We were quiet for a minute or two. Then I said, “Malina?”
No response.
When I looked down, her eyes were closed and her chest was rising and falling slowly and evenly. Not quite ready to fall asleep yet, I grabbed my phone. I’d missed a few texts while my phone was on silent, so I thumbed into my messages.
Pierce: Holy shit. Guess who is at the same restaurant as us?
Pierce: Ben. Demarco. He was at the game.
Heat rushed through my veins. Ben Demarco was a scout from the Philadelphia Flyers. It was no secret that they’d be looking for a new backup goalie for next season.
Pierce: He just asked about you. Dude, where are you?? Get down here!
My grip tightened around my phone. Ben Demarco had seen one of my worst games of the season, yet still asked about me afterward, and I wasn’t there to meet him?
Pierce: He left. Cool guy. Wish you had been here. Hope Malina is okay.
The timestamp on the texts made my stomach sink. There wasn’t any point in responding anymore. Even though scouts couldn’t do anything official yet, everyone knew it was the unofficial meetings, the personal connections, that really counted, and I’d missed an opportunity with the team I’d been hoping for most of all. My sister had even gotten me a Flyers jersey for my birthday. Now every time I opened my closet and saw the familiar black and orange logo, I’d feel like an idiot.
I scrubbed a hand across my face. It wasn’t only the missed opportunity, though. I’d played terribly today. I’d been distracted—trying to get a glimpse of Malina in the stands had cost me at least one of those goals—and no doubt Demarco had seen it, too. Slacking on my workouts hadn’t helped, either. And why had I been slacking on my workouts?
Malina.
I’d thought I could make things work with her—I desperately wanted to make things work with her—but instead, everything was falling apart. I knew being with her wouldn’t be like being with the other girls I dated, but I’d been thinking with my heart, not my brain. I had to do something to stop the bleeding before things got worse.
Before I lost everything I’d worked for.
Malina curled into me in her sleep. Shit. How could I do this to her? Especially now?
No. There had to be another way. I could turn things around, couldn’t I? We could talk about it in the morning. Or maybe after Tutu was better. Malina would know what to do. She had to be as distracted as I was, and she had just as much on the line. Maybe she’d be okay with a break so we could get our shit together.
I set my phone aside, kissed the top of Malina’s head, and followed her into sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Malina
Something tugged at my brain, pulling me out from under layers of sleep. It was a literal fight to consciousness as my body battled with my mind. When I opened my eyes, I realized why the battle was so tough: I was possibly the most comfortable I’d ever been, curled up against Jackson, safe in his arms. When I looked up, he was sound asleep, only possibly not quite as comfortable. His head had slipped off my pillow, and was tipped at an angle that was definitely going to leave him with a stiff neck when he woke up.
Jackson’s phone buzzed insistently on my dresser. That must have been what woke me up. The way it was buzzing, someone must have been calling him, not messaging. When it stopped vibrating and started right up again almost immediately, I sat up a little to see who was calling.
Jackson stirred in his sleep, but didn’t wake. Pierce’s name and picture were on the screen. But my gaze quickly drifted from Pierce’s name to the time shown at the top of the screen. No. That couldn’t be right. I blinked hard and willed my vision to clear.
Pierce’s call ended, and the screen went black. I frantically jabbed at the home button, looking for the correct time on the lock screen, but it was still the same.
10:46. Until the minute changed to 10:47.
No. No, no, no.
Jackson’s phone must have still been set to some weird time zone from his travels. It couldn’t have possibly been 10:47. We couldn’t possibly have slept that long. I frantically searched for my phone. Surely that would’ve been right. Surely it would’ve shown that I had time to shower and look my best and get to my interview with plenty of time to spare.
As I dug through the sheets, where I must have dropped the phone before we fell asleep, Jackson woke up. Before his eyes were even open, he winced and reached for his neck.
“Jackson, move,” I said, pushing him to the side so I could check under him.
“Ow,” he said, voice thick with sleep. “What? What’s wrong?”
“What time is it? I can’t find my phone, and the time on your phone is wrong.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
When he leaned forward to grab his phone, my fingers made contact with the case of my phone. I pulled it out from between the sheets. Jabbed at the home button. And my heart stopped.
It was 10:47. My alarm had gone off. It was there in the notifications. But the phone had been buried too deep to wake me from sleep. Dread started at the tip of my skull and worked its way through my veins all the way down to my toes.
“I missed the interview,” I said. “We overslept, and I missed the interview.” The words came out so much calmer than I felt.
“And I missed practice,” Jackson said, still rubbing at his neck. “Shit.”
“I have to go. Maybe they’ll still take me late…maybe they’ll understand…maybe they’ll…” I jumped out of bed and threw on the closest outfit I could find—a pair of jeans and a rumpled shirt. My hands shook as I buttoned the jeans. I was supposed to wear a dress. Not this. But it was too late to change that. I had to leave. I ran down to the kitchen to grab the keys to my mom’s car, but they weren’t on the counter where Dad usually left them. The sick feeling in my stomach doubled.
