Page 32 of Embrace

He perks up from behind the cup of coffee he sips. “I’m just happy to see you in such a good mood.”

My mom hums in agreement, slipping into the chair beside him to claim her plate.

I stop whisking my eggs in the bowl to narrow my gaze at them. “What? Just say what you’re thinking.”

“Who’s the boy?” My mom is first to it blurt out, and my dad mutters a quiet, “So I can kill him.”

I stare in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, we’ve seen you happy when you do well in school, or when you’ve had a good day with Sierra, but never quite like this. So we suspect it’s a boy.”

Try a grown man. An inmate. My biological father.

“You’re saying it like I’m in middle school. I’m twenty-one, not twelve.” I blow out a breath. “And there’s no boy. I’m just having a good study week.”

“Whatever you say, Rosie. But I know those boys at Dalton, so if you need me to vet them, I will.”

I hold back from rolling my eyes. “You don’t know ‘the Dalton boys,’ Dad. You know the hockey players.”

He huffs. “And you stay away from the hockey players. You know what I say—”

“They play the game, and the women.”

He nods.

“Aren’t your players in healthy relationships? Summer Preston is like the golden girl on campus, and she loves her hockey player boyfriend.”

“Crawford is different.”

“Westbrook?” I raise a brow, knowing that one of the guys who graduated and went to the NHL had some controversy before a ballerina started dating him. They’re everyone’s celebrity crush. I don’t know too much about my dad’s players, but I haven’t heard anything inherently bad about them.

“Your dad’s just being protective,anak. But be careful. Athletes aren’t a good call,” my mom says, keeping her eyes on her toast. Hearing her say it makes it so much worse.

But I nod anyway.

Eleven

Kian

I’m skipping studygroup today. That’s the only thing I regret as I check the route to Boston on my phone, pretending to work out in the weight room.

“Does your tutor do house calls?” Sampson asks from behind me.

“Not for you,” I mutter when he comes to spot me on the bench press. I can imagine it. Him shirtless, smirking, trying every move in the book with her. I shiver.

“I’m not going to steal your girl. I’m just trying to persuade mine to pay attention to me.”

“She wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.” Sampson and Amara Evans are Summer’s best friends. No one knows what’s really happening between them, aside from the fact that Dylan and I saw them coming out of the closet at Porter’s last semester.

When Coach blows his whistle, I’m the first one in and out of the showers. It’ll take less than two hours to drive to Kiyomi’s house if I leave before rush hour.

When I park my car in the driveway and jog up the steps to the hockey house, I stop short. Dylan’s dad is coming down them. I stand there in shock, and when he glances at me he barely acknowledgesmy existence. I’ve known this guy since I was a kid. We used to play hockey with him in Dylan’s driveway.

“Hey, Mr. Donovan,” I call as he passes me.

He slows, the crease between his eyebrows tightening. “Hello, Ken.”

“That’s not my name,” I say, but he doesn’t hear it. He’s already unlocking the doors to his shiny Mercedes.