Fake Skating(62)

Wow—news traveled fast. I was pretty sure Grandma Ellen’s timeline was off, but it tipped in our favor, so I’d take it.

I looked at Sarah and John and my mom and they were allwatching me with cheesy smiles.

“I think he’s just really good at hockey,” I said, shrugging, because I didn’t know what else to do.

“Yeah, there is that,” my mom said, throwing me a wink.

Players started coming out of the locker room, and I couldn’t help but think how sweet it was the way everyone’s parents were waiting around to say “good job.”

There were also a couple of news reporters, standing on the edges of the crowd, and they definitely started filming when Alec walked out.

But dear God, my heart flipped all the way over when he exited the locker room, looking somehow better in his dress clothes postgame—with shower-dampened hair—than he had before. His gaze landed on me, and his mouth slid into a smile that was dangerously swoony.

Oh no.

What is happening to me?

He didn’t glance at anyone else as he headed straight in my direction, dark brown eyes all over my face.

Pull it together, Collins!

“Want me to take your stuff?” John asked, his voice bringing me back from the Alec-only universe I’d drifted away to.

“Nah, I’m going to go home and change before heading out,” Alec said.

Everyone started talking hockey then, gushing about how great Alec had played while also trash-talking the referees, and I just watched the show.

I’d always rolled my judgmental eyes about the jocks at every school I attended, walking around with their chests all puffed up because they knew how to throw a ball really far.

But I’d never thought about their parents.

Or their uncles.

Or their neighbors.

I looked around, and little groupings were all over the place, people bunched around their respective hockey player. Moms dressed from head to toe in Southview gear, dads laughing with their buddies—it was… not at all how I thought it would be.

Was this a hockey thing or a Southview thing?

“You goin’ to Richie’s?” Big John asked.

“Yeah,” Alec said before those deep brown eyes found mine. “You should come to Richie’s, Collins. I’m sure Cassie’ll be there.”

Everyone had been so welcoming and Cassie was great, but why did I suddenly feel like maybe I didn’t belong? Why do I feel nauseous?

“I think I’m just going to head back with you,” I said to my mom. “Maybe next time.”

“Well we’re stopping at the PNA on the way home,” she said, obviously trying to nudge me to find another ride, “so it might be a while.”

“What’s a PNA?”

“The Polish Lodge,” Mom said.

The Polish Lodge. First the Croatian Hall, now the Polish Lodge.

I’m pretty sure we’re of Irish and German descent, Mom.

But I didn’t ask any more questions as I piled into a truck with a bunch of adults, watching Alec leave, part of me wanting to go with him to wherever he was going but scared I’d regret it if I did.

Instead I was left regretting my current choice minutes later as I followed Big John toward a stucco-looking house.

What the…?

I had doubts, but then my mom grabbed my arm and said, “Prepare to be wowed.”

We followed Big John through a side door and went down the stairs, and… well, it was like a dive bar.

In a basement.

There was a bar with beer taps and TVs on the wall, a pool table, and darts, but also—it was a basement.

A basement packed full of people.

At least it’s warm, I thought, walking with my mom as Sarah and Big John led us to a table and started taking off their coats.

“Am I allowed to be here?” I asked. “As a minor?”

“As long as you’re not drinking or serving,” John said. “Now tell Sarah what you want to drink so I can tell you all about this place.”

“Must you?” I teased.

“You’re a Southview girl now, so yes—I must,” he teased back.

I am not a Southview girl, I thought. I am a nowhere girl.

But a tiny part of me wished I were a Southview girl.

John leaned a little closer so I could hear him over the noise, and launched into a history lesson as if we weren’t in just a bar. He told me all about how in the early 1900s, a large Polish immigrant population arrived in town, drawn to jobs in big meatpacking plants. They built the social hall as a place to get together for drinks after a hard week, and to have things like weddings and funerals.

“The Cro’s got a similar history,” he said, sounding like all this was personally important to him, and I wondered if Alec felt the same way.

I mean, he did seem to read history books for fun.

“But for the Croatian immigrants, yes?”

He grinned. “You got it, kid.”

The funny thing was that Big John’s little story made me look at the dive bar a little differently. It’d been a long time since 1911, and I was pretty sure there were no more meatpacking plants in Southview.

Which meant that all these people at the PNA had kept the place alive by choice.

In a metropolis full of trendy bars and restaurants, this community chose to celebrate their win at the tiny historic bar in the middle of their neighborhood.