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Chapter One
ELSA
It’snotmyproudestmoment.
At twenty-four, I’m moving back home to stay at my parents’ until I figure out my next steps.
After I graduated two years ago with a theater degree, I genuinely thought I’d kill it out in the real world, but chasing my dream of being a successful actress has proven to be next to impossible.
My mother is letting me have the basement all to myself. As a teen, I would have been thrilled and looking forward to it, but as a supposed adult, I feel humiliated and low.
My older brother is the real golden child of the family. Parker is a local sports newscaster, with ambitions of reaching national notoriety in the next year.
I’m currently sitting on the floor of my parents’ basement, surrounded by boxes and plastic bins. A few are what I’ve brought with me, including some of my theater posters from college productions, but most are unopened memories from when I was younger.
At the moment, I’m looking through one from high school and seeing all my old awards and straight A report cards makes me feel cheated.
How could I have worked so hard just to end up like this?
“Elsa!” I hear mom call from upstairs. “The sandwiches are ready!”
Between giving into my self-pity and obeying my stomach, I choose my hunger and walk upstairs. Careful not to trip over anything, I follow the scent of pastrami and mustard on rye.
To my surprise, Parker is there, and with a friend.
He’s a tall muscular man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes who looks to be in his late thirties, a few years older than my brother.
He’s so ruggedly handsome that it catches me off guard, but I quickly regain my composure.
“Hi, Parker,” I say, greeting my brother with a hug.
I arrived home a few days before and he had come home to have dinner with me, mom, and dad. It was nice to catch up and I was glad that he didn’t rub it in my face once that my career hadn’t taken off yet.
I had mainly kept quiet and just listened, wishing I could be gloating about becoming an actress instead of quietly hiding the fact that I’d been working retail to support myself since college.
I look pointedly at the hot stranger in our house. “So, who’s your friend?”
Both men look at each other and start to laugh. Confused, I look at mom and see she has no idea what’s going on either.
“Hi, I’m Harvey Baker,” the stranger says, offering me a hand to shake.
His hand is calloused and rough, and my hand gets lost in it.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. Am I supposed to know who you are?” I ask, still trying to clear the confusion.
“Harvey plays center for the Boston Arctic Wolves, Elsa,” Parker says from the sidelines. “It’s a hockey team. I told you about him the other night. He’s been my closest friend for the last five years or so.”
“Oh,” I say, not sure how to continue in the conversation. The truth is that once Parker had started talking about sports at dinner a few nights ago, I had tuned him out.
Harvey laughs at my reaction, and I’m pretty sure it’s at my expense.
“I assume you don’t follow hockey,” he says with a cocky grin, and I force myself not to roll my eyes.
“You assume correctly,” I end up saying, but what Ireallywant to say is something like, ‘there’s a whole world out there that has absolutely nothing to do with hockey. Get over yourself.’
Only then do I realize I’m still holding his hand. I quickly let it go as if he had given me an electric shock.
Mom approaches us, places a hand on my shoulder, and says, “Come take a seat, Elsa. You’re still stressed from your recent trip back home from Los Angeles.”
