think of anyone but myself?” “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he said, his voice rising. “I guess I expected —” “Yes, you expected me to drop to my knees and do whatever you asked because now you’re Zeus the Hockey God,” I said, standing up. “It’s late and I need to study, so maybe you should go nd someone else to pretend to be your girlfriend. I mean, it seems like the ladies line up to be on Zeus’s radar, so it shouldn’t be hard—” “You don’t have to be an asshole,” he said, rising to his feet. “I don’t? Because it seems to me that you’ve been an asshole since the second I got to Southview for no good reason. If the big hockey star doesn’t want to be friends with his old nerdy buddy, that’s totally ne—I don’t want to be friends with you, either—but don’t act like I’m a jerk when you’re the jerk.” Just then, there was yet another knock.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” I muttered under my breath, because who else could possibly be dropping by this late on a weeknight? I walked over to the door and was shocked when I pulled it open and there was Benji. “Hey…?” I said, surprised to see him because I hadn’t seen him since the day we moved in and also why the heck would he stop by when we weren’t even friends and Grandpa Mick hated him? Also, it’s ten o’clock at night! “What’s up, Benji?” “I saw the lights on and I’m about to go on a food run, so I wondered—oh, hey, Zeus,” he said, looking around me with a big smile. “I didn’t know you were here.” “You didn’t see my car?” Alec said, and his voice was so tense it made me turn around. “Really?” And he was glaring at Benji. Not with the mild distaste he used to have for my grandpa’s annoying little next-door neighbor, but glaring like he wanted to annihilate him. “Now that you mention it,” Benji said with a creepily huge grin, “I guess I did see a rust bucket in the drive.” “Listen, um, Benji,” I said, having no idea what this tension was but not in the mood for it. “I really appreciate—” “Bye, Ben,” Alec said, suddenly standing beside me. “Alec,”I said, looking up at him in disbelief. “Well…? Are you hungry, Collins?” he asked abruptly, angrily. “Um, no…?” I answered, looking back and forth between the two of them. “She’s not hungry, you fuck, so get the hell out of here,” Alec said to Benji, reaching for the door, looking like he was going to take it o its hinges with a slam. “Alec,”I said in disbelief. “What are you—” “Is he bothering you, Dani?” Benji asked me with a face full of fake concern. “Because if he is, I can—” “You’re both bothering me,” I interrupted, having no idea what was going on with this angry machismo. “Thanks but no thank you on the food, Benji, and I think we’re done here, Alec.” I took a step back so Alec could join Benji on the porch.

“Oh, hey—did you get my text the other day?” Benji asked, smiling at me as if we texted all the time. “Um, yeah,” I said, crossing my arms as the cold air poured in. “I—” “Fucking go, Worthington,” Alec said, stepping out onto the porch and into Benji’s face, giving his chest a push. “She already said you’re bothering her.” “I think that was for you,” Benji replied, smiling like he was absolutely unfazed by angry Alec in his personal space. “By the way, love the oversized bong, Zeus. Veryclassy.” He turned and went down the steps, and I shook my head, because nothing made sense to me anymore. I looked at Alec and slammed the door, just needing to be done with the day. But then he knocked. I sighed and pulled it open. “Did you forget someth—” “You already reconnected with fucking Benji, are you kidding me?” His voice was low and gravelly, his eyes narrowed as he said it like… like it mattered, like I’d done something terrible to him by talking to the neighbor. “He… lives next door,” I said slowly, unsure what he could possibly mean by “reconnected.” Alec’s face was hard, and even though he looked nothing like my old friend anymore, something about the moment was straight from our past, grabbing at my chest with a hard squeeze. “But we hate that guy, Dani,” he said with a scowl, giving his head a shake of disbelief. “I don’t even know him anymore,” I said, so confused by his reaction and the way he said my name like we were still friends. “Do you?” “Oh yeah,” he said. “I sure as hell do.” “Then I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, because I don’t know either of you now,” I said. “Good night, Alec.” “Good night,” he said, sounding like he denitely didn’t wish me good night as I slammed the front door again. But I couldn’t sleep when I climbed into bed, not when his words kept playing in my head, over and over again.

I thought maybe this one time you could think of someone other than yourself, maybe like a cool new thing for you to try out, but obviously I was wrong. We’d exchanged weekly postcards for years, our own little coded system of keeping in touch, and then one day he’d just stopped responding. I never heard from him again. NEVER. So if anybody was guilty of not helping somebody else out, it was him. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Alec What the fuck was that? I was still sitting up in bed at twelve thirty, “ricochet”in my ears and a pounding in my skull, because how the hell was Benji already sning around when she’d just moved back? He’d always been like a puppy at her heels, so I shouldn’t be surprised. For all I knew, they were best friends. Did you get my text? Why would that fucking asshole even have her number? It doesn’t matter anymore. But yes—it kind of fucking mattered because I hated him. Benji Worthington had been an annoyance as a kid, a douchey little irritant who lived next door to Dani’s grandpa and liked doing things like tattling behind my back and being passive-aggressive when he was too little to even know what passive-aggressive meant. But once we hit middle school and I had to deal with him on the ice, he became a fucking menace. He was always on the best teams, the teams that recruited even though that wasn’t supposed to be a thing, and it bugged the shit out of me. He had a hockey IQ of zero, yet somehow always managed to make the cut. Surely it had nothing to do with all that expensive equipment and those unlimited resources. But as much as I didn’t like him, he fucking haaated me. It seemed to piss him o that no matter how much money he had, I was always the better player. Since he couldn’t do anything about that, he used to talk shit on my family all the time.

And I could handle assholes chirping at me—that was part of the game, right? But Ben always managed to come up with “jokes” about my life that were too personal, that had just enough truth to sting. My mom’s crappy minivan, the time my dad got laid o when I was in eighth grade… he always had something to insinuate, then loved playing innocent when I lost my cool and lit into him later. Then I was considered the “aggressor,” the one who was out of line. I nally beat the shit out of him at a party after my dad’s car accident, which was probably what started the whole “Barczewski’s a loose cannon” storyline (even though it wasn’t true). I’d been at the hospital that day, waiting for my dad to wake up after yet another surgery (he’d had seven), when my mom told me Dani and Hannah were on their way. Apparently they’d heard about the crash and decided to y in for the day to see my dad and be with my mom. And I’d been so fucking happy to hear that, not only because I hadn’t seen Dani in a couple of years, but because we were all drowning from the fallout of the accident, and I needed my friend—who’d stopped responding to my postcards—so fucking badly. But when Hannah showed up, she was alone. I asked about Dani, and she looked embarrassed when she said, “She’s not good at hospitals and wasn’t sure if she’d be intruding, so she had Benji just take her to the hotel.” I knew I couldn’t have heard her right. “Benji?” To a hotel? “Yeah, remember Benji Worthington, the kid who lived next door to us?” Hannah said it like it was hilarious, grinning as she told me that he’d been on the same ight and had oered them a ride. Small world, right? “That kid is so sweet,” she’d said, and I wanted to put my st through a wall. What a small fucking world. I’d been so bummed that Dani hadn’t wanted to see me; it was like her refusal to come to the hospital made everything that was already horrible feel even

worse. And the idea of that jackass getting to see her brought it even lower. But when I let Vinny drag me away from the hospital and to a party in White Bear later that night, and Benji was (of course) there, everything hit rock bottom. “Zeus! I saw our old friend Dani today,” he said in that sniveling rich-boy accent that had nothing to do with geography and everything to do with the silver spoon that was jammed all the way up his ass. He’d grinned and pulled out his phone. “Check it out.” I’d been so drained that ghting wasn’t on my mind. At all. I’d been interested to see what Dani looked like, honestly, even as I felt so damn disappointed in her. But instead of showing me an awkward sele of them at the airport where I could convince myself she looked like she hated him, it was a photo of just her. Sitting in a chair, grinning up at the camera. A chair I recognized as one we’d stolen from my dad’s shop. Holy balls, she’d taken him to our spot. She hadn’t come to the hospital to see me or my critically injured father, but she’d taken King Douche to our secret spot and was laughing with him. It made me want to puke. I’d kept my cool for another hour, but as soon as Benji started in on his shit— is it true your dad was drinking when he got in that crash?—I hit him. Multiple times. Knock it off, I told myself, leaning the back of my head against the wall and skipping to the next song as I tried to gure out my next move. Because no matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn’t come up with anything better than Dani. More specically, (fake) dating Dani. I didn’t want to let her in, but I needed her, dammit. “Screw it,” I said, pulling o my headphones and dialing the number my mom had given me in case I wanted to be nice and reach out. While it rang, my mind went back to the locker room yet again. How could someone’s neck smell so good?

“Hello?” Something about her voice when she answered (I couldn’t believe she answered), the way she sounded tired, brought back memories that I didn’t want to remember. “Hey, it’s Alec,” I said, realizing we’d never spoken on the phone before. How is that even possible? “Hey,” she said, and I was surprised she didn’t hang up or say something about the Benji incident earlier. “Listen, I know you already said no,” I said, jumping right into it as I switched on the Bluetooth speaker next to my bed to its lowest volume, “but I’m wondering if you’d consider letting me try to change your mind.” She sighed, but since it wasn’t a no, I kept going. “You can still reject me, but I’ve come up with more reasons why this might benet you.” “Have you?” she asked. “I have,” I said. “Can I share them with you?” “Okay,” she said. Okay?“Wait—are you awake?” “What?” I said, “I’m worried maybe you’re sleeptalking or something, because you sound very agreeable.” “I’m always agreeable. Now talk before I hang up.” “Okay.” I took a deep breath and said, “So, for starters, I think you need to look at this in a pros-and-cons sort of way because I’m having a hard time coming up with any reasons why this would be a bad thing for you.” “Of course you can’t,” she said. “Because why would any girl not want to be linked with Zeus the Hockey God?” “I feel like you’re prejudiced against me for being athletic now,” I said, wondering ohandedly where she was in Mick’s house. Was she in bed, wherever that might be, or back down in the living room, where she’d been lost in studies when I showed up earlier? I’d seen her through the window of the door, deep in thought with her eyes on her textbook and her bottom lip between her teeth. I hated how pretty she was; I didn’t need that shit.

“Are you jealous—is that it?” I teased, hoping to soften her. Regardless of anything else, I needed her to be receptive to this. “We both used to be klutzes together, and now you’re left all alone…?” I heard her cough something that sounded like a laugh, and it felt a little bit like a win. “Believe me, I’m not jealous,” she said. “Okay, so back to my outline. I’m going to give you reasons why this is a good thing for you. Number one—obviously—you get the extracurricular. You can be a hockey manager, which will get you the activity you need for Harvard. Since going to Harvard is very important to you, pretending to like someone to make it happen seems like a small sacrice, don’t you think?” “That was a pretty good argument,” she said, “but it’s the no-brainer. What’s next?” “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” “Not at all,” she said. “Okay, so number two… well, actually, who am I kidding, I only have two.” “Wow,” she said. “Did you spend all of ve seconds on this outline?” “I spent a solid twenty minutes, if you must know,” I said, wondering if number two was going to piss her o or embarrass her. It was a gamble, but it was the only other reason I had. “Give me number two, then,” she said. “All right. So, I’ve never had to go to a new school, but I don’t imagine it’s fun. Being the new kid probably sucks, and you seem to be a little on the introverted side now. And I don’t mean that in a bad way; I just—” “Get on with it,” she said, but she didn’t sound mad. “Okay, so wouldn’t it be nice to be linked to someone who knows everyone? I could introduce you to everybody, and then you would have, like, a social cushion, right? You wouldn’t have to stress or be nervous, because you’d be withme.” “All I hear is arrogance,” she said, but I could tell she was teasing. The old Dani is still in there. I explained, “It’s not arrogance; it’s just a fact. I’ve lived here my whole life, so of course I know everybody. Which means if you date me—”

“Fakedate you,” she corrected. “Fake date me,” I said with a sigh, “you’re in. You can be condent and comfortable because you’ll be instantly part of the group. Surroundedby friends.” “Okay, your number two is stupid, because the fake friends would be yours, not mine,” she said. “Potato, potahtoe. And don’t you want to have a little bit of a social life?” I asked. “Like you, the Bong King of the Twin Cities?” “Not that you’d believe me,” I said, torn between wanting to laugh at her smart-assery and wanting to scream because I was never going to live down that photo, “but I was just holding that—” “For a friend, right?” she said. “Also, I like the way you assume I will never have a social life without your help. It is possible that I will once I’m here for more than a minute.” “That’s not what I meant.” “And what exactly would this look like?” She sounded irritated again, like the idea of it was too much, and I knew I was losing her. “Not that I’m considering it at all, but in this scenario, would everyone think we were an item, including our families?” “Hmm—I haven’t thought about that—this idea is new for me, too,” I said, picturing my mom; shit, she’d lose it if she thought I was seeing Dani. “My gut says yes, though, because letting people in on the secret seems like a bad idea, like a quick way for it to fail. If we were to do it, I think it’d be best for everyone except us to think it’s real. Do you disagree?” “Um, no,” she said, “I think you’re right. Not that we’re doing this.” “Of course not,” I said, smiling in spite of myself because she was ipping back and forth so fast it was hard to keep up. “And how exactly does this work? How do two people pretend to date?” “Come on, Collins, quit being all Harvard and overthinking things. How hard can it be?” I reached over and pulled open my nightstand drawer, riing through junk papers with my hand as I felt around for that old Polaroid. “We just need to be seen together a couple times a week, looking like we like each

