Page 70 of Embrace

“We’re in. She’s with me,” he says, no hesitation, and I barely get a chance to say anything before we’re all in teams and Kian’s up first.

His drawing looks like a mangled stick figure trapped inside a square. It makes me laugh because he’s so good at sketching his tattoos but miserable at drawing on this whiteboard.

He draws a rectangular-shaped thing, coloring it in and making it a little wavy.

“What are we even looking at?” someone says.

Kian doesn’t flinch, just keeps scratching lines onto the board, moving on to draw a circle, leading arrows straight to it. It kind of looks like a roll.

His tongue pokes into his cheek, waiting. Desperately drawing more arrows.

I tilt my head and it hits me. “Seaweed.”

Kian slaps down the marker, triumphant. “Boom. Suck on that!”

“What the hell?” Sebastian throws up his hands. “How did you even get that? It looks like a toilet paper roll.”

I shrug, giving Kian a high five. Aiden’s up next, and Summer’s shouting random words, missing it entirely. “Come on, Crawford. We are not losing to Kian,” says Summer. But then she gasps, covering her laugh as she says, “Ferris wheel.”

“Hell yeah, baby!” Aiden exclaims, dropping a kiss to her lips before falling back onto the couch. Seeing them so comfortable together makes something warm move through my chest.

Kian watches them too. The way Aiden exists with her, like she’s the center of his entire world, like every breath he takes belongs to her too. It makes all the other stuff feel minuscule.

I grew up watching my mom’s heart break over and over, then Sierra with her skating partner, and every time one of my sorority sisters got cheated on, it never seemed worth the risk. The idea of giving myself to someone in a way that went so far beyond my body sounded like handing over my heart to a mallet.

“Scarlett.” Cole calls for me to go up.

I push off the couch, grab a card from the pile, and face the whiteboard. The word:scream. For a second I debate the obvious—drawing a stick figure yelling—but then I smirk. Kian lovescostumes. So instead, I sketch Ghostface, the mask’s hollow eyes and open mouth.

I don’t even finish the second oval before Kian blurts, “Scream!”

The room groans, but Kian’s already on his feet, lifting me into his arms. I clutch his biceps, laughing helplessly as he spins me.

This, I think,is pretty close to perfect.

Twenty-three

Kian

“Come on, Ishida!You’re slacking,” Coach Kilner shouts.

Today’s practice is later than normal, but that doesn’t stop Kilner from putting on his skates and acting like a referee. He’s been riding me from the moment I got in tonight, and I’m sick of it.

Dylan’s not even in practice today because he has to rehearse off ice for his and Sierra’s competition, so it’s all me.

I haven’t slept well this week, and I even had to miss my tutoring session with Scarlett because of our new game schedule, so I’m fucking irritated.

The puck is passed to me, and I’m barreling down the ice when Cole bodychecks me out of nowhere. I clench my teeth and move fast on the ice to regain the puck. But just as I get to the net, one of our defenders knocks my stick away in an illegal move.

I yank off my helmet, still out of breath from the impact of their bodies. “What the hell is going on today?” I shout. “Carter. Is there a reason you bodychecked me when I already maneuvered past you?”

“Uh, I was trying to stop you,” Cole says, pulling off his helmet.

“You didn’t. Do better than that. You should have been on my left. I was wide open.” I turn to our defensemen. “And you don’tpull shit like that so close to a buzzer. What happens if you get a penalty and we lose the face-off for the next play?”

“My bad, man. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I know,” I say louder, making sure all the guys can hear me now. “We need to think. You guys are acting before you know what’s coming. Always interpret the move and adjust the reaction. Got it?”