AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I lay awake with my thoughts racing for most of the night and my heart feeling strangely full. Dangerously full.
It’s a feeling I don’t trust, because I know this thing between us is temporary. We’re both people with dreams. Aspirations. We have lives ahead of us that we’re not willing to sacrifice for someone else.
And that’s how it should be.
That’s how it should be.
The thought echoes in my mind for what feels like hours. Am I only trying to convince myself I’m doing this the right way, or do I really believe it?
Fuck if I know.
26
MIA
Igive the laces on my skates one last tug, then stand and brush the snow from my butt. I’m by the harbor, which will still be frozen over for at least another couple weeks. Caroline had the idea to stage a community hockey tournament. For as long as I’ve known Caroline, she has had a compulsion to keep the town of Frosty Harbor close and connected. She does it through the bed and breakfast, but also by organizing town events and making sure they become traditions. Most years, she comes up with several new events to keep things fresh.
I knew her when her mom was still alive, so I know it’s her way of keeping her mom’s spirit present. Caroline’s mom was exactly the same, and she would love to know Caroline has kept up the work she started before she passed.
This hockey tournament is one of those brand new traditions. Because of the unique number of NHL players currently living in Frosty Harbor, she had to make a rule that every team can only have one NHL player.
Zander saved me the trouble of having to figure out if I should try to be on Nolan’s team or not when he pushed for us to make a team out of everyone at Taste under the age of eighty. Edgar called it ageism and told Zander he was being a “fuckin’ piss melon,” but I don’t think he was actually too upset about now having to play.
There’s a buzz of excitement in the chilly air as most of the town has turned out to watch. The tournament is going to take most of the day, so the guys have brought out grills, tents, space heaters, and the concession stand by the harbor is up and running. People are setting up fold-out chairs with blankets all along the bank of the harbor to watch. The ice has several areas for the matches to take place marked out with cones and goals that look like they’ve seen better days on either side.
It’s sunny, snow is on the ground, and the weather is perfect for being outside as the smells of food cooking over fire starts to fill the air.
Paisley comes up to me as I’m making my way toward the ice. “Um,” she says. “A little help?”
I look down at her skates, which are on the wrong feet. She’s wobbling dangerously, too, like her ankles are made out of dough.
I laugh. “You’ve ice skated before, right?”
“Once. On a cruise when I was sixteen? But the guy there was trying to hit on me and laced me up and everything.”
I grin. “Okay, well… Here, just sit down.”
Paisley plops down in the snow and I kneel to fix her skates. Zander skates up and stops beside us. “You ready, team?”
“I think we’re going to be lucky if Paisley survives skating to the area where we’re playing.” I glance at the servers, who have banded together in their own little social bubble. “They seem okay, though.”
“I watched a YouTube video last night and know all the rules of hockey, thank you very much,” Paisley says. “I’ll be a defensewoman. That means I’m going to hide behind Nolan and hope nobody hits me with a puck. But I’m going to look great doing it.” She spreads her arms, showing off her perfectly curled blonde hair and custom Taste jersey Zander had made for all of us.
“Nolan is going to be in front of the net,” Zander says. “If you’re behind him, that would mean you’d be in the net. Or behind it…”
“And?” Paisley asks.
“It’s fine,” I say. “We’re just planning to have a good time. Who cares if we win?”
Nolan skates up as I’m mid-sentence. “Who cares if we win?” he asks. He’s standing tall on his skates with all black beneath his black Taste jersey. It makes his hair look extra blonde and his eyes look practically glacial. “We’re going to win this whole damn thing. Carter and Maddox have been bragging about how they’re going to dominate us for days. There’s no way in hell I’m letting that happen.”
I’ve never been up close to him when he’s all decked out in his hockey gear like this. There’s a kind of confidence practically oozing out of him. I have to admit it’s sexy as hell.
The two of us have been finding a way to sleep together almost every day for nearly a week now. It always starts and ends mostly the same, though. We go straight to kissing and touching as soon as we’re alone. When we finish, he dresses and leaves without much conversation.
It’s exactly what he promised it would be, and yet it feels like there’s something still hanging unsaid between us. Some unresolved tension. Or maybe it’s just that we both know it can’t last. We’re afraid if we talk, we’ll just be dragging that truth into the spotlight. Once it’s exposed, we won’t be able to keep pretending anymore.
I just keep finding myself wishing it didn’t have to feel so complicated–that I could simply enjoy liking a guy and the feeling of him liking me. But it never feels that easy with us. There’s always this lingering something. Like an off flavor that doesn’t belong in an otherwise perfect bite.
