Fake Skating(4)

She nodded and disconnected the call, but before I could open my mouth, her finger came up and she pointed at my face. “I don’t want to hear a word, okay?”

“Oh geez,” I said, shaking my head. “What’s up? What’d he do?”

“Nothing,” she said, shrugging like this was fine. “He just had to help a friend up in Minnetonka with his boat.”

I waited for more, but that was apparently it.

“And…? How far away is that? How long is he going to be helping a friend with a boat?” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I was irritated by how ridiculous it was. “Also, it’s the freaking tundra out here—what could someone possibly be doing with a boat in this weather? Every drop of water in the place is frozen solid.”

“Dammit, Dani, this is Minnesota,” my mom snapped, her voice rising in frustration. “Boats are always in play!”

I opened my mouth but had no idea how to respond to that statement.

“I think I might’ve just come up with a kick-ass tourism slogan.” Her forehead smoothed and her mouth turned up into a little grin. “Let’s start moving our stuff, and he’ll be here when he’s done.”

“We’re seriously moving all our stuff in by ourselves—is that what you’re telling me?” I burrowed my chin into the top of my coat, trying to block the icy wind.

“I will buy you a large cheese pizza and a freaking pony if you cut the sarcasm and just help me carry boxes into the house,” she said, pulling a key ring out of her pocket.

“Can I eat the pizza while riding the pony?”

“As long as you’re safe.”

“Fine, I’m in,” I said, watching her open the screen door. “But I really feel like I was just hitting my stride on the negativity.”

My mom used her key—yes, the key from when she was a child still worked in the door—and we went inside. The main level was like a throwback, everything seemingly unchanged from the last time I’d been there. The only difference was that it didn’t smell like cookies anymore; my grandma always made chocolate chip cookies when we visited.

But when we got to the staircase, instead of looking up and seeing the upstairs hallway like it used to be, we saw a pair of French doors. The glass was frosted, so you couldn’t see anything through it, but natural light shone from behind the doors and made them look like they were glowing.

“Wow,” my mom said, running up the stairs.

“Yeah,” I agreed, following. “Wow.”

The upstairs had been completely transformed. Warm wood floors and white trim made it feel sleek and contemporary, the polar opposite of the old-person vibes of the main level. Two of the bedrooms had now been made into a living room, the walls removed so it felt like it’d always been that way. Big windows made it bright—too bright with all that freaking snow—and a white brick fireplace was centered on a wall of white bookshelves.

“This is amazing,” my mom said breathlessly.

It was hard to even remember how it’d looked before.

The two remaining bedrooms were equally gorgeous, with new furniture and a huge shared bathroom, and the small kitchenette had everything the two of us non-cooking people could need.

And when my mom opened the second set of French doors next to the fireplace, we found a deck with stairs leading down to the garage behind the house, where we’d be parking.

It was actually an apartment with its own entrance.

“Are you sure he did all of this himself?” I asked, truly in awe of the transformation. I knew Grandpa Mick had a woodshop and liked to build things, but this was next-level.

“Positive,” my mom said, and for a split second it almost looked like she had tears in her eyes.

But then she gave her head a little shake and said, “Okay, let’s get moving.”

We went out to the truck and started bringing stuff in, but with just the two of us it felt like it was going to take forever. There were so many boxes of random things—books and clothes and pictures and shoes, and taking them in one at a time was just depressingly slow.

“Dani?”

I turned around when I heard the voice, and it took me a minute to recognize the tall dude in the blazer when I saw him smiling at me, breath puffing out in clouds in front of his face. He was bigger and had a facial-hair thing going on now, but, holy crap—it was him.

“Benji?”

Benji had always lived next door to my grandparents. Well, actually, his dadlived next door to my grandparents, and Benji just spent random weekends there. His mother, who he lived with the majority of the time, was loaded and lived in a lakeshore mansion.

In an exclusive gated community.

Alec had always called him King Douche—long before we were old enough to even use the word “douche”—because he went to a fancy all-boys private school and acted like he was better than everyone else.

You got a bike for your birthday? That’s hilarious. I got a racehorse named Titus.

“I go by Ben now,” he said with a funny smile. “And can I help you with that? Please?”

He gestured toward the saggy box I was holding, the box that appeared to be moments away from losing its bottom.

“Thank you,” I said as he reached for it, remembering the last time I saw him.