“Seven missed calls. Twenty missed texts. Coach is pissed,” Jackson said as he thundered down the stairs.
I ignored him and ran to see if the keys were on the hook by the door. They weren’t.
Meanwhile, Jackson was pacing back and forth, phone still in his hand. “I knew this would happen.”
I went to the desk and started opening one drawer after another. His overreaction coupled with the distinct lack of keys in each drawer caused my chest to tighten with each too-shallow breath. I slammed a drawer shut. “You knew we’d oversleep? Well, you could have helped me out by setting an alarm!”
“No. I knew being with you would get in the way of hockey. I knew I couldn’t do both.”
Rage boiled under my skin. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t believe Jackson had said something that awful on one of the worst mornings of my life. It was that I couldn’t believe he’d said it at all. “Seriously? I’m messing with your hockey career? You missed one practice! So what? Go late and apologize. It’s one practice! You have like a thousand of them. I missed a one-shot, potentially life-changing interview! Do you realize that? Do you even care?” I slammed the final drawer shut. “What the hell did my parents do with the damn keys?”
Jackson’s gaze snapped up from his phone. “Coach doesn’t play games. If you’re even five minutes late, you’re not allowed in the rink. And I’ll probably be benched for the next game. There are going to be scouts there, and I won’t be able to play.”
I abandoned my search for the keys. “Yeah, well, maybe this is why you needed a freaking backup plan. So that if being with me caused you such a problem that you got benched and didn’t make an NHL team, you could still go to college. But no. You’re too good for backup plans. Well, guess what? That’s not how it works. Life isn’t one big party where you get everything you want.”
“Hey, at least I’m going for my dreams. Your entire life is a backup plan. You’re not even trying for what you really want.”
The words were a slap in the face that knocked all of the air out of my lungs. Maybe Jackson had hinted at the idea before, but he’d never put it so bluntly.
“It’s called being realistic,” I snapped. “It’s called thinking about the future, something you clearly don’t get. I really thought our relationship could be different. That we could last longer than two weeks, unlike your first thousand relationships, but I guess I was wrong.” I folded my arms over my chest. If he could go for the low blow, then so could I.
“I guess you were. You know, I’d offer you a ride,” he said, “but I don’t want any part in helping you settle.”
“Fine,” I spat. “I don’t want a ride from you anyway.”
“Good. Besides, I have to go try to apologize to Coach. To tell him my girlfriend was the reason I was late, but the girlfriend thing won’t be a problem anymore.”
“No. It won’t. Until you’re on to the next girl. Which will be when, tomorrow?”
He gave an angry shrug. “It’s still early. Why not tonight?”
Glaring at him, I said what I should have said all along. “Get out of my house.”
“Fine. Good-bye, Malina.”
Without another word or even a backward glance, he was gone. That meant I could focus on what I needed to focus on: getting to the interview. Of course, when I focused on that, I remembered the text my mom sent saying she’d forgotten the keys in her jacket pocket. I found them, grabbed my paperwork for the interview along with my purse, and dashed out of the house.
After quickly putting the address into the maps system, I started driving as fast as possible while also checking for cops. The last thing this day needed was a speeding ticket. When I arrived, I took the first parking space I saw, got out of the car, and started running.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to be dressed nicely, walking calmly, my only concern being what I was going to say in the interview. And from what my dad said, that wouldn’t have been much of a concern at all. Instead, I was tearing up at the thought that I’d thrown it all away.
I threw the door open and ran up to the desk with the scholarship sign.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked. She was dressed in a neat suit, hair and makeup perfect. The only thing off about her was her concerned expression as she studied my disheveled appearance.
The look brought even more tears to my eyes. I ran my hands over my shirt again. “Yes, I’m Malina Hall. I had an interview scheduled for ten o’clock, and I’m so sorry I’m late, but I was wondering if there was any way I could still do the interview.”
The woman gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry, but we have back-to-back interviews scheduled all day.” She nodded toward a row of chairs, where a few much more put-together than me high schoolers were waiting. “There are many students who are here on time. Was there some kind of emergency?”
For two seconds, I thought about explaining what had happened to Tutu, but that wasn’t the real reason I was late. I couldn’t stoop to that level. “No, there wasn’t. I’m really, really sorry, but please. Can I interview at the end of the day? I’ll stay here all day. I’ll do anything.”
The woman’s smile disappeared. “I’m sorry, Ms. Hall, but if you can’t arrive at an interview on time, how do we know that you’ll be fully dedicated to your studies or to a career with us someday? It’s one of our rules.”
I wanted to break out the “my dad works for your company” line, but I couldn’t stoop to that level, either. “Okay,” I said, but didn’t move. My limbs were frozen as my brain struggled to catch up to reality.
“If there’s nothing else, there’s someone behind you waiting to check in.”
I turned. I hadn’t even heard someone else come up. The guy was wearing a suit. He was probably an hour early for his interview. Yeah, he deserved it more than I did. “Good luck,” I said to him. He thanked me as I walked away.