other, and maybe go to, like… things together sometimes. I can get on Instagram and post pics of us being a couple. As long as the guys on the team see us—and the guys I play against—it’ll get back to the right people.” “So you really don’t know,” she said. “Well, I’ve never pretended to date anyone before.” “Fair.” Found it. I grabbed the picture and pulled it out. “All I know is that I need to do whatever it takes to convince the fucking world that I’m gaga for a good girl and have my shit together.” “But, like,” she said quietly, suddenly sounding nervous, “won’t it be hard to pretend when we don’t even know each other?” “Isn’t that what dating is, though—getting to know someone?” I looked down at the faded snapshot between my ngers, the photo I’d looked at hundreds of times over the years, just as “Want Me” by Stephen Dawes came on. And you’re too cool for me to be yours It was Dani and me, soaking wet after a water-balloon ght in my backyard. I was pretty sure we’d been ten or eleven at the time. Our clothes were drenched— she was wearing a Spider-Man T-shirt and I’d been in my bro-tank phase where I cut the sleeves o of every shirt I owned to show o my (soft) biceps—and we were sporting matching rainbow sunglasses that we’d gotten for free at the Southview Days parade. We looked like little idiots. “So your plan would be for us to get to know each other while we’re pretending?” Where the fuck had those kids gone? I wondered. How was it possible that they needed to get to know each other? I said, “I mean, why not?” I put the photo back—fucking sentimental dipshit—because I kept forgetting the important piece of this puzzle. I wasn’t the same guy anymore. Since the minute I heard she was moving back, I’d been all twisted up trying to convince myself I didn’t give a shit about her. Because when we were kids, I’d

always been half-obsessed with her, pudgy little Alec chasing Dani around while she laughed and chased me back. But Dani Collins didn’t have any power over me anymore, because I was no longer that kid. Faking nice with her wasn’t going to kill me or make me fucking sprout feelings, for God’s sake, because it was just a means to an end. “And if I don’t want to do this,” she said, “is the hockey-manager position o the table?” Yes, it’s off the table, I wanted to snap, but I didn’t. “I wouldn’t say it’s o the table, but if you do this, it’s on the table with ribbons and bows and I’ll make it so easy that you will thank me and name all your sons after me.” “That’s hard to imagine,” she said, “because isn’t your middle name Herbert?” “RIP Grandpa Herb, do not disrespect his glorious name,” I said, surprised she remembered. “I would never—Herb was an icon,” she said, and I heard a smile again. “So…?” I prodded. Please, please, please. “Hmmm,” she said slowly, like she was really weighing her options. “Please?” I added, just in case it helped. “I promise you won’t regret it.” “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said. “And I’ll let you know in the morning.” “How about I pick you up?” I heard myself blurt, throwing out words and ride oers in a desperate attempt to convince her. “Are you sure you’re not just going to drive your car through Benji’s house like a jackass when you get here?” she asked. “I can’t promise anything,” I said. She sighed. “So mature.” And then I couldn’t stop myself. I asked, “You aren’t seriously texting buddies with that piece of shit, are you?” She was quiet for a minute, but then she just said, “I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t be late.” OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER NINETEEN Dani I groaned when my alarm went o, because I was not a fan of mornings. At all. That being said, I turned it o and jumped out of bed because I wanted time to “casually” chat with my mom before Alec showed up. I couldn’t guarantee he wasn’t going to run into the kitchen and hijack the narrative, so I had to get to her rst. “Good morning,” I said to my mom as I went into the kitchen and straight for the cupboard. “Are we ever going to use our kitchen in the apartment upstairs?” “I’m sure we will,” she said. “But this one is bigger and brighter, and the cabinets are always stocked. Since I haven’t really grocery shopped since we moved here, I gravitate toward the one with food.” “Okay, fair,” I said, pulling out a little bag of Hostess Powdered Donettes. “Can I have some of these?” “Sure,” she said. “I just want to make sure they aren’t Grandpa’s,” I said, because my mom never bought teensy trash donuts (that were delicious). “He’s your grandpa, so I’m sure he wants you to help yourself to anything in the pantry,” she said. “Hmm.” I took the white bag over to the table and sat down, still a little unsure if I should be eating the sugary donuts. “By the way…” My mom cleared her throat and looked weird. “Have you talked to Dad lately? Is something going on with him?” “Why?” I asked, feeling like my stomach suddenly weighed more than usual.

“I don’t know… he sent me this voice memo where he was being really nice, saying that we are adults and that, because of you, he wants to make sure we have a good relationship.” “That sounds nice,” I said, instantly stressed, because what was he up to? Was he trying to butter her up so he could talk to her about me possibly moving? That couldn’t be it, because he’d hung up on me for not loving the idea, right? “It does, but it sounds a little too nice,” she said. “Dad can be nice,” I said, even though I wholeheartedly agreed with her suspicion. “Bullshit,” my grandpa said with a fake cough as he walked into the kitchen. That irritated me, though Mom beat me to any response. “Dad, don’t.” “I was just coughing,” he said, going over to the cupboard and pulling out his mug, the same old North Stars mug he’d used for my entire life. I don’t know what got into me when I asked, “When was the last time you saw him? Like ve years ago? And before that you maybe talked to him once, twice a year? Do you really know him?” Though I was annoyed with my grandpa, the ask was sincere. He crossed his arms and looked surprised by my questions. “I know enough, trust me.” Okay… “Are you eating my Donettes?” he asked with his eyebrows down. “Mom said they were for everyone.” “She was right if everyone means me,” he growled. “You’re not going to share your donuts with your granddaughter?” my mom asked, looking irritated by the entire conversation. “Not if she’s gonna defend that jackass you used to be married to.” “Language, Dad,” my mom said before turning to me, and then, anticipating my sarcastic response, quickly blurted out, “But back to my initial question— you didn’t have any unusual conversations with Dad or anything? I’ve known him long enough to know that when he gets all nice like this, it’s usually because he’s setting me up for something.” “No,” I lied, injecting my voice with all sorts of casual. My stomach knotted with guilt as I looked at her, because I loved my mom more than anyone in the

world. I shouldn’t be lying to her. But I also wasn’t going to bring up the conversation we’d had, because how would that even go? Hey, Dad was trying to see if I would move to Omaha and leave you behind and I didn’t exactly tell him no because I want him to move back to the States. Yeah, no. I was beyond happy when I heard the sound of Alec’s noisy car pulling into the driveway, saving me from having to lie anymore. I hopped up from the table, grabbing my backpack. “I don’t need a ride today because Alec is picking me up,” I blurted out, opening the fridge to grab a Red Bull. “What?” my mom asked, looking surprised. “Who the hell is Alec,” Grandpa Mick asked in that not-a-question tone of his. “Alec Barczewski, Sarah and John’s boy,” my mom said, still looking at me like she was trying to gure things out. He took o his readers. “Who?” I wanted to roll my eyes but I didn’t. “Zeus? The one you said reminds you of, like, Conners or Krampus or—” “Kronwall,” he said, closing the newspaper with a sigh. “Niklas Kronwall. They both backpedal hit—” A knock sounded at the kitchen door, interrupting my grandpa’s hockey brieng. I’d hoped to run outside and avoid this, but here we were. I opened the door, and once again, I was unprepared for Alec’s appearance. He was wearing black joggers and a Southview jersey—nothing unusual— but his size kept surprising me. I was ve-seven, yet he seemed to be like a foottaller than me. And a filled-outtall boy, not some gangly stick guy. “Good morning, Collins,” he said, grinning down at me. He smelled good, like he’d just stepped out of the shower, and I put my hand on my stomach to quell whatever riot was happening when he smiled at me that way.

“Good morning, Barczewski,” I said. “We were just talking about you.” “Obsessed already,” he teased, his eyes moving all over my face. It’s only an act, I reminded myself, because one second of his irting was already showing me just how powerful it could be. Dear God. “It was him, actually,” I said, pointing to the table. “My grandpa thinks you backpedal hit like a cornball.” It was comical, the way Alec’s face immediately changed when he looked at my grandpa. The teasing went away and he looked like a nervous little boy, like a kid who had no idea what to say. His throat moved around a swallow, and my eyes got a little stuck on his neck. Grandpa Mick shook his head like I was pathetic. “For God’s sake, I said you hit like Kronwall,” he corrected. “Oh.” Alec looked like he definitely didn’t know what to say when he was being complimented by my grandpa. “Thank you.” “Hey, kid,” my mom said to Alec with a big smile. “Thanks for being her chaueur today.” “I gured you needed a break from this one,” he said, again with the cute teasing. “We should go,” I said, looking back and forth between him and my mom, who was freaking beaming. “You’ve got everything you need?” she asked. “You have lunch money?” “Yep,” I said, noticing the way Alec looked at me like he knew I was pocketing her money and avoiding the cafeteria entirely. “Text me later so I know how things are going,” my mom said, pulling me in for a big hug. “I will.” I took a deep breath, feeling like a little kid as I inhaled the Eternity she’d worn my entire life, and wished I could just stay home with her all day long. “You guys ready for tonight?” my grandpa asked, zero warmth in his tone. I pulled back from my mom as Alec gave Grandpa Mick a nod. “Eagan’s playing good hockey right now, but as long as we stick to our game, they

shouldn’t be a problem.” “Right, another game tonight.” I groaned. “Please tell me there won’t be another pep rally.” “No, that one covered the rest of the season, so you’re safe.” “Thank God.” Alec held open the door for me as we left, and as soon as the cold air blasted me in the face, I was lled with nervousness, because what was I doing? Like, was I seriously going to do this? Also—what the hell was Alec driving? It was a silver car, but the bumper and one of the side panels were black, like they’d been taken from another vehicle. And he was missing the passenger mirror. I didn’t care about cars, but I would’ve thought someone as slick and smooth as “Zeus” would drive something monster-sized that he called a chickmobile or something. “Don’t judge Burrito,” he said as I opened the passenger door. “She isn’t pretty, but she’s reliable.” “It’s more than I’ve got, so no judgment,” I said. There hadn’t been a reason for me to get my license at Ramstein, so I was still like a middle schooler with no wheels and no prospects. “Good morning, Dani,” I heard, and when I turned, I saw Benji standing beside his running Maserati in his driveway, smiling. “Oh, hey, Ben,” I said, uncomfortable after what had happened the night before. “Hey, there, Benji,” Alec said, giving my neighbor a total dickish smirk. “Do all the Cadets have douchebag cars, or is it just you?” “We can’t all drive pieces of shit held together by duct tape, bro.” “I’m not your bro, asshole,” Alec said before climbing into the car and slamming the door. Neither of us spoke as he backed out of the driveway, and I was stunned for a second to hear “Dopamine” playing in his car because I loved that song. As far as I knew, it wasn’t a radio hit, so did that mean, like… Did he like it too? Focus, Dani!

I scrambled to get my words together to ease whatever tension was rolling o Alec thanks to Benji, but also because I’d come up with my own demands for this “fake dating” situation. I opened my mouth to start when he said, “By the way—are you okay?” I looked over at his prole while he kept his eyes on the road, having zero idea what he was talking about. “What?” He shot me a look for a brief second, his dark eyes moving over my face before he went back to the road. “Whatever the colonel did to make you upset yesterday—are you good now?” Oh. “Um, yeah, I suppose,” I said with a shrug, because I was shocked that he was asking. “He’s just being… y’know, Dad, I guess.” Alec looked at me like he understood, but before he could derail me further with unexpected concern, I jumped in.“So listen. I’ve been thinking about your proposition, and I have a counteroer.” “Oh?” He glanced over again, and my face must’ve been intimidating or something, because he said, “Oh God.” “Yes, you probably should call out to him.” I’d barely slept at all last night because I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Alec said people would for sure nd out about what the coaches had walked in on in the locker room. If that was true, I was screwed. Because, since Alec was this big popular guy that half the girls in the school wanted to date, a rumor about me being withhim in the locker room was going to get me a lot of hate. So the game of pretend was absolutely necessary if I was going to stand a chance at not becoming a pariah. But I was only going to feel safe if he did it my way. “Here’s the thing. As much as I don’t want to do this, I feel like there’s no way for me to not do it.” He looked surprised. “Really? You’re seriously going to help me?” “This isn’t for you,” I said, making sure he knew I wasn’t at his fake-girlfriend beck and call. “The sad reality is that I’m going to be part of a rumor now.

People are probably already gossiping about what they think was going on in the locker room.” “Yeah, probably,” he agreed, which made my stomach drop. I didn’t want it to be true. “So, to your point last night, I’d much prefer them to think that we are childhood sweethearts who reconnected, as opposed to me being cast as the new girl who’s canoodling with hockey players in the locker room in her very rst week.” “Did you seriously just say ‘canoodling’?” he said with a smirk. “Whatever—you get my point. Can you please focus here?” “Fine,” he said. “So you’re saying the game of pretend works for you, too, then?” “Yeah, but I’m going to need something more,” I said, nervous because there was a good chance he was going to refuse. “What is it?” he asked, turning onto the street where the school was. Which meant I needed to speak quickly. “Well, we can still be super casual, but I’m going to need this fake relationship to last until I say it’s over,” I said, then quickly added, “Not as a power trip thing, but I just need—” “You really areobsessed with me,” he said with another smart-ass half smile, and I was glad he was joking. It was good he was feeling funny. “No, no, but I need you to agree to this,” I said. “I want to have the nal say in the breakup timeline. I want you to agree to stay with me until I say so, even if that keeps us together for a long time. Like, even… until graduation.” He made a noise like he thought I was kidding before he slowed at the stoplight and turned his full attention to me. “You want to be my fake girlfriend for three months?” “I don’t wantthat, ew,” I said defensively, “but it might be necessary.” “How would it b—” “Because the girl in a breakup always gets the bad rap, okay?” I snapped, hating the truth of it. “You’re oering me this social protection as a new person, where I get to go everywhere and be part of your magical friend group, blah blah

blah, but what happens if you decide to fake dump me in a few weeks and I haven’t had a chance to make my own friends yet? Then your friends can start trashing me, and it might end up being worse on my end than if we’d never done it.” “My friends aren’t assholes—they wouldn’t do that,” he said, brushing it o like I was ridiculous. “Oh, they denitely would,” I insisted, knowing from experience just how quickly people could turn. “But the bottom line is I’m not going to do this unless I have your guarantee that it’s not over until I say it’s over.” Could I sound like a bigger psycho? “But.” His eyebrows were scrunched together. “What if one of us wants to go out with someone else?” I knew this would be the problem. Zeus the party boy wasn’t going to accept the idea of potentially not being able to chase girls for the next few months. “I know it’s not ideal, but it’s the only way.” “We can’t just start and see how it goes?” he asked. “This is the only option.” “Not to play the devil’s advocate for you,” he said, sounding like he thought I was being ridiculous, “but how do you know I’m not going to agree to this and then dump your ass anyway in a month if you start annoying me?” Nice. “Because if you do that,” I said, digging deep for my badass bravery, “I’ll tell everyone—including my grandpa and every hockey dude he knows—that it was all a lie in order to help your image.” “Whoa.” His head came around for a quick second, and I could tell I’d shocked him. “You’d seriously do that?” “I mean, I wouldn’t want to,” I said with a shrug, feeling like the world’s biggest demanding jerk but knowing it was the only way. “Mm-hmm,” he said, looking back at the road, and I wished I knew what he was thinking. Are we doing this or not? When we nally got to school and started walking toward the door, he still hadn’t said anything. And it was killing me. Did he agree to my demands?

