Page 94

DANIEL

Dad is already in the lot when we climb off the bus, parked slightly crooked in his spot. He lifts two fingers off the wheel. That’s his whole greeting. I grin anyway, because that’s just him; he’s a little gruff but we love him anyway. I hitch my duffle higher and gesture to my dad.

“That’s him,” I tell Quinn. “He’s not mad. That’s just his face.”

Quinn has his bag in both hands in front of his body. And the five hours on the bus hasn’t helped him relax even a tiny bit. He looks like he’s bracing for a test nobody let him study for. I want to bump my shoulder into his, but I don’t, because we’re in public, and I’m not sure if he would take that the same as the touching we do in private. We’ll have to clarify that.

Dad gets out when we reach the bumper. He’s in the same brown Carhart jacket he’s had since I was fourteen, our last name written on the left side. It was a gift from his company. He looks between us, his expression not really showing anything.

“You made it.”

“We made it,” I say as I give him a full on hug that he returns. “Dad, this is Quinn. Quinn, Mike.”

Quinn sticks out his hand for a handshake, and my lips twitch as my dad grasps it and then shakes. “Thank you for picking us up.”

Dad grunts, which in our family means you’re welcome. “Cold enough for you?”

“Yes, sir.”

I almost laugh. Nobody has called my father sir since a referee did in Traverse City during one of my games, and that guy got an earful for it. Dad just nods and slings my bag into the bed of the truck, Quinn’s following shortly after.

The truck smells like coffee and grease. Quinn takes the back seat, and I twist around once we are on 31 so I can see him. He’s watching the water when it shows, grey and choppy this time of year, and the trees when it doesn’t. I point things out to him as we drive. That stretch is where I learned to drive. That gas station sells the good jerky. That hill is terrible in the ice.

When silence falls, my dad glances over at me. “Hockey?”

“Practice starts back up on the twenty-eighth,” I say. “We can stay through the twenty-seventh.”

He nods, his eyes on the road. “Your mother’s been baking since Tuesday. Don’t tell her I said that. She wants it to be a surprise that the house smells like a bakery.”

“Pretty sure the surprise is dead on arrival. The house always smells like a bakery this time of year.”

The corner of his mouth kicks up. I glance back at Quinn, and he’s almost smiling, too, which makes me feel better.

Petoskey looks the way it always does in December. Lights already up on the poles. Snow pushed into dirty shoulders. The bay steel strip at the bottom of the hill. My chest does a little happy flutter, the same feeling I get every time I come home, like my body recognizes the turn before my brain does.

The house is the same as it was last time I was home. Although, now there are Christmas decorations dotting the front lawn, half buried by the latest snow fall. Mom’s swinging the door wide before the truck is even in park, in a sweater with flour on it. Hank comes out from between her legs like a blond missile.

“Oh my god, hang on⁠—”

Hank, my golden retriever, hits me in the thighs hard enough to rock me. I drop to a knee in the driveway because that’s the deal and has been since he was a puppy, and he tries to climb into my coat. He’s whining and wagging his tail so hard his whole butt is whipping back and forth. I laugh into his fur. He smells like the house and cold air.

“Okay. Okay. I missed you, too, you idiot.”

Mom’s already looking past me.

“You must be Quinn,” she says. “Come on, it’s freezing, don’t stand in the driveway like guests. You’re family.”

She opens her arms for a hug, and I can feel a sort of panic rise. I hadn’t told her he doesn’t like touch.

Quinn hovers for half a second with his bag. I see the calculation happening behind his glasses. A hug with a person he doesn’t know. My mom must read him, because she smiles wider and takes his bag from him instead, which is so exactly her that my throat goes tight.

“Here, let me take this from you. You look half frozen. Are you hungry? Don’t answer that, I know you’re hungry, Daniel never thinks to eat on the bus.”

“Hey, I ate,” I say, straightening up. Hank immediately abandons me to sniff Quinn’s jeans with his whole soul.

“Sure you did, honey.”

Quinn goes still as he processes my dog, which I also neglected to mention. Shit. What if he’s allergic? Then his hand lowers, tentative, and Hank shoves his head under it demanding pets.