Page 21

“I gotta save up for Nashville next summer.”

“I know.” Just the thought of Holt jetting off to Nashville with his hockey team in August for two weeks makes my belly flip and flop with unease. Every day, I swear, he gets more and more attractive. Even Mom says Holt’s filling out. But he’ll be sixteen in December, so it makes sense, I guess.

Still…

He bends low to stroke my nose with his. “I hate it when you look like this, Faye.”

I blink up at him—at the boy-man who holds the whole of my tender heart in his hands. “Like what?”

“Like I’m hurting you.”

I flinch. “You’re not hurting me. Why would you say that?”

He lifts a shoulder, studying me. “You seem upset sometimes. When I play.”

I shake my head and force the best smile I can to my face. I don’t want him to feel guilty for loving hockey just because I love him. “It’s your dream, and I want it for you. I just miss you too sometimes, is all.”

He sighs, and there’s relief in it. “We’ll do something Sunday, okay? Spend the whole day together.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Shit.” He gazes around the parking lot. “This cold sucks.”

It really does suck. We’re pretty much housebound, which doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for kissing, what with Mom and Dad’s open-door rule.

I have to admit that all I really want to do is kiss Holt.

“We’ll figure it out,” I promise, loving the way his eyes soften on me.

He nods. “Yeah.”

Pushing up onto my tip toes, I press a kiss to the underside of his jaw just as Tate appears. Holt steps away with another thanks to his brother for ‘driving his girl home’ before he hooks his hand around the strap of his hockey duffel and throws it over his shoulder. He shoots me a wink before he sets to walking the field between the high school and the rink.

I watch him silently for a few minutes before Tate reaches around me to open the door for me. “It’s cold out here, sweet girl. Climb in, yeah?”

Shaking myself from my thoughtful trance, I slide into the front passenger seat and wait for Tate to round the car. When he’s settled beside me, I ask, “No Charity today?”

“Nope.” He doesn’t look at me as he shifts the car into drive, and eases from the parking space he backed into like a pro this morning.

Because I’ve grown closer to Tate, I press, “Another one bite the dust?” A grin quirks his lips, but he still doesn’t look at me. I poke again. “She wasn’t good enough for you, anyway.”

This time, his eyes slide to me. “No?”

“Nope.” I shake my head. “You’re Tate. You deserve the best.”

“Who would that be?”

I shrug. “You’ll know when you meet her.”

His eyes linger on me for a moment too long before he tears his gaze away to peer outside the windshield. Quietly, he murmurs, “Yeah, figure that’s true.”

“We have to be something epic. It’s Halloween, Holt!” I’m giddy with the excitement of dressing up, bouncing on the balls of my feet as I flip through costumes in the pop-up store.

Because Tate was between girls, again, me, Holt, Micha, and Andy all piled into Tate’s car and we made the hour drive to the city, on the search for the most epic Halloween costumes. Holt told me he had to pay Tate fifty dollars to do it, but because none of our group could drive, we really didn’t have a choice but to bribe Tate.

“I thought we were supposed to go as a couple this year?” Micha taunts Holt. “Weren’t you supposed to be my bitch?”

“Naw, man.” Holt grins, unfazed. “You’ve always been my bitch.”