But when he grabbed the handle to the front door, I got my answer. “Let me ask you this,” he said quietly, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was close. “Do you want to soft launch this thing or go hard?” “So we’re doing it?” I asked, the cold wind sending a shiver up my spine. “Yeah,” he said, those dark eyes on mine. “So how do you want to play it?” I had no idea exactly what he was asking, because we were walking into a public school building—it wasn’t like “hard launch” could mean much, right? “I guess that’s your call.” “All right.” His jaw did a little ex thing as he looked at me, and then he pulled open the door and gestured for me to walk in front of him. “So…?” I said quietly, glancing over at him as I walked through the door he was holding. “What do you want to do?” “What I always want to do,” he said. “Go hard.” I looked down when his hand grabbed mine, when he linked all ve of his ngers in all ve of mine. My eyes moved up to his face, and he was watching me like he was waiting for my next move. Somehow I sensed that if I didn’t like this, he would totally back o, and I didn’t know what to do. Because something about him holding my hand scared me. The school was already noisy, with everybody arriving and hanging out in the halls, and my heart started beating a little bit faster. What were people going to think? What was going to happen? Did I really want to do this? The panic started rising again. But then his ngers exed, squeezing mine, and it felt like a reassurance. I gave him a tiny nod, my wordless attempt at letting him know I was all in on going hard. “Let’s do this, Collins,” he murmured, and then he started walking, pulling me alongside him. I nervously let him tug me along, hyperaware of people looking in our direction. Because he was holding my hand like my boyfriend. This was a statement. And then—then he went harder. “By the way,” he said, yanking me a little closer as we walked. It was playful— irtatious, even—as he gave me a teasing look and said, “I like this coat. It’s

cute.” “You like this coat?” I asked, looking down at it. “I do. It reminds me of the one you were wearing in your Utah Christmas photo.” “The sheep jacket from third grade, are you kidding?” I asked around a laugh. “I forgot all about that. I loved that coat.” “It’s got the same kind of uness,” he said, releasing my hand long enough to grab my sleeve and sort of yank me in his direction. “But what’s really ridiculous is that scarf.” He nodded his head toward the huge knit scarf around my neck. “You dress like you’re in Antarctica.” “Because it feels like Antarctica here,” I said. “I think I’ve been frozen since the second we rolled into town.” “So soft,” he said, shaking his head like I was ridiculous. “What’s so soft?” I heard as Vinny and Richie came out of nowhere. Alec slowed and turned in their direction, which meant I slowed too. “She is,” he said, bumping his shoulder against mine and smiling. “Dani dresses like it’s fty below all the time and runs for the doors whenever she’s outside. Soft as hell.” He whispered the last words, slowly, teasingly, his breath tickling my ear. Jesus. “You’ll get used to it,” Vinny said to me, his eyebrow lifting as Richie bit his lip to keep from smirking at this obvious display of irtation. Alec gave me a look that was so laced with… somethingthat I felt my cheeks get hot. Even as I knew this was all for show, butteries went wild in my stomach because of the way he was watching me. Holy God, Alec at full power is a lot to handle. “Listen,” I said abruptly (and a little too loudly), “I need to go to my locker because I don’t want to be late, so I’ll see you later.” I wasn’t sure if I was talking to Alec or all three of them. “Lunch in the library?” he asked, his eyes on mine as he reached out a big hand and grabbed the end of my scarf. Our gazes stayed locked as he slowly unlooped the yarn, his knuckles grazing my skin as he casually unwrapped my neck.

What is he doing? A shiver slid down my spine, a shiver that was either from the cool air suddenly touching my throat or from the way he was audaciously peeling away one of my layers while looking at me thatway; I couldn’t be sure which. But he was daring me with his eyes, wordlessly challenging me to respond; I’d have recognized that expression anywhere. He might be Zeusnow, but my little friend Alec had given me that look a hundred times. Usually in the context of you won’twhile waiting to see if I would. So I raised my chin, snatched the scarf from his ngers, and said, “It’s a date, Zeus.” OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY Alec Me: I heard that cool chicks hang out in the library. True or false? I watched Dani grab the phone out of her pocket and look down at the message, and then—dear Jesus—her shiny mouth curved up into a smile as she texted me back. Dani: I heard the same thing so I’m going to say TRUE I shouldn’t like her grin as much as I did—after all, she wasmy shitty ex- friend—but today I was all in on convincing her to help me, so that was my only focus. Until graduation. I still couldn’t believe she’d suggested that, although her reasoning was sound. And fucking sad. If I were in her situation, it’d never have occurred to me that people might turn on me post-fake-breakup. I wouldn’t have thought that far ahead, because in my experience—for the most part—people didn’t act like assholes. But she’d obviously had a dierent experience. I replied: Rumor has it hot guys like to swing by sometimes… She was still smiling when she texted: Only douches call themselves hot guys There she is, the old Dani. I sent: WHOA. COLLINS. I’m simply telling you the rumors that travel within these halls. I would never think to call myself that. Also… totally unrelated… I just walked into the library. Her head came up and she was grinning when she looked at me. And whoa—her full-throttle smile was still exactly the same. It made me feel kind of… off-kilteras I walked over to her table.

“Did you already eat?” she asked, pushing up her glasses as I sat down in the seat across from her. I don’t know, what is eat?“I’m good.” Her eyebrows scrunched together, probably because that wasn’t an answer. “And you wantto hang out in the library instead of the cafeteria?” I think I do.“Yes. I’m in need of a good book.” “A good book.” That made her set down Invisible Man. “You didn’t like the history ones you got the other day?” The ones I blindly grabbed so I didn’t look like I cared you were in the library? “They were for school. I need a book for fun.” Her eyes narrowed and she watched me for a second before asking, “Do you want me to help you?” A laugh came out of me as I remembered all the summer mornings we’d walked to the library together. She’d always been annoyingly excited about getting a new book, whereas I’d always been annoyingly excited to log into a library computer and play Fortnite. But, to appease my mom, Dani always found a book for me to check out. “Do your best, Collins.” “Come on.” She left her stu at the table and gestured for me to follow her. The smell of her perfume was like my guide rope, leading me by the nose, and I cleared my throat and pushed that thought away because I couldn’t aord to lose focus. “Billy Summers,” she said, moving through the book stacks with purpose. “It’s actually Alec Barczewski,” I quipped, following her. “The dad jokes, come on,” she muttered, not slowing until we were standing in front of what was obviously the Stephen King section. She paused for a second, searching, before she pulled out a thick one. “Billy Summers is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Read it. I know you’ll love it.” “Okay,” I said. “I’ll start it tonight.” “Aren’t you going to read the back of the book?” she asked, looking at me like I was nuts. “To see if you’ll like it?” It was ridiculous how much I loved being taller than her now. It was like physical proof of the shift in our dynamic, a reminder that everything had

changed. “No, I trust you,” I said. “You’re the only person I’ve ever trusted to pick out library books for me.” That made her forehead get a tiny crease. “Let’s go read.” We went back to the table, and it took a lot of mental toughness to start reading the book when her smell was messing with me and her blond curls were in my peripheral vision. Her perfume reminded me of apple juice and owers, and something about that combination wreaked havoc on my senses. It was annoying as hell. I tried popping in one AirPod to take the edge o, but every random song that came on made me think of the girl next door—“Famous,” “Gateway Drug,” “Picasso”—so I had to yank it out. But once I focused on the words in front of me, I was immediately hooked. Dani was right. “Psst,” she whispered a few minutes later, and when I looked up, she was holding out a granola bar. “Eat this.” “Why?” I asked, unsure why she was giving me a library snack. “Because I heard your stomach growl and you have a game later and I’m fairly certain you’re blowing o lunch for this,” she said. “Don’t atter yourself, Collins,” I said, giving her an exaggerated smile. “I would never give up for lunch for you or for anybody. But I will take your proered granola bar and devour it because I am fucking starving for no reason whatsoever.” That made her laugh, a quiet little tinkle that did nothing to help the grip I was losing on my focus. “You know,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning her face in a little closer, “there’s basically no one in here, so you don’t have to waste your lunch when we’ve got zero visibility.” She wants me to leave. “Yeah, but if we’re doing this whole thing, there needs to be a little bit of authenticity to it, right?” I asked. “We actually might need to spend time together if it’s going to work.” “Probably…?” She shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Same,” I said, and we both smiled because of course we didn’t know how to pretend date. It wasn’t a thing. “But trust me—we’re getting invisible visibility from this.” “What do you mean?” “Well,” I said, taking a bite of the bar, “Richie and Vinny couldn’t believe I was skipping lunch to go to the library, so I guarantee they sat their wiseasses down at the table and started yapping about the fact that I’d rather hang out with you in a foodless library than join them in the caf.” “Oh.” She bit down on her bottom lip, and I could tell her mind was going a mile a minute. “I know the stereotype is that girls gossip,” I said. “But no woman has anything on those dudes. They want to be in the know on everything and everyone.” “So,” she said, leaning in even closer and lowering her voice to a true whisper. “Have you heard anything about the locker room? Is anybody talking about it?” Her eyes were big as she waited for my answer, and I didn’t know what to say. Because, for starters, her whispering to me while apple juice and owers oated around my face made it dicult to think. But I actually hadn’t heard anything about it yet, if I was being honest, so maybe it wouldn’t become a rumor. But if she knew that, would she back out on the plan? “Some of the guys denitely know, but it hasn’t become a thing yet,” I said. Which wasn’t really a lie, because Gordy and the coaches were, in fact, guys, right? “Thank God,” she said, then picked her book back up and started reading. The rest of lunch ew by, the library a nice break from the chaotic lunches I was used to, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed when the bell rang. I waited while she put her books in her backpack so we could walk out together. “Are you going to your locker?” I asked when we stepped out into the noisy hallway, because I needed to stop at mine. “No, I’m going that way,” she said, pointing toward the south corridor.

I leaned my head closer to hers because she was so short that it was hard to hear her in the crowded hall and said, “Shit, am I going to have to memorize your schedule?” She looked up at me like she wanted to smile—her eyes crinkled at the corners—but she kept it together. “Don’t burden that brain of yours when you have hockey to think about, Zeus. Trust me, I’ll let you know where you need to be.” We agreed to meet at her locker after school and went our separate ways, but as I looked down at the scrap of paper in my hand where she’d written her locker number, I got an idea. The best way to make sure she didn’t ake on our deal was to show her that it was going to be fun, right? That she’d not only get Harvard, but she’d also get the social interactions she’d been denied with all the moving. I needed to go harder on making her see it’d be fun. She used to be all about a good time, and it might be entertaining as hell to see just how much I could make her like Zeus. I shot o a text to my mom’s cousin, who also happened to be the school’s maintenance technician. Me: I need a favor. Are you in your office? OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Dani “So I’m not sure if I should go or not.” Cassie stood next to my locker as I put in my combination, trying to get me to help her decide if she should go out with someone I hadn’t met. I didn’t have an answer, but she’d nally stopped questioning me about why I wasn’t quite sure if I had the manager job locked down yet, so I was willing to discuss people I didn’t know all day long. Also—I didn’t hate that she seemed to genuinely want my opinion. Like we were friends. “He sounds nice,” I said, pulling up on the release latch. “But what’s the chemistry like? Is there awkward silence when you’re together, or is he someone you can—” Gummy bears. I stopped talking because when I opened my locker door, a bag of gummy bears dropped down from the top shelf, swinging out at me from where it was connected by what appeared to be a strand of twine. “What the heck is that?” Cassie reached out and grabbed the bag, holding it so she could read the note that was attached to the front of the candy. COLLINS— I DON’T KNOW IF YOU STILL INHALE THESE LIKE YOU USED TO, BUT I SAW THEM IN THE MACHINE AND THOUGHT OF YOU. —A

P.S. MY BOOK SMELLS LIKE YOUR PERFUME AND IT’S DISTRACTING AS HELL Oh wow. I stared at the scrawled-out note and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Thoughts were bouncing around in my brain, chaotic little comments that were all over the place. He remembers my gummy bear addiction. There are obvious security concerns at Southview if he was able to get into my locker. His handwriting is surprisingly nice. Does his book actually smell like my perfume? This is so thoughtful. This is an act. “Okay, Dani,” Cassie said, letting go of the swinging bag to look at me with huge eyes and a gaping mouth. “What the hell is going on? Who put this in your locker?” “I, um, I think—” “I mean, you don’t even really know anyone yet, right, except for Zeu—oh my God, Zeus?” She screeched his name when she realized, grabbing my upper arms. “I thought you guys were just old friends! You said you were like strangers, didn’t you?” I was torn between being excited that this fake thing might be easy to pull o, and terried because I still really didn’t want to do it. “Shhhh,” I said, ripping down the bag of bears, trying not to smile but failing. I lowered my voice and said, “It’s no big deal. We werelike strangers, but we’ve started talking a little, kind of… reconnecting. We’re just, um, old friends catching up.” “Sure you are.” “Seriously.” “Holy shit, though,” she said, giving my arms a shake. “You gave him your locker combination already?”

