“No,” I mutter under my breath, hating the constant reminder. If I rush too fast and scare Aeris, I’ll have to start from scratch with a different girl. But I think the thing that freaks me out the most is that I don’t want a different girl.
“So get it done.”
I can’t wait for the day someone comes along and knocks Kit on his ass.
Casen’s brows stitch together in sympathy. “Maybe you won’t be traded,” he offers, but even I know that’s generous thinking.
Bristol swallows the rest of the contents in his glass, slamming it back down on the table. Every head swivels in his direction, and he has that I’m-about-to-give-a-lecture look on his face.
“I overheard Coach in his office earlier today. Hayes isn’t the only one on the chopping block. The team hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 2018. We should all be worried.”
Fuck me. How can this night get any worse?
Fulton drags a French fry through a dollop of ketchup, popping it into his mouth. “I’d pull out all the stops if I were you. Maybe read How To Woo a Girl in Ten Days.”
I want to laugh, but that’s the first helpful idea anyone’s given me. “Is that a real book?”
“Yeah, and why are you reading it?” Casen asks, squinting suspiciously.
Fulton goes to open his mouth, but Gage beats him to it.
“Because he’s in love with the barista who makes him a latte foam heart every time he goes to Deja Brew!” Gage yells, eliciting stares from some of the people around us.
Fulton smacks Gage on the arm so hard he winces. “That wasn’t a secret to share with the class,” he hisses through gritted teeth, glaring daggers at him.
“Aw, does Fully have a little crush?” Kit sings, barking out a laugh when Fulton reaches across Bristol and tries to strangle him.
While Bristol plays peacekeeper, my mind keeps going back to Aeris. I wish I knew what she was thinking right now.
As if she can hear my thoughts, my phone pings in my pocket, and I open it to find a text notification from her.
AERIS: Can we talk?
13
A LEAP OF MUCH-NEEDED FAITH
AERIS
“Am I making the stupidest decision of my life?” I whine, planting my face into a pillow.
I feel Lila’s hand surf over my hair, running some of the strands between her fingers. “You’re scared, love,” she explains in that motherly tone of hers, and when I conjure enough courage to look up at her, her sage eyes are sympathetic.
The sigh that exits me seems much older than I am, like it’s been bottled inside for years. “Why? Why can’t I just give him a chance?” The shakiness of my voice forewarns that I’m seconds away from turning into a sobbing mess.
“It’s scary. Letting people in is scary. Wilder made himself look like a good guy and still broke your trust. And now you have Hayes, who has a bit of a reputation, trying to poke his way through the cracks in your guard. It makes sense that you’d be hesitant.”
It feels like liquid nitrogen is tunneling through my bloodstream and numbing my nerve endings. The rational part of my brain knows not everyone’s out to get me, yet I still believe that a little disappointment in the beginning outweighs a lot of inevitable heartache in the end.
“He’s not a bad guy,” I whisper, not even sure why I can’t say the words out loud. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid to feed that frightened, caged animal inside of me. Because if I feed it, I give it power—I give it a reason to sink its claws deeper into me and never let go.
“I don’t think he is,” Lila concurs.
With a strangled intake of air, I force myself onto my hipbones. Filminess whitens my visions, and my cotton mouth tries to find a single droplet of saliva that will sustain me for the next few minutes. “What would you do in my situation?”
“I’m not you,” Lila coos, and the mollifying ministrations she’s making on my arms are becoming fruitless.
I cycle between sadness, confusion, self-pity, anger, and guilty rumination as the silence bridges between us. Call it my Five Stages.
Sadness: I just want to let him in.
Confusion: Why can’t I get out of my own head?
Self-pity: I’ll never be able to trust him.
Anger: I’m a coward, and I don’t deserve to be loved.
Guilty rumination: I shouldn’t have pulled away that night.
Hugging my arms around my midsection, I squeeze my eyes shut to banish the moisture in them.
I feel the couch cushion shift, then I hear Lila’s footsteps pad somewhere to the left of me. When she comes back, I open my eyes to find a carton of Ben & Jerry’s in her hands.
She has my favorite flavor—chocolate chip cookie dough—and she pops the lid off, scooping a generous mound onto a spoon for me. I’m half-surprised when she lodges it into my mouth without warning, but as soon as it melts on my tongue, it hits the spot right away.
I start my tireless journey to carve a decent-sized dent in the carton as Lila’s eyes remain glued to my every movement. My stomach clenches painfully since this is the first thing I’ve eaten all day, and I’ll probably regret it in the morning, but that’s not enough incentive to stop me.
“Do you want some?” I mumble through a mouthful of cream and cookie and chocolate.
Lila laughs. “That’s okay, love. I got it for you.”
“You bought it for me?”
“You were running out.”
Oh, God. She’s going to make me cry. I can’t stand it when people do nice things for me. I think it’s probably because I’ve convinced myself that I don’t deserve it—you know, a good ol’ trauma response from failing my brother.
I propel myself into Lila with the force of a bull, bringing her into a rib-crushing, breath-squeezing kind of hug. She lurches back a bit, but once I feel her arms wrap around me, my worries dissipate just a little. “Thank you. For taking care of me.”
“I will always take care of you, Aer-Bear. My best friend deserves to be happy, to fall in love, to live a fulfilled life. Don’t rob yourself of that. It’s okay to feel. Your heart is my favorite part of you. I don’t want to see it broken, but I don’t also want to see it atrophy from disuse. Take that leap of faith.”
A cold panic shimmies up my spine. She’s right. You know how when you’re drowning—or, I hope you don’t know—you try your hardest not to swallow any water? Because the more water you swallow, the harder it is to breathe. Did you also know that you have to let a little water in to allow yourself to swim back up to the surface?
I think that’s what I have to do—endure a moment of pain in return for a lifetime of pleasure. Besides, there’s no guarantee I’ll find myself drowning. To drown, I have to lose control in the water. But there are things that help you stay afloat to prevent that from ever happening. Things like life jackets. Maybe Hayes is my life jacket.
Without a word, I scramble for my phone, my thumbs typing furiously away at the keyboard.
Lila looks concerned, and maybe a tad bit frightened. “What are you doing?”
Once I hit that send button, my first smile of the week emerges. “I’m taking a leap.”
14
THE BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL RELATIONSHIP