Honestly, I’ve enjoyed being on my own these past couple weeks. It’s nice to just think about myself for once. But I miss Dean. I really, really do. I know he’s doing well, because I’ve been harassing Hannah for status reports. She said he’s working with the Hurricanes again. He’s gone out to Malone’s with the guys a few times, but only had a few beers, as far as Hannah knows.
There aren’t any pictures of him on Instagram or Facebook making out with other girls, but a part of me still worries about it. Dean is the most sexual guy I’ve ever met. I’m praying he’s jerking off a lot, because I don’t know what I’ll do if I find out he slept with someone else. I didn’t bring up the subject at the coffeehouse because I just assumed he’d keep his pants zipped while I took this time to clear my head.
That was selfish of me, maybe. But I love him, and if I hear that some chick tried to put her hands on him, I’ll beat her senseless. He’s mine. And I’m finally ready to claim him. The time apart succeeded in centering me, but now it’s time to get my man back.
The only problem? Dean is in New York visiting his parents for the night. Hannah mentioned it earlier, which triggered a flash of concern, because it’s weird that he would fly to Manhattan for only one night.
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My ringing phone interrupts our coffee chat, and I’m even more concerned when I see my dad’s number.
A second later, his voice rumbles over the line. “I don’t want you to worry,” is how he starts, and oh my God, who says that? Now I’m worried!
I slam my mug on the kitchenette table and stumble to my feet. Hannah eyes me in alarm.
“What’s wrong?” I demand. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“I just told you not to worry, didn’t I?” God, sometimes I really want to kill my father. “I took a little spill this afternoon, that’s all. Thought I might have broken my arm, so I called an ambulance.”
Fear pummels into me. “Oh my gosh. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he says firmly. “It’s just a sprained wrist. No broken bones, I promise.” A sarcastic note creeps in. “I can ask the hospital to send you copies of my X-rays if you’d like.”
I clench my teeth. “Don’t be a jerk, Daddy.”
He sighs heavily in my ear. “I’m sorry. I just knew you’d overreact when I told you. I promise you, sweetheart, I’m fine. My wrist is a little sore, but I have my pain meds.”
“How did you get home from the hospital?”
“Taxi. And now I’m lying on the couch watching the Hawkeyes game.”
I inhale a slow, calming breath. “Okay. Don’t walk around. Don’t try to lift anything heavy. Please, Dad, just take it easy for a couple days.”
“I will. Love you, AJ.”
“Love you too.” I hang up and turn to Hannah, who instantly asks, “Is your dad okay?”
I nod. “So he says.” But Dad was a hockey player. Hockey players always say they’re okay, even when they’re bleeding from their ears and spitting their broken teeth at your feet.
I take another deep breath. Then I pull up Dean’s number and press send.
*
Dean
Joe Hayes answers the door with the biggest, meanest scowl I’ve ever seen on another human male.
“You’ve got to be kidding me! She sent you over to check on me?”
I gently touch his shoulder to move him out of the way. God knows he won’t be inviting me in. “Yup,” I confirm. Then I walk inside and look around.
Fortunately, nothing seems amiss. I glance at the stairs—Allie told me over the phone that Joe had taken a “spill”. There’s no blood on the hardwood, no broken floorboards. That’s good. And he’s not sporting any bruises or visible injuries. He’s using the cane, but he looks steadier on his feet than the last time I saw him.
“Please don’t tell me you got on a plane and flew all the way here just to give me the onceover,” he mutters.
“No. I was already in the city visiting my folks and brother.”
Mr. Hayes settles on the sofa and proceeds to ignore me.
I take off my jacket and drape it over the back of the armchair. Then I sit down.
He balks. “What are you doing?”
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“Getting comfortable.” I raise a brow. “Didn’t I mention? I’m spending the night.”
“Like hell you are!”
His outrage makes me chuckle. “Come on, sir. I thought we already established that arguing with your daughter is pointless. She asked me to stay the night and keep an eye on you, so that’s what I’m doing.” Because I will do anything that woman asks. I’d sell my soul to the devil himself if Allie told me to do it.
“I don’t like this,” Mr. Hayes grumbles.
“I don’t care,” I say cheerfully.
And that’s how I wind up watching college football with Joe Hayes for the next hour. It’s almost nine o’clock now, and my stomach is grumbling. I hadn’t eaten dinner, and Mr. Hayes doesn’t object when I order a pizza. “Sausage and bacon okay?” I ask him as I place the order.
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He grunts. I guess that means yes.
Another hour passes. We don’t talk. We scarf down pizza, drink beer, and switch from football to hockey. The Bruins are playing tonight. Every time we shout at the screen or cheer for a goal, we glance at each other warily afterward, as if remembering who we’re with.
Between the second and third period I put down my beer and say, “I love your daughter, sir.”