“No,” I said with a shrug, shaking my head because my dismay at this was absolutely genuine. “I have no idea how he got in.” “That’s so sweet,” she said, smiling. “Or felonious. He broke-and-entered.” “Because he wanted you to have candy,” she added in a singsong voice. “The boy is out here committing crimes foryou.” That made me laugh and kind of wish I weren’t lying to her. But there was no way I could trust her enough not to. Why was I feeling giggly when this wasn’t even real? The warning bell rang, which meant we had two more minutes. “I’ll see you later,” Cassie said, taking o in the other direction as I pulled out my phone. I texted: Thank you for the gummy bears. He was quick with the response. Alec: I cannot see a bag of gummy anything without thinking of you. That made me smile, the fact that he remembered. It wasn’t easy to concentrate after that, because I was a little keyed up. Playing this game with Alec was kind of fun, which I hadn’t expected. He seemed a lot like the old Alec, in this world of pretend, and every tiny piece of me wanted that to be true so badly, because I missed my best friend so much. But I needed to remember that that wasn’t him anymore. He might be capable of fun, but he was now Zeus the Hockey God, a guy I couldn’t trust. Keeping that in mind proved dicult, however, because he was a very entertaining fake irtation. He showed up at my locker with Vinny and Richie after sixth period just to say hey and see if I’d eaten all the bears yet (I had, which made him grin like I was adorable), and when he met me there after school, he grabbed the scarf from my hands and wrapped it around my neck like he was a parent bundling up a child about to play in the snow. I laughed in spite of myself, and then I laughed even more when he took his Southview beanie out of his coat pocket and put it on my head with both hands, saying, “You lose a lot of body heat through the head, Collins, so a wimp like you needs to get a hat.”

I rolled my eyes, and then my stomach ipped all the way over when he bent at the knees so our faces were level, gave me a half smile, and said, “You look good in mine—you should keep it.” My breath was stuck in my throat as he irted so well that I had trouble remembering how to speak. I met his gaze and said, “Thanks.” “You got it,” he said, tugging on a strand of my hair. His eyes were all over my face before he added in a murmur, “Danigirl.” Sweet holy God. It was confusing to stare up into the face of this incredibly attractive guy, an oversized specimen of a world-class athlete with a hard jaw, while getting a glimpse of the old Alec Barczewski when his mouth slid into a smile. “What the hell is this?” Vinny said with a questioning smirk, and—God—I hadn’t even noticed he was there. “Yeah, get a room,” Richie added, and it was wild the way I hadn’t noticed either of them because all I’d been able to see was Alec. “So good luck tonight, you know, at your game,” I said like a dope, blinking fast in hopes that I wasn’t looking at him through pathetic heart eyes or something. I was positive he got that from most human females because, well, damn. Like, bravo, Mother Nature. “Thanks,” he replied in a low voice, his eyes getting a playful squint as he raised my scarf to cover my chin, like he was helping me stay warm (again). I felt a little hypnotized as his… bignesssurrounded me. Tall body, wide shoulders, big hands—he was obviously a very physical guy, always nudging with a shoulder or yanking on a curl, and it was going to take some getting used to. Especially when he wielded direct eye contact like some kind of weapon. I needed to start reminding myself to breathe or there was going to be a lot of passing out during the course of this fake relationship. I said, “Call me later?” I could tell by the quick blink of his eyes that I’d surprised him, but he quickly recovered. “Try and stop me, Collins.” OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Alec I thought about her all the way to the arena. Even with headphones on and my Pregame Calm playlist sending me chill shit like “The Black Dog” and “In the Kitchen,” I couldn’t shake the image of her big brown eyes blinking up at me from point-blank range. This was going to be tougher than I thought. I mean, I could handle it, but fuck. As much as I didn’t want to accept it, the truth was that there was still a part of me that saw her the way I’d always seen her. The guys gave me shit the second she left us alone, because apparently I looked like a “lovesick little bitch” when I was around her, which made me defensive for a half second before I remembered that was how I wanted to look. The clouds parted because, oh yeah—it was all an act. She was playing her part, and I was playing mine. Boom—no worries. I swallowed down a few ibuprofen when I got to the locker room, then rubbed a shit ton of Icy Hot into my shoulder before suiting up. And then everything else disappeared. It didn’t make sense, really, that when I wasn’t playing hockey, I spent every waking minute stressing about it. The banners, the articles, the recognition—it all just reminded me that I was going to let down a lot of people if I wasn’t the best. If I wasn’t better than the best. I mean, I’d gotten a text from my agent already that afternoon, just checking in to see how things were going and to wish me luck for the game. And to remind me that a couple of scouts were going to be there.

Forgetting was impossible. Especially when there wasn’t just my post–high school career and everything that came with it to worry about, but also Southview—like, the town itself. The Packers had gone to the tournament more times than any other school in Minnesota, yet we’d never brought home the title. There was no championship banner hanging from the Doug’s rafters, no championship trophy sitting on a glass shelf in one of the Doug’s trophy cases. We’d made it to the nals last year but lost to St. John’s Academy (and fucking Ben Worthington), so even though I scored a goal at the Xcel Energy Center, it was the worst game of my life. Because we’d come so damn close. I’d cried like a fucking baby afterward, swear to God. And now it was my senior year and I was playing the best hockey of my life. It was cool that the entire town was insanely supportive, but it also felt like everyone was counting on me to nally make it happen. To lead the team to the historic thing that’d never been done before. It kept me awake (when my shoulder wasn’t already keeping me awake) more nights than it didn’t. But the second my skates connected with the ice—praise Jesus—all of that disappeared. I forgot about pressure, pain, and curly blondes with brown eyes. My brain pressed pause on everything that wasn’t connected to my skates, my stick, the puck, and the ice in front of me. “What the fuck is this I hear about you and Boche’s granddaughter?” Kyle said as I skated past him during warm-ups. Fuck. He was always lazy until game time, yapping about random shit, but I needed to get in some good laps before we stretched and didn’t need him messing with my focus. “If you can catch me, I’ll tell you,” I said, knowing I was safe from having to discuss Dani, because he wasn’t even going to try. I cleared my head of everything, and from the second the puck dropped that night, we were fucking on re.

I got lucky from the jump with a rim around the boards that led to a turnover behind the goal line. Kyle got the puck with space behind the net and wrapped it around the right post into the low slot to Richie, who got enough on his shot to get the puck past their goalie. It felt slick and easy, one minute in, and we never let up. Everything worked that night, and we fucking destroyed them. After the bus brought us back, I stopped by the team oces to see Kuhn— one of the assistant coaches—and get his okay on Dani being a team manager. I dropped it casually, like Are you cool with a new kid helping Cassie? and he—of course—agreed. I mean, I wasn’t an idiot. Going to Coach Oz, after what he thought he’d walked in on the day before, would’ve been a terrible idea. “He was cool with it?” Richie asked as we walked to my car. “Yeah,” I said, a little surprised myself. “I mean, she’s Boche’s granddaughter,” Vinny said, “Of course he’s gonna be cool with it. You really think he wants Mick kicking his ass for turning her down?” “Boche’s not going to kick anyone’s ass,” Richie said. “Probably.” “Of course he isn’t,” I said, although the old enforcer wascrazy intimidating. After dropping o the guys and wolng down some leftover meat loaf that was in the fridge, I went up to my room to get started on my homework since I needed to stay on top of my shit now more than ever. My parents weren’t home yet, which I didn’t hate because I could use a little quiet. But rst I needed to text Dani and make sure we were all good. I opped onto my mattress and stretched out, then decided to hit the FaceTime button instead. She answered on the second ring. “What are you doing?” she asked as the call connected, her eyebrows down behind those big glasses. “Don’t you know it’s considered a breach of etiquette to assume the FaceTime call without asking rst?” It looked like she was also sitting on her bed, because there was a white headboard behind her.

“My bad,” I said, rolling over onto my good side. “I just thought talking would be easier than texting to let you know that you’re in as manager. So tomorrow just check with Cass on where you should go and what you should do at practice.” “What did he say?” she asked, her eyes wide. “The coach was ne with it after… y’know…” That made me want to laugh, the way she looked too innocent to nish the sentence, even though nothing had been going on. “He’s ne with it.” “Oh, thank God,” she said, putting a hand on her chest and looking so relieved that I almost felt guilty. “So I’m ocially one of the team managers.” “You are.” I cleared my throat and said, “Hockey manager and my, uh, not sure what to call you… person of interest…?” “Sounds like I’m being investigated by the feds,” she said. “Lover?” “Gross.” I heard the slam of the door downstairs, so either my parents were home or my grandma was back with the twins. “My boo?” I suggested. She sighed but I could tell she wanted to smile. “How about the brilliant girl you’re suddenly obsessed with?” “That doesn’t sound right,” I said, and then she didsmile. “You can’t be brilliant and mistake Kronwall for cornball.” “Can I tell you a secret?” she said with a shitty little smirk. “You knew it was Kronwall and just wanted to annoy Mick,” I said. She coughed out a laugh. “Little bit.” “What’s it like so far, living with him?” She shrugged. “He doesn’t really talk to me. He barks out random questions and statements when we happen to cross paths, but that’s pretty much it.” “What a game—ooh, sorry,” my dad said from the doorway, putting up a hand when he saw the phone. I didn’t know if she was ready for a public outing with our parents, but what the hell? Might as well start ruing our family’s feathers with the shock of this. I watched her face as I sat up and said to my dad, “No worries—it’s Dani.”

She looked back at me and I saw her register who I was talking to, and then she tilted her head and gave me a little squint, like she knew exactly what I was doing. “Danigirl!” my dad said, gesturing for me to hold up the phone. He fucking loved her, so this was going to be interesting. “How’s it goin’, kiddo? You like it so far? Is Al showing you everything you need to know about being a Packer?” “Well,” she said, smiling in that way that told me she was up for the challenge, “I actually thought he was avoiding me when I rst got here, but suddenly he has become incredibly helpful.” “Has he now?” my dad said. “Also, John—what happened to your squishy little son? I mean, not that I’m complaining,” she said, “but he has denitely changed.” That made my dad throw his head back and laugh, which was still my favorite sound. It was weird how tragedy could do that to you. My dad had been ne(ish) for a long time now, but after everything, I still cherished his loud-as-hell laugh, because we’d almost lost it forever. “Yeah, he grew and then suddenly he became less klutzy—go gure,” my dad said. “Did he tell you that I’m going to be a hockey team manager?” she asked. “Oh yeah? I thought you didn’t know anything about hockey,” he said, giving me a confused look. “Oh, I don’t, but it seems to me like when your boy wants something, he somehow manages to make it happen.” Good Lord, she is good. She was dripping little bits of irtation without blatantly saying that things might be progressing past friendship. “So I guess I’m going to have to learn all about it now,” she said. “I’ll teach you,” my dad said, which I knew he’d love. “Come over anytime and I’ll teach you everything you need to know.” “Yeah,” I said. “You should come over right now, Collins.” Something about the way she looked embarrassed when I said that, the way her cheeks got a little bit pink, made me smile in spite of my exhaustion.

“I’m pretty sure you have studying to do, Barczewski,” she said in a perfect tease. “By the way—my mom said she was going somewhere called the Crow to celebrate her new job and it’s been hours and she still isn’t back—should I be worried?” “Nah, she was with us,” my dad said. “We stopped by after the game.” “I’m assuming the Crow is a bar?” she asked. “The Croatian Social Hall,” I said. “The Cro.” “Oh,” she said, looking no less confused and distracting me with the way she was blinking fast. She had the coolest fucking eyes. “It’s basically a bar,” I added, clearing my throat and my mind. “That everyone goes to.” “Got it. Listen, I should probably go study,” she said, smiling at my dad. “But am I going to see you and Sarah soon? Will you guys be at the next game?” “They’re my parents, Collins,” I said. “Of coursethey’ll be there.” “I was talking to your father, not you,” she said adorably. “Yeah, we’ll be there. And you missed a helluva game earlier; Al really had his legs moving tonight, holy moly.” That made her eyes land on me as she smirked. “He brought both of them, did he?” My dad laughed again and went o, describing the game, completely oblivious to the fact that she had no idea what he was saying. She tilted her head and that smirk slid into a grin. “So… you scored?” My dad lost it, howling as he told Dani she needed to get her ass over to the house soon so he could teach her about hockey. “I will, I promise,” she said. “Al, are you picking me up for school on Monday?” I hadn’t been planning on it, we hadn’t discussed it at all, and something about the way she was looking at me told me she knew that. “Of course I am,” I said, slowly shaking my head because she was a little shit. “I’ll have him bring some deer sticks,” my dad said. “And some of El’s cinnamon rolls.”

