Fake Skating(29)

She grinned at the other three guys, and I realized she was impossible to dislike.

“Well, I came because I wanted to ask Dani here about her grandfather,” said the enormous wall of a human with the ridiculous hair.

I thought I remembered that his name was Vinny.

“Yeah, okay, that was why I came too,” the redhead (Richie?) agreed, grinning in a way that made me think maybe he was okay.

“I was just following Cassie,” Kyle said with a shrug. He was the one who’d been with Alec in the library the other day, and he also had a mullet, though his was normal compared to Vinny’s. Just a dark-haired version of the whole business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back ugly hairstyle.

“Silly me,” Cassie said, smiling at Kyle. “I came because I actually agreed that it was noisy in the cafeteria and thought it would be fun to eat my lunch quietly in the library.”

“The only one without an ulterior motive,” Alec said. “I need to grab a book.”

Without another word he walked over to the history section—was he seriously getting a book?—while his friends gave me shy smiles like they were little boys.

“So what was it like growing up with Mick?” Richie asked.

“Is he always intimidating,” Vinny asked, “or is he super real when you know him?”

“Um, he has always been a little intimidating, to be honest,” I said, surprised that they just wanted to talk about my grandpa. “And I didn’t really grow up with him. We moved a lot, so I kind of only saw him once a year when I was a kid.”

I wasn’t sure if I should lean into this interest or downplay everything. Having a sort-of-famous grandfather had never come into play before, so I had no rule book to check for this.

“So you don’t really know him any better than anyone else—is that what you’re saying?”

Kyle was looking at Cassie when he said that, but she was listening to me and had no idea that her admirer was staring at her with the real-life equivalent of heart eyes.

“I mean, I did when I was little,” I said. “He used to take me fishing and let me drive his boat and stuff. We were pretty close until I hit middle school.”

“Does he talk about hockey all the time?” Vinny asked. “Tell me he’d sit at Thanksgiving dinner and talk about bashing Guy Gustafson’s face in.”

“Can you even fucking imagine?” Richie said with a laugh. “?‘I busted the shit outta his nose—hey, pass the stuffing.’?”

I glanced at Cassie and she was grinning at me, rolling her eyes at her friends.

“Actually, he never really talked about it—Guy’s face bashing or anything else. It wasn’t until recently that I even realized he was more than just, like, someone who played hockey when he was a kid.”

“Are you kidding?” Vinny asked. “No way. You can’t be serious.”

“Totally serious,” I said, kind of realizing for the first time how strange that was.

“Wow,” Kyle said, shaking his head.

“So, Dani,” Cassie asked, playfully nudging him out of the way. “Did you come up with anything on the extracurriculars?”

“No, because I honestly can’t think of anything that will work,” I said.

I’d spent a lot of time trying to figure something out, clicking through all the teams on the Southview High website, hoping to find some random activity that might be an option, but so far there was nothing.

Cassie filled the guys in on my situation, which made Richie say, “Can’t she just be another manager?”

“Oh my gosh,” Cassie said, her eyes going huge. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Think of what?” I asked slowly. Very curious what they could be talking about.

“I mean, you’ve been doing it by yourself since Lillie quit,” Vinny said. “Couldn’t Dani just take her place?”

“What?” I heard from behind me. Alec came over with a couple of books in his hand and a scowl on his face. He sat down, his eyebrows furrowed like he’d just overheard us saying something obscene.

“Dani’s still trying to find an extracurricular, and these guys thought maybe she could be a co-manager,” Cassie said excitedly. “And that seems like a really good idea.”

“A co-manager?” I asked, suddenly slightly panicked by Alec’s reaction. “Of what?”

“Hockey,” Cassie said. “I’m the team manager.”

What?I couldn’t be a hockey manager—was she kidding?

No, no, thank you.

Nope.

“Well, I’m sure it’s too late,” Alec said as if it was out of the question. “I don’t think Coach would be into bringing on someone new that he doesn’t even know.”

“It couldn’t hurt to ask, though, right?” Cassie said with a shrug, looking at him like he had a say in the decision or something. “You should totally ask.”

NO! I wanted to shout.

You definitely shouldn’t ask.

Because not only did I know nothing about the sport, but I had zero interest in frequenting a world where Alec was the king. Especially not when he was looking at me as if that was the last thing in the world he wanted.