And he says, “I know you do, pretty boy.”
I don’t know if that’s acceptance, or if it’s a ‘yeah you love her but I still hate you.’ I decide to treat it as the former.
Around eleven, I help him up the stairs and wait outside his bedroom door, listening to him wander around and change for bed. Then I knock. “You all right in there?” I call out.
“I’m fucking fine. Go to bed.”
Chuckling to myself, I duck into Allie’s childhood room, where Joe said I could crash in tonight. First thing I notice? The scent. Holy shit, it’s the scent. The mysterious fragrance that’s always surrounding Allie and that I can never place.
I wander over to her dresser and pick up a small vial of perfume. Or at least I think it’s perfume. The label is pale-blue and reads “Allie” in a pretty script font. What the fuck?
“Eva had it made for her.”
I jump in surprise, turning to find Mr. Hayes standing in the doorway wearing nothing but plaid boxers. I can’t help but gape at his chest. Dude’s in his late forties and suffering from MS, and he’s rocking a six-pack. I’m impressed. I guess that explains how he landed Allie’s smokin’ hot model mom. Shit, and it suddenly occurs to me that if this is how Allie’s dad looks now, she’s got expectations. I’m going to have to look forward to working out for the rest of my life.
At my blank look, he gestures to the perfume bottle in my hand. “My wife…AJ’s mom…she had a friend in France, this fruity-tooty fashion designer she worked with once. He knew a perfumer—is that what you call ’em? Perfumers?”
“I have no idea, sir.”
“Anyway, Eva’s friend gave her perfume one year, a scent made especially for Eva. AJ was green with envy, so for her twelfth birthday, Eva told her she was getting a special perfume for her too. My wife was sick at that point, real sick, so she was doing everything she could to make AJ happy. She asked AJ what scent she wanted, and AJ says—” he snorts in amusement “—strawberries and roses.”
I laugh too, because now it makes total sense why I could never figure it out. Roses and strawberries. Two completely different fragrances, yet somehow, when combined, they work. They’re Allie.
“She got six vials made. I think AJ might be down to three? I’m not sure. She’s very stingy with that shit. Doesn’t want it to run out, I guess.”
“So Allie has a French perfume that was created just for her? That’s kinda badass.”
He shrugs. “Eva spent a lot of time in France. Spoke French fluently too. She always wanted AJ to learn it, but AJ wasn’t interested.”
1
Logan
April
Lusting over your best friend’s girlfriend sucks.
First off, there’s the awkward factor. As in, it’s really fucking awkward. I can’t speak for all men, but I’m pretty sure that no guy wants to leave his bedroom and bump into the girl of his dreams after she’s just spent the whole night in his best friend’s arms.
Then there’s the self-loathing element. This one’s a given, because it’s kind of hard not to hate yourself when you’re fantasizing about the love of your best friend’s life.
At the moment, the awkwardness is definitely winning out. See, I live in a house with very thin walls, which means I can hear every breathy moan that leaves Hannah’s mouth. Every gasp and sigh. Every thump of the headboard smacking the wall as someone else screws the girl I can’t stop thinking about.
Fun times.
I’m on my bed, flat on my back and staring up at the ceiling. I’m not even pretending to scroll through my iPod library anymore. I popped the ear buds in with the intention of drowning out the sounds of Garrett and Hannah in the other room, but I still haven’t pressed play. I guess I’m in the mood to torture myself tonight.
Look, I’m not an idiot. I know she’s in love with Garrett. I see the way she looks at him, and I see how they are together. They’ve been a couple for six months now, and not even I, the worst friend on the planet, can deny they’re perfect for each other.
And hell, Garrett deserves to be happy. He plays it off like he’s a cocky sonofabitch, but truth is, he’s a goddamn saint. The best center I’ve ever skated with and the best person I’ve ever known, and I’m comfortable enough with my hetero status to say that if I did play for the other team? I wouldn’t just fuck Garrett Graham, I’d marry him.
That’s what makes this a trillion times harder. I can’t even hate the dude who’s tapping the chick I want. No revenge fantasies to be had, because I don’t hate Garrett, not in the slightest.
A door creaks open and footsteps echo in the hallway, and I pray to God that Garrett or Hannah doesn’t knock on my door. Or open their mouths, for that matter, because hearing either of their voices right now will only bum me out even more.
Luckily, the loud knock that rattles my doorframe comes from my other roommate, Dean, who waltzes inside without waiting for an invitation. “Party at Omega Phi tonight. You down?”
I dive off my bed faster than you can say pathetic, because a party sounds like a fan-fucking-tastic idea right about now. Getting wasted is a surefire way to stop myself from thinking about Hannah. Actually, no—I want to get wasted and screw someone’s brains out. That way if one of those activities doesn’t help me with my don’t-think-about-Hannah goal, the other can serve as backup.