“That would be great. See you then, Zeussy,” she said with a big grin, and I laughed because she’d obviously tricked me. I’d made a deal with a harmless shy girl, not this mouthy version of classic Dani. “I love that kid,” my dad said after the call was disconnected. “So she’s gonna be a manager, huh? Where the hell did this come from?” I told him about the Harvard thing, and he said, “Well, I’m glad you were able to help her. She’s a good kid and it sounds like she went through some shit, so hopefully Southview’s a great place for her to land.” “What sort of shit?” I asked. “Besides the divorce.” “I think it was just typical mean-girl stu in junior high,” he said. “But it sounds like it left her a little on the skittish side. God, I’d love to slap whoever messed with Danigirl. She seems ne now, though.” “Yeah,” I agreed, thinking that that tracked with how suspicious she seemed of me and my friends. The doorbell rang at that moment and my dad gave me a look. “Sounds like Grandma’s here with the twins, so close your door if you expect to get any studying done.” “Good call,” I said, and watched my dad wince as he turned to walk out of my room. He was so good at living through the pain that sometimes I actually forgot about the accident, which was insane, because it’d blown our world apart. But then little facial expressions like that reminded me. Of the call: They said the semi T-boned your dad’s truck. He’d had a ruptured spleen, internal bleeding, swelling on the brain—and those were just the things the doctors told us could kill him. He’d also had a broken back, broken femur, broken wrist, and four broken ribs, but those were almost cosmetic compared to the critical injuries. He’d been more smashed up than not. So the man who winced today was a walking miracle. He was also a walking reminder that Dani had disappeared during the time I’d needed her the most. When my world fell apart. It was a sobering thought when I was still so fucking drunk on her damn smile.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Dani Fake dating Alec quickly became the easiest thing in the world. My favorite part? The way he kept showing up for my library lunches. Because the truth was that I didn’t necessarily like being alone for that hour, yet I was too scared of the cafeteria to do anything about it. So seeing him walk in made me feel… like, some kind of way. Safe. Happier…? Not alone. “Is that a new book?” he asked one day when he showed up at my table looking ten feet tall, towering above me. “It is,” I said, taking my foot and pushing out the chair across from me. “Where’s yourbook?” He gave me a little half smile as he looked down at the chair; then he sat down and unzipped his backpack. “In here, but my book is much fatter than yours, so I’m still working on it.” “You don’t have to make excuses for being a slow reader,” I teased. “It’s ne.” “Please, I could totally kick your ass in a speed-reading competition,” he said, pulling out Billy Summers. “Not that something that nerdy has ever been an actual competitive event.” “Here.” I pulled the sandwich out of my bag and set it on the table in front of him. “What the hell is this?” he asked, his eyebrows all squished together as he looked down at it. “What does it look like? It’s a sandwich,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“First of all, what kind of sandwich, because it looks weird,” he said with a smirk. “Second of all, why did you bring me a sandwich?” “Because an oversized man-child like you is going to starve to death and probably pass out if he doesn’t eat lunch.” “Are you concerned about me, Collins?” he asked, his voice dropping into a lower octave that made my stomach ip. “Not at all, but if you pass out like a little old lady and bash your face on the ground, it’ll make Sarah sad, and I would hate that,” I said with an eye roll. “And it’s ham and cheese.” “It doesn’t look like ham and cheese,” he said with a scowl, holding up the baggie. “That’s probably because I couldn’t nd sandwich xings in Grandpa Mick’s kitchen, so it’s queso with Spam. And pickles.” “Are you serious?” He stared harder at the baggie. “You brought me a Spamwich?” “It was a last-minute idea, and that was all I could nd in his fridge,” I said, laughing at his ridiculous word. I went back to my book, but I could see in my peripheral vision when he took out the sandwich and cautiously raised it to his mouth. “This is… interesting,” he said in a weird voice as he chewed. “I’m so happy you think it’s delicious,” I replied, my eyes on the pages of my book. “I don’t think that’s the word I used,” he said. He opened his book and started reading, and I couldn’t help but notice he nished the entire sandwich as he read. The fact that he’d wolfed it down made me think he was either more polite than I’d given him credit for, or absolutely starving. We read in silence for the rest of lunch, but when the bell rang and I looked up from my book, he was watching me with his arms crossed over his chest, a smirk on his mouth. “What?” I said, closing the book and pushing up my glasses. It was impossible not to smile when he looked at me that way.

“The rest of the world just disappears for you when you’re reading, doesn’t it?” “Yes, thank God,” I said, nodding and unzipping my bag. “It’s like magic.” “I bet it is,” he said, and I noticed his book was already put away, his backpack on his back. “Oh, so you’re already packed up,” I said, a little embarrassed that I’d been thatout of it. I quickly shoved my paperback and my water bottle into my bag, zipped it, and stood. “Sorry.” “Don’t be,” he said, and then he came around the table to slide those ngers between mine yet again. The familiarity of the move, the way it was beginning to feel natural even though our game was still new, made me look up at his face. I wanted to see what he was thinking. “It’s weird, right?” he said quietly, his eyes all I could see as he read my mind the way he always had when we were kids. I just nodded, too sucked into his gaze to think of words. The moment held, and the rest of the world just disappeared like magic for a split second. I watched his Adam’s apple bob around a swallow, and then he said, “We should go.” “What?” I blinked and realized there was movement everywhere around us. The librarian was carrying a stack of books, students were ling through the hallways, and my heart was pounding in my chest. “Yes,” I said a little too loudly, clearing my throat and nodding. “We should go.” We walked out of the library, and just as he let go of my hand because we had to go in two dierent directions, he leaned down and said, “Hey, thanks for bringing me a sandwich.” His eyes were a little squinty as he grinned at me. “Hey, thanks for eating it,” I said, smiling back at him. “I’ll never look at Spam the same way again.” I didn’t see him for the rest of the day or after school, since Cassie whisked me away to ride with her to practice.

Being a team manager, so far, had been easy, and I was actually having a good time. There were still a million things about hockey I didn’t know, but she was making it fun to learn. Weird, right? “Do you want to lm today, or do you have homework you need to do?” “I’ll lm,” I said, mostly because I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on homework while Alec was hockeying. It was becoming a problem. Every day, as soon as I set up the camera and started recording, I couldn’t do anything but watch him play. I was obsessed. On each play and on every drill, he played like his life was at stake and the only way he was going to see tomorrow was if he beat the other guy to the puck. He was beyond impressive. When the guys nished drills and I was able to hit pause, Cassie walked over and said, “I’ll see you at Vinny’s…?” “Vinny’s?” I repeated, having zero idea what she was talking about. “The team dinner is at his house tonight.” “What? Do hockey managers have to go?” I asked, having no interest whatsoever in going to a team dinner. Me and a table full of obnoxious hockey players I didn’t know? No, thank you. “Yeah, it’s mandatory,” she said, and I felt like she was giving me a little side- eye for sounding so disinterested. “For all players, coaches, managers, and trainers.” “Oh—I didn’t know,” I said dumbly, as if that weren’t obvious. But I felt stressfully unprepared for this kind of social interaction. I needed time to mentally prep for outings. “It’s tradition,” she said as she put on her coat, “and super chill. It’s usually something like pasta or soup, and you just eat a plate and leave. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed for more than an hour.” “Oh,” I said, my stomach lling with dread. “Zeus said you’re riding with him.”

“Oh yeah,” I played along, even though I knew we’d discussed this. My stomach sank deeper inside my body at the thought of unwelcome social interaction while playing pretend with Alec—ugh. “I forgot about the whole thing.” As if on cue, my mom texted at that very minute: Mom: Sarah says there’s a team dinner after practice tonight—are you going? I texted: I literally just found out about it. It’s mandatory, apparently. Mom: Just stick with Alec and you’ll have a great time! She’d seemed ne with my aversion to social situations before we moved here, but now it was like someone had lit a match under her. It was all the little things she said, her perky suggestions. You should go! Maybe you should see if Cassie wants to study with you at Starbucks. Do you want to have anyone over for the game? It kind of made me feel like she thought I was a broken weirdo who needed an intervention before my entire life was ruined. I could feelher stress that I wasn’t running around with a group of friends already, but the truth was that all the school bullshit wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t. I used to do it. I used to move to a new school and work my ass o for friends and sleepovers, feeling like everything was right and settled when I found people I connected with. And I’d be the rst to admit—that shit felt good. But eighth grade was a nightmare of mean girls and embarrassment so terrible that I’d been excited to move, and then ninth grade was better but ended up being the worst. After I left. Because the awfulness that came with being forgotten felt ten times worse than the discomfort of assimilation. It was never intentional, the forgetting, but it was always a given. At some point, you would just literally never hear from your “best friends” again.

I probably would’ve played that soul-crushing game forever if it hadn’t been for Jackson Ford. I dated him for six months my freshman year—six months. I’d been head over heels in love with him and it felt like a movie when we were together. I slept in his COIN sweatshirt every night (before his mom made him get it back because it’d cost a hundred bucks at the concert) and he held my hand in the hallways. We were inseparable. I’d seen literal tears in his eyes when we said goodbye and I moved away. We talked on the phone and texted continuously. FaceTimed whenever we could. But after about a month, he sounded dierent when I called. I convinced myself I was paranoid, but something was o. And suddenly I was the only one calling. That should’ve had me prepared for the end, but I’d been stunned when I’d seen the Instagram post making him and Olivia Lowell ocial. It was a picture of them grinning at the movie theater, holding hands, and he was wearing the COIN sweatshirt that had once been my uniform for dreaming. They were a couple. It absolutely destroyed me, but the realization that he hadn’t even felt the need to break up with me was what shattered every little piece of my heart. I’d been so forgotten that it hadn’t even occurred to him that he needed to end our relationship before starting another one. I was just somebody that he used to know. I cleared my throat and forced myself back to the present, because revisiting all the crap never helped anything. It wasa good reminder, though, that all these people I was suddenly spending time with were wrapped up in our fake arrangement and not real at all. And right on cue, I heard Alec’s voice. “You ready to go, Collins?” Right. Relationships hurt, and I wasn’t about to let Alec—and the toe- curling smile that dared me to answer—make me forget that. “Sure.”

Alec pulled up in front of a cute yellow house and put the car in park. There were a lot of cars lined up on the street, so we denitely weren’t the rst ones to arrive. I took a deep breath through my nose, wishing I’d just said no to this. I was new enough that no one would’ve missed me. “So what do I need to know about this dinner?” I asked, my stomach lled with butteries at the thought of walking into a house full of people I didn’t know. “You eat,” he said, shrugging. “That’s it.” “Wow, you’ve really illuminated what I can expect from this experience, thank you.” I pushed open the car door and stepped out, wondering if I’d ever stop gasping at the wicked snap of the cold on my skin. And it was snowing hard now, big, fat akes that slapped you in the face. “It’s just something the parents do to make sure we have a good meal the night before a game,” he said as we both walked toward the driveway. “Nothing to overthink.” He didn’t know that was all I did. Overthink. “I feel like my sandwich might’ve ruined other meals for you, though,” I said, lling the quiet of the night with rambling to cover my nerves. “For the record, today’s sandwich was actually not bad,” he lied. I was sure of it. When we got to the front door, Alec didn’t knock or ring the doorbell—he just walked in. I followed, having zero idea what to expect as we stepped inside. Ahhhh, warmth. “Alec!” A woman, presumably Vinny’s mom, looked over from where she was standing in front of the sink and smiled before she set down the towel she was holding and came over. She was wearing jeans and a Packers crewneck, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she smiled like she loved us. “The guys —and Cassie—are out in the garage already. You must be Dani.” “Hi,” I said, nodding, a little surprised she knew of me when I’d only just found out I was coming.

“Are you adjusting to the weather yet?” she asked. “Big John said you’re not a fan.” She knows Big John and they’ve discussed me? I was so confused by this place. Why in God’s name would Iever come up in conversation? “I mean, it’s brutal, right?” I said. “It’s snowed every day since we moved here.” “Believe it or not, you’ll adjust,” she said warmly, like she really wished the best for me. “So what do you think of hockey so far?” “She thinks I look hot in my breezers,” Alec said with a grin, and then he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer. “Right?” I rolled my eyes while every nerve ending in my body shorted out. I was impressed by how chill I sounded when I said, “No one has ever looked hotter in tiny padded pants.” That made Vinny’s mom laugh, and before I had a second to say anything else, Alec’s hand slid down to mine and he was pulling me away from her and toward what looked to be the patio door. Now he’s holding my hand in front of adults. He’d held it at school, but this felt like more somehow. Tighter. More physical. I said, “Don’t you think this is a bit much—” “Hard launch for the over-eighteen crowd, baby,” he said in my ear, his voice deep and quiet and for some reason making my heart beat just a little faster. Probably just because he’d startled me. But… baby. “Oh,” I managed, looking at his face while my brain just kept repeating, He’s holding your hand like that he’s holding your hand like that Alec Barczewski is holding your hand. Like that. “Come on.” He opened the sliding glass door, then let go of my hand the minute we stepped outside in the cold, dark, snowy evening. The snow seemed to insulate the world, making it strangely quiet as he closed the door behind us.

It was freezing, so I cleared my throat and said, “Are we seriously going to eat in the garage? Won’t we freeze to death?” “Oh, Dani,” he said, shaking his head like I was a ridiculous child. “It’s like you’ve never seen the inside of a Minnesotan garage before.” I followed him through the backyard and out to the detached yellow garage that matched the house. When he pulled open the door that was right beside the two-car overhead door, I was shocked to feel warmth. To see bright lights. To hear noise. We walked in, and the garage barely resembled a garage at all. It had shiny oors and nished walls, so the space felt more like a basement rec room than a place to park cars. There were three TVs mounted on a wall covered with sports posters, and two refrigerators sat underneath them. Neon beer signs hung on the other wall, above a line of tables that were set up as a slow cooker–rich buet, and I half expected to see servers and bartenders milling about the place. In the center, a bunch of rectangular multipurpose tables had been shoved together to form a supertable (with PACKERS HOCKEY tablecloths, of course), which was where the team appeared to be sitting. Coach Osman was standing next to the refrigerators, talking to the other coaches and some guys who I assumed were team dads, and I felt like they were all looking at us as the door closed behind us. Probably just paranoia. “Danigirl!” Big John stood on the other side of the garage with a couple of the guys I’d met at his house during dinner my rst night in town. Just seeing him made me feel a little more comfortable as I waved back. I heard multiple people shout “Zeus!” but Alec was looking at mewhen he said, “Should we get some food?” I nodded, eyeing the three dierent kinds of casseroles, four dierent types of pasta, three dierent sauces, and the two lasagnas displayed on the table. Oh—and three kinds of bread. These moms were notplaying.