I was so numb that I barely felt my legs moving. When I got in the car and closed the door, the silence washed over me. What was I going to tell my dad? What was I going to do without the one scholarship I’d really been banking on? How had I lost Jackson, not just as a boyfriend, but as a friend?
I let my head fall against the steering wheel and cried.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jackson
As predicted, Coach had not let me step one blade on the ice, and also promised to bench me for the next game. It had been a while since someone had been late to a practice, so the guys gave me a hard time as I left. They were joking around—I wasn’t the first person to be late, and I probably wouldn’t be the last—but I wasn’t in a joking mood. I ignored their comments and left the rink, slamming the door on my way out.
While I drove home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the argument with Malina. I stomped on the gas pedal. I was going too fast, but couldn’t bring myself to care. What was she thinking when she said all of that shit? She knew exactly who I was when she let us be more than friends. How could she throw that back in my face? And when it came to my future, how could she not believe in me? Wasn’t that what girlfriends were supposed to do? What friends were supposed to do? Believe in you and support you no matter what? My stomach burned with the fact that she obviously didn’t.
And yeah, maybe I hadn’t said things to her very nicely, but they needed to be said. In fact, I probably should have said them a long time ago.
When I got home, I opened the front door and slammed it hard enough that the painting on the wall rattled. My muscles and brain craved more of that release. A workout was definitely needed to get out some of this frustration. And since I wouldn’t be getting out any energy during practice or during the next game…
“Lukey? Is that you?”
It sounded like Mom, but she didn’t call me that. I trudged into the living room, where my sister was sitting on the couch, piles of folded and unfolded laundry all around her.
“Hey!” She set the laundry aside and jumped up to give me a hug, throwing her arms around my neck. “God, would you quit getting taller?”
I forced my anger down a notch. Lacey didn’t deserve for me to take any of this out on her. “I’ll work on that. What are you doing home?”
She sat back down and started folding a shirt. “My roommate’s boyfriend came into town this morning, so I wanted to give them some space.”
“Ah. Very considerate you.”
“I like to think so. Hey, I thought Mom said you had practice this morning?”
I took a seat on the couch next to her. The second I did, some of my anger shifted to self-pity that pooled in the pit of my stomach. On second thought, maybe I wouldn’t work out. Maybe I’d take advantage of the day off to do nothing but binge watch a show on Netflix and eat my body weight in Doritos and donuts. “Yes, but I was late so Coach kicked me out.”
Lacey frowned and messed with the sloppy bun on top of her head. “Late to practice? You? How did that happen?”
“I overslept.”
“Didn’t you spend the night at Pierce’s house? Was he late, too?”
I winced. “Well, no. Because I wasn’t actually at Pierce’s house. That’s just what I told Mom.”
“And in reality, you were…”
“At Malina’s house.” Even saying her name stung.
“Ah,” she said. “Sounds like karma got you on that lie.”
I sighed. “Yeah. I wasn’t allowed to practice and have to sit the bench the next game.”
“Tough break, kiddo. I bet you won’t let that happen again.”
“No,” I said. What I didn’t say was that it couldn’t happen again, because I’d lost Malina entirely, not only as my girlfriend, but also as my friend. I toyed with the sleeve of one of the yet-to-be-folded shirts.
After a minute or two of silence, Lacey asked, “Is that all?”
I glanced down at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I know you’re disappointed about practice and the g
ame, but you seem more than disappointed. You seem sad.”
With a sigh, I let the sleeve drop from between my fingers. Talking about this sounded worse than doing wind sprints. There wasn’t any point in talking. It wouldn’t make me feel better. But knowing Lacey and her convincing lawyer-ish ways, I figured I should probably get it over with. “Malina and I had a fight. I think we’re done.”
She frowned. “You two fought?”
“Yeah.”
“After you spent the night at her house?”
“Yeah.”
“About what?”
The anger that had settled rose right back up to the surface. “She said all this crap about me, about how I can’t stay in a relationship and how I’m not serious about anything and treat life like one big party.”
Her frown deepened. “Malina said all of that? Malina Hall? That doesn’t sound like her.”
I shrugged one shoulder against the back of the couch. Maybe that was what stung most of all: that Malina wasn’t who I thought she was all those years of our friendship. It was like I’d lost all of those years, too. “Apparently it is.”
Lacey sat back, crossed one leg over the other, and folded her hands like she was pre-psychiatry instead of pre-law. “Okay, okay. Back up. I’m going to need some context here. So you were at her house, I’m assuming everything was fine before you fell asleep because you stayed the night, but you woke up, and then…?”
My stomach clenched. I didn’t want to go through this again. What was done was done. What was said was said. “I don’t know.”
“Luke,” Lacey said in her “calling me on my bullshit” tone. Mom had that exact same tone.
I threw my hands up in defeat. “Fine. We woke up late, and I was freaking out because I missed practice, and she was freaking out because she missed some scholarship interview.”
“What kind of scholarship interview?”
“One for her dad’s company, I think.”
Lacey gasped. “She had an interview for that huge scholarship? It’s a big deal to even get that opportunity.”
Tied Up in You Page 15