“Hell yeah,” I answer, already fumbling around for a shirt.
I slip a clean T-shirt over my head and ignore the twinge of pain in my left arm, which is still sore as shit from the bone-jarring body check I took at the championship game last week. But the hit was totally worth it—for the third consecutive year, Briar’s hockey team secured another Frozen Four victory. I guess you can call it the ultimate hat trick, and all the players, myself included, are still reaping the rewards of being three-time national champions.
Dean, one of my fellow defensemen, calls it the Three P’s of Victory: parties, praise and pussy.
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It’s a pretty fair assessment of the situation, because I’ve been on the receiving end of all three since our big win.
“You gonna be the DD?” I ask as I throw a black hoodie over my T-shirt and zip it up.
My buddy snorts. “Did you really just ask me that?”
I roll my eyes. “Right. What ever was I thinking?”
The last time Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis was sober at a party was never. Dude drinks like a fish or gets higher than a kite every time he leaves the house, and if you think that affects his performance on the ice in any way, then think again. He’s one of those rare creatures who can party like past-day Robert Downey Jr. and somehow be as successful and revered as present-day Robert Downey Jr.
“Don’t worry, Tuck’s the DD,” Dean tells me, referring to our other roommate, Tucker. “The pussy’s still hung-over from last night. Said he needs a break.”
Yeah, I don’t exactly blame him. Off-season training doesn’t start for another couple weeks, and we’ve all been enjoying the time off a little too much. But that’s what happens when you’re riding a Frozen Four high. Last year after we won, I was drunk for two weeks straight.
I’m not looking forward to the off-season. Strength and conditioning and all the hard work it takes to stay in shape are exhausting, but it’s even more exhausting when you’re working ten-hour shifts at the same time. It’s not like I have a choice, though. The workouts are necessary prep for the upcoming season, and the work, well, I made a promise to my brother, and no matter how sick to my stomach it makes me, I can’t renege on it. Jeff will skin me alive if I don’t fulfill my end of the deal.
Our designated driver waits at the front door when Dean and I come downstairs. A reddish-brown beard devours Tucker’s entire face, giving him a werewolf vibe, but he’s been determined to try out this new look ever since a chick he met at a party last week told him he had a baby face.
“You know that Yeti-beard doesn’t make you look more manly, right?” Dean says cheerfully as we walk out the door.
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Tuck shrugs. “I was going for rugged, actually.”
I snicker. “Well, it’s not that, either, Babyface. You look like a mad scientist.”
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He flips up his middle finger as he heads for the driver’s side of my truck. I settle in the passenger seat while Dean climbs into the pickup bed, saying he wants some fresh air. I think he just wants the wind to mess up his hair in that tousled, sexed-up way girls drop their panties for. FYI—Dean is nauseatingly vain. But he also looks like a male model, so maybe he’s allowed to be vain.
Tucker starts the engine, and I drum my fingers against my thighs, itching to get going. A lot of students in the Greek system piss me off with their elitist attitudes, but I’m willing to overlook that because…well, hell, because if party-throwing was an Olympic sport? Every frat and sorority house at Briar would be a gold medalist.
As Tuck reverses out of the driveway, my gaze rests on Garrett’s black Jeep, all shiny in its parking space while its owner spends the night with the coolest girl on the planet and—
And enough. This obsession with Hannah Wells is really starting to mess with my head.
I need to get laid. ASAP.
Tucker is noticeably quiet during the drive to Omega Phi. He might also be frowning, but it’s hard to tell considering someone shaved off all of Hugh Jackman’s body hair and pasted it on Tuck’s face.
“What’s with the silent treatment?” I ask lightly.
His gaze shifts toward me to offer a sour look, then shifts right back to the road.
“Oh, come on. Is this about all the shit we’re giving you about the beard?” Exasperation shoots through me. “Because that’s like the first chapter of Beards for Dummies, bro—if you grow a mountain man beard, your friends will make fun of you. End of chapter.”
“It’s not about the beard,” he mutters.
I wrinkle my forehead. “Okay. But you are pissed about something.” When he doesn’t respond, I push a little harder. “What’s going on with you?”
His annoyed eyes meet mine. “With me? Nothing. With you? So much I don’t even know where to start.” He curses softly. “You need to stop this shit, man.”
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Now I’m genuinely confused, because as far as I can tell, all I’ve done in the past ten minutes is look forward to a party.
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Tucker notices the confusion on my face and clarifies in a grim tone. “This thing with Hannah.”
Although my shoulders stiffen, I try to keep my expression vague. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Yup, I’ve chosen to lie. Which is nothing new for me, actually. It seems like all I’ve done since I came to Briar is lie.
I’m totally destined for the NHL. Going pro all the way!