We lled our plates and sat down at a table beside Cassie just as Kyle said, “No, they’re my dad’s venison meatballs.” Venison meatballs? I didn’t say anything, but I must’ve made a face because Alec said, “I promise they’re good.” I shrugged like I had no issues with Bambi meatballs because I knew it was technically the same, right? Cow or deer, either one had me eating an animal. “I’m sure they are.” But something about the cuteness of deer messed with me for no good reason whatsoever. “If they’re your dad’s,” Cassie said to Kyle, “then my dad helped.” “True,” Richie agreed. “They cook together?” I asked. “That’s really nice.” “That’s not exactly it; it’s not that sweet,” Alec said, smirking. “Yeah, no,” Cassie interrupted, shaking her head. “Our dads all have this little… shit, I don’t know what you’d even label it. Call chain, maybe…?” “On-call group,” Kyle corrected, nodding. “Yeah,” Alec agreed. “During hunting season, if one of them bags a deer, they put it out on the group text so by the time they get home, each person in the group is already there and waiting to help break down the deer,” Cassie explained. “Big John still tells the story,” Richie said, “of the time Cassie came out to where they were breaking down a deer, and peed her pants.” “Shut up,” she said, but she was laughing. “First of all, I was three. Second, no one warned me I’d be walking into a scene from a horror movie or I would’ve hit the bathroom rst.” “Mm-hmm,” Kyle said with a grin. “Third,” she said, ipping him o, “Big John gave me twenty bucks to stop crying, so I think I was actually the winner.” “Are you saying twenty bucks can erase childhood trauma?” Alec said. “I’m saying twenty bucks bought two kick-ass Barbies.” The four of them started laughing—I mean, I did too—but I felt a pang of envy in my stomach for what they had, what I would never have. There was this

long-game history between all of them, a braided-together past that made them more like cousins than friends. I wondered what that felt like. Everyone smiling and reminiscing about the collections of stories they didn’t run out of telling—it was warmth and sunshine, and I was jealous. Just as I was thinking that, the basket holding the plastic forks toppled over as Big John stumbled into the table, grasping his knee and grimacing in pain. “Dad!” Alec jumped out of his chair and was at his dad’s side in an instant, joining another guy in helping Big John right himself. He hadn’t gone all the way down, but it’d been close. They each grabbed an arm, and my heart sank as Big John plastered a smile onto his face, dismissing their help. “Damn leg keeps locking on me whenever I stand up. I’m ne,” he said, as if it happened all the time.” Wait. Did this happen all the time? “Give us the word and we’ll get one of the boys here to give you a piggyback ride,” Vinny’s mom said. And she laughed. And Big John laughed. Everyone laughed. Everyone except Alec. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Alec “So I feel like this is going well, don’t you?” she asked. Her voice was soft, and I knew she was trying to break the tension. I nodded as I drove because I wasn’t really sure what to say. Yeah, it went really well at the team dinner—except when my dad damn near collapsed in pain!—and Coach seemed happy to see us together. Our fake relationship was going great at school, too, except for the fact that I kept getting distracted by her. Logically, I knew it wasn’t a thing, that weweren’t a thing, but when it was just the two of us, I kept fucking forgetting. None of this is real. Which was why I appreciated the wake-up call tonight. The gut-wrenching dose of reality that hit me when my dad’s knee buckled was exactly what I needed. Seeing him like that was an instant reminder of one of the worst times of my life, when my friend chose not to be with me but to instead take my fucking nemesis—that twat—to our spot. His presence helped ground me. “Yeah, it was good,” I said. “Are you okay?” she asked, holding her hands in front of the heating vents. “With your dad, I mean. I didn’t know…” “Just tired,” I said, which absolutely wasn’t a lie, but I also didn’t want to talk about my dad. Not with her. Whenever he sat for too long, pain shot up his leg. It happened often, but that didn’t make it any better. “So do you have trouble sleeping the night before a game?” she asked, clearly avoiding the subject of my dad. “I’ve never played any sport, but it seems like since you’re decent at hockey, it might be a little stressful.”

“No more than any other night,” I said. “What does that mean—you don’t sleep well?” she asked. “You’re not my real girlfriend, Collins—you don’t need to worry about how many hours of sleep I’m getting, okay?” It came out a little harsher than I’d intended, but I needed to create a little distance. Her eyebrows went together and I knew she felt that one. “I was just asking,” she said. I pulled into her driveway, and when I opened my door to get out, she said, “You don’t have to walk me to the door. No one is around.” “It’s dark, so I’m walking you to the door,” I said, feeling like an ass. But when I got to her side of the car, I saw that fucking Benji Worthington was out on his porch with a vape pen in his mouth. Forever a douche. “Fucking Worthington,” I muttered under my breath. “Why do you guys hate each other?” she asked quietly as she climbed out of the car, looking in Benji’s direction. “I mean, we never liked him because he was a tool, but obviously things got worse.” “Yeah, he’s an asshole.” “Oh, well, that explains everything,” she said sarcastically. I sighed. “He’s just my enemy and I fucking hate him, okay?” “Your enemy?” she repeated in a tone that told me she thought I was being dramatic. “Okay, so maybe not my enemy, but he’s a dick weasel who gossips like an old church lady,” I said, wanting to punch him just for sitting there. “I guarantee you he’s the one who spread the bong picture.” “Seriously?” She glanced toward Worthington’s house. “Oh yeah. He plays for St. John’s Academy—” “The ones who beat you in state last year?” she interrupted with a gasp. “I can’t believe you know that,” I said. “I can’t believe you scored twice in that game,” she said, closing the car door. “Apparently that’s impressive for a defender.” “Look at you, doing all your research,” I said, looking down at her mouth.

She smiled up at me, and it was insane how badly I wanted to kiss her. Wait. What? Where is this feeling coming from? It was insane and plain fucking stupid. Get it together. “He’s watching us now,” she said quietly, “so I’m going to laugh like you’re hilarious and charming.” She let out a little giggle and, yeah—he noticed us. His attention was all ours, but he had no idea we’d spotted him. “Holy shit, that’s it,” I said, my mind spinning. “With the way he gossips— we should totally kiss.” “What?” she said loudly, with a laugh, like she thought I was kidding. But I glanced over her head and could tell Benji was staring, completely psychotically watching us, and I wasn’t above begging. Because if I could use him to broadcast this andmake him jealous, that was a huge fucking win. “Please let me kiss you please let me kiss you please let me kiss you please let me kiss you, Dani,” I muttered, looking into her eyes and groveling. “I just hate that fucker so much and this is going to kill him please fucking let me kiss y—” “Okay,” she quietly interrupted. I hadn’t realized how sure I was that she was going to say no until she said okay. “What?” I couldn’t believe I’d heard her right. I looked down at her upturned face and said, “Really?” “If you think it’s going to get back to the right people,” she said, her voice a near whisper as she leaned a little closer so Benji couldn’t hear us, “then why not? We did it before just for fun, so why not do it now for public-relations purposes?” Just for fun, my ass. “Are you sure?” No matter how I felt about her now, I’d never want to pressure her into doing something she didn’t want to do. Even though it was suddenly the only thing I’d ever wanted to do. So much for keeping it together.

“I’m sure,” she whispered, nodding. “Lay it on me, Zeus.” It was the shitty little twinkle in her eye that made my knees weak. And the way she lifted her chin and tilted her head the tiniest bit, like she was getting ready, dear God. Suddenly my heart was pounding and my breath was frozen in my lungs and the smell of her perfume—apple juice and flowers—was jamming up my senses, making it impossible to breathe normally. Because there she stood, in the dark beside my car, looking up at me exactlythe way I’d always wanted her to. Lay it on me, Zeus. I forgot all about Benji when I watched my ngers slide into her hair as if they worked independently from my brain. I held her in place, the curls soft against my hands, and as I lowered my mouth, one word was transmitted through to every corner of my mind like a chant. Dani’s Dani’s Dani’s Dani’s The blond hair wrapped around my knuckles, the unsteady breath that hovered in a cloud between us, the long eyelashes uttering closed—the reality that they all belonged to herhit me like a blow, like a punch that knocked me all the way down. This was Dani, holy shit. I felt her lips underneath mine—sweet cherry lip gloss, oh God—and it was like being struck by lightning. I felt a jolt in every nerve ending in my body when she opened for me, and I was electried when her ngers sted in the front of my coat and her tongue— “What the fuck is going on out here?” Dani jumped away from me, and I felt like I was going to die when I opened my eyes and saw Mick Fucking Boche standing on the porch, glaring at me. Oh shit. He was wearing all black, like an angel of death, and his big arm was extended, his nger pointed directly at me. “Get your ass inside. Now.” Shit, shit, shit. Dani turned and started for the porch, but Mick said, “I mean you, Barczewski!” Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Yes, sir,” I said, my heart beating so fast that it was possible I was going to faint from the fear like a little old lady. I followed Dani up the path to the porch and into her grandpa’s house, where I was surely about to be destroyed. But as I went inside, I realized that the bright side of my death was that Benji was being eaten alive by jealousy at that very moment. He’d always been into Dani, so it was just *chef’s kiss* that he’d had a front-row seat to me winning. Take that, jackass. He may have been too jealous to give me props, but having witnessed Mick Boche catching me with his granddaughter and hollering at me to come into his house? Ben was probably already running inside to share the info. Dani said, “It’s not Alec’s—” “I don’t wanna hear it,” Mick bellowed, cutting her o. “You need to go upstairs so I can talk to him.” “What?” she gasped in disbelief. He pointed toward the staircase that led upstairs. “You heard what I said— go.” “You can’t—” “I can and I will—and I know what you’re thinking, Danigirl. You’re thinking I’m not your dad and I can’t do this. But you’re wrong—I can do this. I’m the one who’s here, I’m the one who’s around, and I’m the one who gives a shit. Go upstairs and I’ll talk to you later.” She blinked fast, like she couldn’t believe what he was saying, and then she mouthed the word sorry to me before she turned and went up the staircase. Traitor. “Sit down,” he barked, gesturing toward the kitchen table. I obediently dropped into a chair, grateful for the opportunity to sit because my legs felt like they might give out and the odds were good he wasn’t going to punch me in the face if I was sitting at his kitchen table, right? “From what I know, you’re not a bad kid.” Mick crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at me. “But did you seriously think you could date Dani for a minute and then be all over her in my own fucking driveway? Are you kidding me right now?”

“I—” “Were you trying to prove some kind of point, like you’re a tough guy who’s not afraid to disrespect Boche’s granddaughter right in his own goddamn yard?” “Oh my God, no,” I said. “And we’d barely even—” “Really.” He didn’t believe me. “You weren’t remotely aware of the fact that I might look out a window?” “No,”I insisted, shaking my head. “Really.” “No,” I said, even louder. “Respectfully, I wasn’t thinking of you at all. I kissed Dani because I really like her and then I forgot about everything, especially where I was. This had nothing to do with you.” “So Dani was the only one you were thinking of when you decided to kiss her.” Is it hot in here?I tugged at the scarf around my neckand said, “Yes. I mean, I was kind of hoping Worthington saw because I hate that guy, but yeah—it was all about Dani.” “I hate that little shit too. Did you know he has a Maserati?” What is happening right now? “Yeah,” I said, shaking my head. “He had a Cayenne last year but drove it into a light pole.” “Figures,” Mick said in disgust. “Fuckin’ idiot.” “Right?” I agreed. “Listen—I’m going to be honest with you,” he said, tilting his head and looking at me like I was a bug. “I don’t like you dating her.” “You don’t.” I didn’t know why, but that mattered to me. Even though it was a fake relationship, there was something about knowing someone you respected thought you were a piece of shit that felt… well, really shitty. “No, I don’t. Not at all. Dani and her mom have spent the past seventeen years with a manipulative little pecker. I look at her and I don’t even see a spark of the kid I used to know.” I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t this. Mick was looking out the window, sounding more like he was talking to himself than me as he said, “Every once in a while she gives me sass and I wanna fucking cheer because it’s so good

to see, but I know she doesn’t want that. And she shouldn’t want that, because —well, it doesn’t matter, but she’s right to be mad at me, but my point is that I want her to gure out who she is and nd her voice without some guy in her way.” “I—I don’t want to be in her way,” I said, rolling my eyes at myself when my voice cracked like I was a nervous middle schooler. “I want the same thing you do, I promise. And I hate the colonel too.” “You do?” Mick said, looking surprised. “God, yes, but it doesn’t matter because Dani still worships him,” I said, realizing the second the words left my mouth that that was probably an overshare. Dani would probably be super pissed if she overheard me saying that. “I know,” he said with a sigh. “She won’t hear a single critical word about him, but he’s her dad, so I have to respect that.” “Even after he called her the other night and made her so upset that I found her crying in the locker room, she still defended him.” “Did she say what he did? To make her cry?” I shook my head. “No, but I didn’t really have a chance to talk to her.” He grunted and went back to looking at me like he was trying to gure out where he was going to bury my body after he killed me. So I said, “Mr. Boche, I don’t want to be on your bad side. I just really like your granddaughter, that’s all.” “Well, you’re allowed to like her,” he said, crossing his arms. “Just knock o the handsy shit and let her breathe.” “Okay,” I said, nodding, because odds were good there wasn’t going to be any more handsy shit regardless. I still wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to let me kiss her in the rst place, but I was positive that after this, I wasn’t going to get the chance to nish what we’d barely started. “By the way, what are you doing about that shoulder?” he asked. “What?” I said it a little too loudly, but he was looking at me like he knew everything, and there was no way that he could. “I see the way you drop it when you’re tired, the way you rub it sometimes when you’re talking. Your shoulder’s fucked up, isn’t it?”

His words made my blood run cold, because what the fuck was that? I drop my shoulder when I’m tired? Was this something people other than Mick might’ve noticed? Shit, had scouts noticed? Shit, shit, shit.I couldn’t let anyone think I was injured. “No,” I said, shaking my head and making a face like he was nuts. “Bruised as hell from when I got checked last week, but I’m—” “Okay, okay,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “Spare me the bullshit—it’s your body, not mine. How are you feeling about the game tomorrow?” I shrugged because this was all over the place and also, I never knew how to answer that question. I always felt like we were going to win, even when we lost. “We’re going to win,” I said. “Yeah, probably,” he agreed, then pointed his thumb at the door. “Go home now.” I nearly leapt out of the chair because I was so damn happy to be leaving without being skinned rst. If I could’ve sprinted to the door and out to my car, I would’ve. But when I got to the door, I stopped and looked back, because I felt like I had to say something. “Mr. Boche?” “Mick,” he corrected. Mick? I said, “Thanks, uh, thanks for not killing me.” “No problem,” he said, and I swear to God he sort of smiled. “If you accidentally tap the Maserati next door with that piece of shit you drive, by the way, I didn’t see a damn thing.” “Noted,” I said, and then I left, getting the hell out of Dodge. When I nally looked at my phone after getting home, I had multiple texts from Dani. Dani: Are you okay? Dani: I’m so sorry. Dani: What did he say? Dani: Please send me proof of life.

