Page 178 of Wild Card 13

“Prom is at the Lakeside Pavilion.”

“Correct.”

“You’re going the long way.”

“Also correct.”

“Why?”

He glanced over, and the grin he gave me was pure Ty Burns. “Because you got into Aldenmere and you look like that, and if I have to walk into a room full of people right now, I’m going to say something embarrassing into a microphone.”

I laughed, settling back into the seat while the Beatles gave way to another old song, something with soft guitar and a voice that sounded like it had been playing from truck speakers long before either of us existed.

For a few minutes, we let the long way be enough. Betsy rolled past the edge of downtown, past storefronts glowing against the evening, past the coffee shop where we had once argued for twenty minutes about whether hot chocolate counted as a personality trait. The sky deepened slowly, blue folding into violet. My dress whispered every time the truck hit a bump.

Ty’s hand found mine between us. I turned my fingers into his.

“So,” he said eventually. He inhaled, then let it out through his nose. “I need to tell you something too.”

My stomach dipped.

I had known. Since the section final, since the Fargo scout, since the way adults had started speaking around him instead of to him, since the way his name had grown heavier in hallways. I had known something was coming. We had talked about long distance like itwas a math problem. Four years. Weekends. Phone calls. Summers. Temporary.

But knowing did not stop my body from reacting.

I kept my voice steady. “Okay.”

He laughed once, mostly at himself. “I’m going to Fargo.”

The words settled between us. Like snow beginning to fall over a road we still thought we could drive.

I looked down at our joined hands. “For the Force?” I asked.

His thumb stopped moving. “Yeah.” His voice warmed immediately, eager despite the carefulness. “I mean, there’s still camp and paperwork and all that, but Mercer called Coach, and Dad talked to him, and it’s real. They want me there after graduation.”

My fingers tightened around his. “What about St. Croix?” I asked.

“Still interested.”

“But you’re not going.”

He shook his head. “Not now.” Ty glanced over again, then back at the road. “College will always be there.”

He said it like something adults had said first. Something he had repeated until it fit comfortably in his mouth.

“And hockey won’t?” I asked.

His expression shifted, not defensive exactly. More honest than that. “Not this version of it.” He kept both eyes on the road, his profile lit by the faint glow of the dashboard. “I’m eighteen,” he said. “My body feels like it can do anything right now. I know that sounds cocky.”

“It sounds like you.”

That made him smile a little.

But he stayed serious. “I don’t want to sit in a classroom wondering how far I could have gone if I’d just taken the chance when it was sitting there. I don’t want to be twenty-five and still talking about the scouts who came to that game like it was the best thing that ever happened to me because I got scared afterward.”

“You’re not scared.”

“No.” His grip shifted around the wheel. “That’s the thing. I’m not.”