I took a sele, then sent: I’m fine and he was actually pretty cool. He just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being a dick to you. I thought about what he’d said about her. It was interesting, the way she always assumed he was an old jerk when in all actuality, it seemed like he’d missed her and was worried about her. Like he was trying to help her. I texted: This might sound crazy, but I think he’s trying to fix things with you. Dani: How is he doing that exactly? By grunting a lot in my presence? I could see how she could miss it. The old guy was shit at communicating. But as much as I wanted to help Mick out a bit, I needed to cover the kiss immediately. I texted: So… subject change. Dani: Yes…? Me: About that other thing that happened in your driveway. Dani: What other thing? Okay, so she clearly didn’t want to discuss it. And yet all I could do was think about it. Me: Fair enough. See you tomorrow. She didn’t respond, but just as I plugged my phone into the charger and switched o the lamp, my phone buzzed. Dani: My grandpa just came into my room and told me to tell you to ice the shoulder before you go to bed, even if you’re too tired. I stared at the message in disbelief. I wasn’t sure why it made my throat feel a little tight, and I had no fucking idea why it made me feel a thousand times more exhausted. I texted: Tell him thanks. And then I went downstairs and got some ice. OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Dani Game day was a series of shocking events. For starters, Alec looked ridiculous when he picked me up for school. I opened the kitchen door and almost dropped dead from a heart attack. I opened my mouth but the only words that came out were “Where are your contacts?” “Too tired to put them in,” he said, looking confused. “Why?” What does “why” mean again? I knew that the team dressed up for some game days, but they hadn’t for the last one. He’d worn joggers and a hoodie, for God’s sake, so I wasn’t prepared for this. I hadn’t pictured him dressing up so… well. Alec was wearing perfectly tailored black pants that somehow showed o how muscular his thighs were (or maybe that was just my foggy brain still shocked by the change in him). He had on a nice belt that matched his very stylish dress shoes, and the gray cashmere sweater he wore clung to his pectorals and amplied just how hard and wide his chest was. And he was wearing glasses—dear Lord he looked good in those tortoiseshell frames. I remembered him getting contacts in sixth grade, but apparently he still wore glasses from time to time. It wasn’t an exaggeration—it really wasn’t—to say he looked like he could be in a photo shoot for hot young businessmen, and it kind of freaked me out. I wasn’t comfortablewith how attractive he was, and I could tell he’d noticed me looking. Dammit. So I said, “Your mom has the best taste.” “What?”

“I like your outt,” I said with a heavy dose of teasing condescension. “It looks like Mommy got you really nice church clothes.” His mouth slid into an arrogant smirk and he shook his head. “I know I look good; don’t be a little shit.” “So humble,” I muttered, going around his big body because I couldn’t look at him for another second. My cheeks were hot and I felt unaccountably nervous, and the feeling didn’t get any better when I nearly broke o the car door handle. I yanked, but it was still locked. “Can you please unlock the door?” I asked with a sigh, glancing at him over my shoulder. Only he was right there, much closer than I’d thought. My eyes met his, and a thousand images of him kissing me in that very driveway slammed into me. It might’ve only lasted for mere seconds, but God, I could still feelhis big hands tangled in my hair and see the intensity in his dark eyes as he’d lowered his face. As his mouth had landed on mine. He cleared his throat. Gah! I jumped a little and said, “God, it’s freezing out here.” “Yeah, let’s go,” he said, unlocking the door and quickly walking over to the driver’s side. I could feel the awkwardness between us. Like every moment together was edged with tension. Inated. And I had no idea what to do with it. Looking to talk about anything not lled with weirdness, I asked, “Are you excited about the game tonight?” “Are you mocking me?” he asked as he started the car. “No, I mean it,” I said, watching out the window as he backed out of the driveway and started driving. He was so serious about hockey that it had to stress him out. “How do you feel on game day? Are you excited or nervous?

Listening to pump-up music in your headphones while playing air guitar in the locker room—that sort of thing?” He was rarely serious with me; he was either the obnoxious jock boy or a icker of silly little Alec, so I was surprised when he swallowed hard and his jaw clenched. There was something in his dark eyes when he said, “I think I’m more stressed out when it’s not game day.” “What? Really?” “I can control my game, so I can’t wait for that,” he said. “Everything else is out of my hands, but when I get out there, it’s all up to me, so I’m just counting down the hours.” He looked uncomfortable, like he was thinking unhappy thoughts, and I realized it was probably because I was sounding too interested. I couldn’t have him thinking I was a hockey groupie or something, so I said, “This morning my mom told me she’s going to the game tonight, and when I asked her why, thinking she felt like she had to go just because I’m sitting on the bench lming, do you know what she said?” “I’m sure it was brilliant,” he murmured, which made me roll my eyes because he’d always adored my mom. “She said that she’s going to the hockey game to support the team. That she plans on going to every hockey game for the rest of this season,” I said, shaking my head. “That she plans on going to the Cro before the game tonight because apparently the parents all go there beforehand.” That made his mouth turn up into a grin. “Why do you seem annoyed by this? This is what all the hockey parents do every game day.” “But she’s not a hockey parent,” I said. “Her daughter is a manager just to get the extra-credit points.” “Have you ever considered that maybe it doesn’t actually have to do with you?” he asked. I ipped him o. “No, seriously,” he said, giving me a little head shake. “It’s a Southview thing. Like, everybody here goes to the hockey games—they just do. And since your mom grew up here, I’m sure she probably spent her whole life going to them.” “I suppose,” I said, wondering why I hadn’t thought of that.

All of this was what she’d grown up around; I just couldn’t imagine. The Doug felt very dierent on game night. The place was electric, packed to the rafters, with music playing, a rowdy student section, and adults everywhere dressed in maroon and white. Alec was right—it was a community thing. I set up the camera, and as I waited for everything to start, I was a little shocked by the number of familiar faces I already knew. We’d justmoved there, so it was wild that I recognized anyone at all. But I could see all the guys who’d been at Alec’s house the night we got to Southview, sitting with people I assumed were their wives and children. And all the adults who’d been at Vinny’s the night before were sitting together—the hockey parents—and that group looked just as rowdy as the student section. I could see my mom, sitting beside Sarah, Big John, and the twins (who were wearing adorable little number-seven hockey jerseys), and she looked like she was one of them, like she’d always been a part of this. I forced my eyes in the other direction, not sure how I felt about that. Because it looked right for her, if I was being honest, like this was where she was supposedto be, but that felt disloyal to my dad, the one who’d taken her away from all this. My dad, who’d texted me twice since our call, and I’d yet to respond. Dad: We still need to have that conversation—please text me your availability, kiddo. Dad: I’d appreciate a response. I AM the one paying for your phone, Daniella. I knew I needed to respond, but every time I tried, I ended up writing multiple paragraphs that I ultimately deleted because I knew he’d nd them too emotional. And I was too scared to call him. Man, I’m losing it. Thankfully, when the puck dropped, I had no choice but to snap out of my own head. Because the game was unreal. It was a lightning-fast back-and-forth that had me on the edge of my seat, my eyes struggling to keep up with the speed of that

little black puck. And Alec was a sight to behold. If he was intense at practice, he was sublimein a game. He was insanely physical with the other team, slamming into players as he got his stick in there and fought for the puck like his life depended on it. He got sent to the penalty box twice, although the crowd denitely thought the second time was unwarranted. My heart was in my throat, and I felt a little emotional—in a good way— while watching him kick ass on the ice. I was proud of my little friend Alec, who was a certied hockey god. Southview won by two, and Alec had two assists—in addition to a goal that made me scream so loud my throat hurt. I’d never had so much fun watching a sporting event in my entire life. Who was I turning into? After the game, I found my mom near the locker room with Sarah, Big John, the twins, and a couple of John’s friends. “What’d you think of your rst game, kid?” Big John asked, and I found it adorable how huge his smile was. My entire life he’d always reminded me of a happy Santa, and this was no exception. “That was one hell of a match.” “I kind of loved it,” I admitted. “And Alec was amazing. It’s tough to reconcile the kid who used to take three naps a day with this badass hockey player.” “One day he was wasting hours of his life playing video games,” Sarah said, her arms full of the big blanket she was holding, “and the next he wanted to spend every waking moment on the ice.” “So are you his lucky charm?” A tiny woman with cute brown eyes and curly black hair—and the most adorable northern accent—asked the question, and she was giving me a sweet smile. I looked at the guy next to her and remembered them—Ellen and Gary. Big John’s parents, Alec’s grandparents. “We’ve been talking about how this season he’s playing better than he ever has,” she said. “So we’re wondering if maybe that’s because of you.”

Wow—news traveled fast. I was pretty sure Grandma Ellen’s timeline was o, but it tipped in our favor, so I’d take it. I looked at Sarah and John and my mom and they were allwatching me with cheesy smiles. “I think he’s just really good at hockey,” I said, shrugging, because I didn’t know what else to do. “Yeah, there is that,” my mom said, throwing me a wink. Players started coming out of the locker room, and I couldn’t help but think how sweet it was the way everyone’s parents were waiting around to say “good job.” There were also a couple of news reporters, standing on the edges of the crowd, and they denitely started lming when Alec walked out. But dear God, my heart ipped all the way over when he exited the locker room, looking somehow better in his dress clothes postgame—with shower- dampened hair—than he had before. His gaze landed on me, and his mouth slid into a smile that was dangerously swoony. Oh no. What is happening to me? He didn’t glance at anyone else as he headed straight in my direction, dark brown eyes all over my face. Pull it together, Collins! “Want me to take your stu?” John asked, his voice bringing me back from the Alec-only universe I’d drifted away to. “Nah, I’m going to go home and change before heading out,” Alec said. Everyone started talking hockey then, gushing about how great Alec had played while also trash-talking the referees, and I just watched the show. I’d always rolled my judgmental eyes about the jocks at every school I attended, walking around with their chests all pued up because they knew how to throw a ball really far. But I’d never thought about their parents. Or their uncles. Or their neighbors.

I looked around, and little groupings were all over the place, people bunched around their respective hockey player. Moms dressed from head to toe in Southview gear, dads laughing with their buddies—it was… not at all how I thought it would be. Was this a hockey thing or a Southview thing? “You goin’ to Richie’s?” Big John asked. “Yeah,” Alec said before those deep brown eyes found mine. “You should come to Richie’s, Collins. I’m sure Cassie’ll be there.” Everyone had been so welcoming and Cassie was great, but why did I suddenly feel like maybe I didn’t belong? Why do I feel nauseous? “I think I’m just going to head back with you,” I said to my mom. “Maybe next time.” “Well we’re stopping at the PNA on the way home,” she said, obviously trying to nudge me to nd another ride, “so it might be a while.” “What’s a PNA?” “The Polish Lodge,” Mom said. The Polish Lodge. First the Croatian Hall, now the Polish Lodge. I’m pretty sure we’re of Irish and German descent, Mom. But I didn’t ask any more questions as I piled into a truck with a bunch of adults, watching Alec leave, part of me wanting to go with him to wherever he was going but scared I’d regret it if I did. Instead I was left regretting my current choice minutes later as I followed Big John toward a stucco-looking house. What the…? I had doubts, but then my mom grabbed my arm and said, “Prepare to be wowed.” We followed Big John through a side door and went down the stairs, and… well, it was like a dive bar. In a basement. There was a bar with beer taps and TVs on the wall, a pool table, and darts, but also—it was a basement. A basement packed full of people.

At least it’s warm, I thought, walking with my mom as Sarah and Big John led us to a table and started taking o their coats. “Am I allowed to be here?” I asked. “As a minor?” “As long as you’re not drinking or serving,” John said. “Now tell Sarah what you want to drink so I can tell you all about this place.” “Must you?” I teased. “You’re a Southview girl now, so yes—I must,” he teased back. I am not a Southview girl, I thought. I am a nowhere girl. But a tiny part of me wished I were a Southview girl. John leaned a little closer so I could hear him over the noise, and launched into a history lesson as if we weren’t in just a bar. He told me all about how in the early 1900s, a large Polish immigrant population arrived in town, drawn to jobs in big meatpacking plants. They built the social hall as a place to get together for drinks after a hard week, and to have things like weddings and funerals. “The Cro’s got a similar history,” he said, sounding like all this was personally important to him, and I wondered if Alec felt the same way. I mean, he did seem to read history books for fun. “But for the Croatian immigrants, yes?” He grinned. “You got it, kid.” The funny thing was that Big John’s little story made me look at the dive bar a little dierently. It’d been a long time since 1911, and I was pretty sure there were no more meatpacking plants in Southview. Which meant that all these people at the PNA had kept the place alive by choice. In a metropolis full of trendy bars and restaurants, this community chose to celebrate their win at the tiny historic bar in the middle of their neighborhood. Why do I find that charming as hell? “Well, hi, Dani,” I heard, and when I turned around, it was Jessie Osman, the coach’s wife, whom I’d met at the team dinner but hadn’t really talked to. And standing beside her, but talking to someone at the moment, was Coach Oz himself.

I immediately felt panicked, because I’d actively avoided eye contact with the man after he’d seen me groping his half-naked defenseman. “Hi,” I said, clearing my throat. “How’s it going?” she asked. “Getting all settled at Southview?” “Yes,” I said, though it was kind of a yell because the place was so crowded and noisy. “Alec played great,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning closer. “Where is he?” Shit. Had he said he was going to Richie’s, or to Kyle’s? I seriously couldn’t remember, but his actual girlfriend would know, right? “Um, he’s hanging out with some of his teammates.” “Where’s Zeus?” the coach yelled to me. He obviously hadn’t heard my answer to his wife’s question, and I was even more scared to answer him than I was to answer her. I didn’t know who knew what about anything, but since our act was for the audience of hockey people, I didn’t want to mess up. “Richie’s,” his wife said to him, apparently more in the know than me about which teammates were having people over postgame. “Ah,” he said, nodding. “So I’m curious,” she said, narrowing her eyes and smiling. “I heard that you two are old family friends, but how did that turn into dating?” “Um.” I cleared my throat again, wishing I had any idea what details Alec had given his coach about our fake relationship. “Yeah, I’d actually really love to hear this,” Big John said with a huge grin, his mischievous eyes looking a lot like Alec’s as he crossed his arms and waited for my response. “Because one day you hadn’t even seen each other yet, and the next you’re FaceTiming at all hours of the night.” “Collins!” I looked toward the door as Alec and his friends walked in. Thank God. He was grinning as he cut through the people, laughing at something some old guy in an I’M MORE SOUTHVIEW THAN YOUT-shirt said as he passed, and as I

watched him work his way in our direction, it occurred to me that he looked like he belonged in that basement bar. Like he was part of it, like he was somehow related to every one of those people who chose to spend their Friday night together in a basement where a mural of Poland was painted on the cement-block wall. And I was jealous. I was always jealous, at a base level, of people who’d lived in the same place their entire lives and didn’t have to move every few years, but this was dierent. Because I’d lived most of my life in an isolated family of three. I liked my little trio (and was struggling at the moment to deal with its dissolution), but seeing Alec move about in this community, where it felt like every adult was his fun uncle, teasing him like they’d always been in his life and genuinely cared about his well-being, made me wish I knew what that felt like. “Hey,” he said when he reached my side, giving me a questioning grin, like he was wondering what I could possibly be saying to his coach. “Hey, yourself,” I replied, snaking my arms around his right bicep and giving him what I hoped looked like a girlfriendy grin. “Your timing is perfect, because Mrs. Oz was just asking me how we went from old childhood friends to dating.” “Yeah?” He grinned down at me like he liked this, though I wasn’t sure which this he might like,to be honest. “Yeah,” I said. “And I want to hear your version.” “I bet you do,” he said, and then he winked. “But the best things in life should be kept secret.” I wanted to roll my eyes so badly as all the adults laughed at him, but I didn’t. And then he kissed the top of my head. I gasped because what the hell, but thankfully the room was so loud that no one heard it. Alec’s eyes shot to mine and were unreadable as he watched me, and I cleared my throat and tried to look calm. But I was shaken up by the fact that his stupid little kiss, all part of the act, had felt natural. Like it was something he’d done before. Which he hadn’t, right?

God, I’m losing it! “I wonder if you still suck at darts,” I said abruptly, desperately needing to untangle myself from him and get a little breathing space. “You little shits used to ll my wall with holes when you played with my metal-tipped darts,” Big John said with a laugh. “I wonder if you’re still a sore loser,” Alec replied, the cautiousness in his gaze disappearing. “Come on.” He grabbed my hand and led me over to the dartboards, and when we stopped, he turned and asked, “Do you actually want to play darts, or were you looking for a rescue?” “Oh my God, Alec, I was freaking out,” I said, letting out my breath. “When his wife started asking me to tell the story of us and I had no idea what you’d actually already said, I was convinced I was going to blow the whole thing.” “Well then, I’m glad I showed up just in time,” he said. “Yeah, why are you here?” “Richie’s brother kicked us out.” “Oh,” I said. “Do you want to play?” He gestured toward the dartboards. “I’m in,” Richie said, suddenly beside us. “Me too,” said Cassie, popping up next to him. “Yeah, same,” Kyle said, and then it was set. Apparently we were all going to play darts. I took o my jacket and put it on the back of a chair, feeling slightly unsettled by how social this suddenly felt. I’d purposely left with my mom to avoid this very scenario, for God’s sake. But once we started playing, it was surprisingly fun. Ridiculously fun. Alec’s friends seemed to be addicted to gambling, because they couldn’t play a single game without wagering something. At rst it was a couple of bucks, plus they kept buying tickets for a meat rae (a bizarre fundraiser that’s apparently common in Minnesota in which people try to win a package of meat) when the board came around, but then they all agreed that they didn’t have any more money to throw away.

So they started betting absurd things. Loser of the next game has to take a sip out of someone’s drink without them noticing. Loser of the next game has to do a cartwheel. Loser of the next game has to freestyle dance for two minutes without stopping. Alec lost that one just as my grandpa walked in. And yes—he stared at Alec like he was a moron. I couldn’t stop cackling as Alec continued dancing, his cheeks red, and my grandpa continued scowling at him. “I ocially request that someone kill me,” he said when he walked back over to the table where I was sitting with his friends, “because my soul has already left my body.” “I cannot believe you just danced for Mick Fucking Boche,” Richie said. “Yeah, I denitely want him to forget he ever saw that,” Alec said, shaking his head. My phone lit up from where it was sitting in the center of the table, and every single person in our group looked at it as the words BEN WORTHINGTON showed up on the screen. “You’re getting a text from Worthington?” Vinny said, looking at me like I’d just gotten a text from Ted Bundy. “What the hell is that about?” Kyle said, looking at Alec. “No—he’s my next-door neighbor,” I said defensively. “Sometimes. I mean, he lives with his mom most of the time—” “That doesn’t explain why he’s texting you,” Vinny said. “It really doesn’t,” Alec said, looking… so serious all of a sudden. “Wait—how do you guys even know him?” I asked Vinny. “He goes to school at—” “St. John’s. Yeah, he’s a fucking Cadet, we know,” Richie said. “Everyone hates Ben,” Cassie said, as if that explained everything. “Feel free to read the message,” Alec said to me, his face very unreadable (but denitely not happy). “Go ahead.” The entire group was watching me like they suspected me of… something. “You guys, my mom made me put his number in my contacts, but I don’t ever

text with Benji—” “You should read it,” Cassie said, “so it doesn’t drive these guys nuts. They reallyhate Ben. We all do, after what he did.” “What’d he do?” I asked. “Nothing,” Alec said. “It doesn’t matter.” I could tell it absolutely did matter, but I could also tell no one was going to share because Alec had told them not to. I grabbed my phone and held it out to Cassie. “You can read it. I honestly barely know the guy.” She gave me a look that said good movebefore taking my phone and reading his text aloud. “‘FYI big party in Mendota Heights tonight. I’ll drop the address if you and your friends are looking for something to do.’” “Gross,” Kyle said. “Can I respond?” Richie asked with a grin. “Pretty please?” “I’m on it,” Cassie said, reading out loud as she texted: “‘No thanks, too busy celebrating with our hockey boys.’ And… send.” And that was it. The group went back to their silly games instead of looking at me like I was colluding with Satan. “Okay, all or nothing,” Cassie said. “Loser of this last one is at the mercy of the winner of this game.” Everyone let out a collective “oooh,” as if this was a verybig deal. All I knew was that I did notwant to be the loser. And I wasn’t. But my fake boyfriend was not so lucky. He was the loser, and Richie the Obnoxious was the winner. “Zeus, Zeus, Zeus,” Richie said, grinning as he looked at Alec. I giggled. Which made Richie look at me. His mischievous grin kicked up a little higher as he looked back and forth between the two of us, and a niggling of unease settled into the pit of my stomach. “I dare you to kiss her for thirty seconds,” he said to Alec, pointing at me. “Right here, right now.” “What?” I said, or kind of squealed, actually.

No. No. No. No. No. NO. “How is that a punishment?” Alec said casually, as if he really were my boyfriend and didn’t understand the stupid request. “I actually like kissing her, and though I appreciate you thinking of me, I don’t understand why you’d choose this as my punishment.” He was so cool that I almost believed his act. But gahhhhhhh what the hell what the hell?? I’d barely recovered from the driveway kiss, and that had only lasted for a heartbeat. I wasn’t sure my heart could take a real kiss. Also, I was notabout PDA. No, thank you. Richie said, “I dare you to kiss her right here—” “Yes, I got that part,” Alec interrupted. “—where you are directly in a certain someone’s line of sight.” The entire group turned their heads in unison and saw my grandpa sitting at the table just behind ours, his chair directly facing us. “Where Mick Boche can see you,” Richie said, smiling like he was supremely proud of himself. “No way,” Alec said denitively, looking oended by the suggestion. “I don’t have a death wish.” “But you lost,” Richie said. “Rules are rules.” “I don’t care, I’m not doing it,” Alec insisted, which I understood, but it also made me feel a little rejected for no intelligent reason whatsoever. “Come on, you wimp,” Kyle said quietly. “What do you think is going to happen—he’s going to punch you in the face? You played your ass o tonight, and we need you for the postseason. He won’t do dick.” “So why do you want me to do it, then, Kyle?” Alec asked. “Why do you care?” I expected Kyle to say to show you have big balls or something stupidly macho, but he said with the utmost sincerity, “Because you’ve never reneged on a game challenge before. Can’t start now. Not sure why you’re even questioning it, to be honest.”

Kyle’s eyebrow rose, and Alec’s mouth closed as if what Kyle said was worthy of consideration. “Zeus doesn’t back out on anything. Hasn’t ever. Period. Aren’t you worried about messing up the team’s mojo?” Richie pressed on. As if that reaction weren’t weird enough, the rest of the group all nodded as if this was something important that needed to be factored in. And they collectively said, “Ooh.” “Wait. What does that mean?” I asked. “Zeus here, our captain, hasn’t reneged on a game challenge the entire time we’ve been undefeated,” Kyle explained. “He can’t start now when we’re looking at the tournament. When we have a legitimate shot at nally going all the way.” “It’s true,” Cassie added. “We’ve made the state tournament more than any other team in the state. For years. And now the odds are in our favor.” Why is it suddenly getting so heavy in here? I looked at the group around me —their faces were as serious as ever. “You aren’t kidding, are you?” I said, glancing back and forth between Alec, who wouldn’t meet my eyes, and his friends, who were staring me down as if my decision was of the utmost importance. “She doesn’t have to do it,” Alec said to his friends, but he wasn’t smiling. He looked… uncomfortable as he threw me a lifeline.“Seriously.” I wanted to laugh, because it was ridiculous the way they were all behaving as if this were a logical concern. But I couldn’t, because Alec’s face was all tension as he watched me, and also my stomach was lling with raucous butteries at the thought of what the punishment entailed. Kissing Alec. For thirty seconds. Here and now. I must’ve waited too long to answer, because he glanced at me, swallowed, then said, “We’re not doing it.” My mind was racing, my heart beating fast. Alec’s eyes were pleading, and my whole face felt like it was on re. And before my brain could stop my lips from moving, I heard the words “I think we have to” escape from my mouth. Ohhhhh, holy shit, we were doing it.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Alec Holy shit. If there was one thing I knew, it was Dani Collins’s facial expressions. Or at least I used to. And as she looked up at me with her eyebrows raised, I recognized the challenge. She was daring me, wondering what I was waiting for. Shit, shit, shit. It felt like my head was spinning, because how was this happening? I still hadn’t been able to brain-scrub away last night’s driveway situation, the way her mouth felt underneath mine and the way she’d grabbed my jacket, yet now— here we were again? I swallowed and tried to be cool. “Fine,” I said, glancing at Richie, “but not here.” “What? That’s part of the challenge,” he said, sounding outraged. “The challenge is for you to be within Mick’s line of sight.” “I get that,” I said. “But I want her to have a little cover. You might be a weirdo voyeur who wants her grandpa to see that we’re kissing, but we don’t need everyone in the PNA to watch, do we? This way you’re getting what you want and I’m terried that Mick is going to murder me, but Dani doesn’t pay the price.” “Okay, I’ll allow it,” Kyle said, as if he were on the governing body of stupid dares. I grabbed Dani’s hand again, this time pulling her away from my friends and over to the back wall. Technically we were probably more in Mick’s direct line of sight than before, but I was able to angle us so my body was kind of a shield.

“Are you cornering me, Zeus?” she asked in a low voice that made my body go hot. Her eyes were narrowed in a dare, her pretty mouth kicked up at the edges, but her voice was a little breathy, like she felt unsteady about this. Which made me feel better, because I was ready to pass the fuck out. I could see the freckles on her cheekbones as she looked up at me, and it was all too close yet not close enough. “Just trying to block you,” I said a little too harshly, not sure why my voice was coming out all scratchy or why the lyrics to “No One’s Ever Kissed You” were suddenly pinging around on full blast in my mind. “Listen, um.” I cleared my throat, trying to give her one last chance to tap out. All I wanted was to kiss her—suddenly it felt like I neededto kiss her more than I needed to do anything else—but some part of my brain needed her to know it was her choice. “It’s okay if you don’t want to—” “I swear to God, I’m going to hurt you,” she said through a fake smile, raising her hands to my shoulders as she darted a glance behind me. “Let’s just get this over with, okay?” “Get this over with”? Why did that make me want to kiss her more? My heart was pounding hard in my chest, and I wanted to shout for the entire place to shut the hell up so I could think. “Just forget it’s me and goalready,” she said through gritted teeth. As if I could ever forget that,I thought. Dani hissing to “go already” was so on-brand for the girl I used to know. And her “get this over with”? Yeah, fuck that. Her words red me up, lling me with the urge to make sure what was about to happen was something she’d never want to get over. Like she’d done to me the rst time it happened. In our spot, before everything went to hell. I took her face in my hands and very nearly growled, “Let’s do this, then.” I lowered my mouth, and I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t for her to immediately pull me closer. The noise, the people—it disappeared into a blur

of white noise as I leaned into her, grateful for the solid wall against her back that pressed us together. God, Dani, I thought as her body cushioned mine, as my ngers slid over her soft neck so my thumbs could stroke along that delicate jawline. God. Dani. What is it about her? I wondered as the sweetness of her cherry-avored mouth became my whole world. Kissing her felt like razor-sharp relief, like we’d been denied a thousand fucking perfect kisses in our lifetime and were nally allowed to feast. I dove in, starved, and it was like I had some kind of sensory- deprivation experience the minute our lips touched, where everything else ceased to exist and the tiniest of her details were so vivid I felt them excruciatingly. The way her ngertips exed against my shoulders, the way her teeth nipped at my bottom lip, the way her curls rested on my hands, dear Jesus. Never getting over this,I thought as I took it deeper, obsessed with the way she kissed me back like she was trying to outkiss me. You won’t win this one, Collins was the thought that whispered through me as I dragged my teeth over slick cherries before angling my head and— “Enough,” I heard as I felt myself being jerked backward by my shirt. I came around, ready to level whoever was interrupting, but Mick stood there, glowering at me as he let go of my shirt so hard I stumbled. He kind of threw me. Oh shit. Like being awakened by a bucket of cold water to the face. A bucket of cold water that was going to murderme. “God, Mick, I—” “Don’t,” he said, raising his hand—a signal for me to stop talking, which I may or may not have thought was him about to hit me. “I need a beer,” he growled, and walked away, the crowd parting in front of him as he headed for the bar. Oh God, oh God. I turned back to Dani as my heart rate started to slow, and I wished I knew what she was thinking. She looked disoriented as her brown eyes moved over my face, like she was having a lot of thoughts.