Bittersweet (29 page)

“I can’t speak for these thugs, but
I’m
not letting you go.” Josh smiles, eyes fixed on mine, unblinking and intense. When he looks at me like that, the heat of his celebration hug radiates through my entire body again, every nerve reaching out for him.

I close my eyes.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Focus. Will. What’s taking him so long?

“What’s the plan?” Gettysburg asks, breaking into our circle. A few more Wolves crowd around me, some with their
girlfriends, some without, everyone knocking into each other and laughing. Behind us, Amir is making out with Ellie like they’re in a competition, and from the corner of my eye, I spot Dani and Frankie, way too up close and personal for a couple whose first date was actually ladies’ night.

“Showers, then Papallo’s,” Luke says. “You coming with us, Hud?”

“To the showers?”

“Ooh, I want in on that. You can do my back, and I’ll do your front.” Brad makes a rather complicated gesture with his hands. I’m not even sure how to translate it, but apparently Josh knows what it means, because he smacks him on the back of the head.

I hold up my hands. “That’s a no on the shower invite, yes on Papallo’s.”

“Stick with me,” Josh says. “I have that mix in the car. Wait until you hear—”

“Hud’s mine tonight, boys. Sorry.” Will appears out of nowhere and puts his arm across my shoulders, settling the debate. He’s freshly showered and dressed, wet blond hair curling at his ears. I turn toward him and lean in, letting his rich, familiar scent envelop me. Slowly, the warmth of his body mixes with the feeling of Josh still lingering on my skin, still radiating from my insides.

But when Will kisses my lips, soft and quick, the radiating stops, and I relax. Maybe I just read into it, got all worked up over nothing. Josh is just a good friend, caught up in the
moment. It really was just a hug. A slightly-longer-than-usual-yet-totally-platonic celebratory hug.

Will pulls away but I grab him for another kiss.

The guys whistle and laugh and Josh shakes his head and looks at the ice while Will leads us away from the group, and it’s just like that nature show again, the males of the species showing their prowess with a bunch of grunts and gestures to officially mark their territory.

Boys
. At least I didn’t get peed on.

“You okay?” I ask when we get to Will’s car. “You seem a little tense.”

He tries to smile, but I see right through it, and when I open my mouth to say so, his jaw tightens. “Mind if we skip the group thing tonight? Go for a ride somewhere? I just … I need to talk to you about some stuff.”

I nod and tack on a smile, hoping it’s enough to mask my disappointment at leaving the group. “Was Dodd pissed about the news?”

“Yeah, but that’s not …” Will’s eyes flash, a storm flickering out in a blink. “Let’s just bounce, okay?” He puts his hand behind my neck and kisses me once more before motoring us out onto the I-190, Kara’s words from last week bleeding into Rowan’s and echoing through my head.

Once he gets what he wants, he moves on…. Will promised we could ax the princess…. Right now he needs you for the team, but after that …

We end up on the American side of Niagara Falls, ten below zero, hours after closing time, no other cars or pedestrians in sight. Ignoring the
CLOSED
signs, Will pulls into a spot near a pathway that snakes around the water and kills the engine.

“Hudson?”

I take a deep breath. I mean, it’s been less than a month. He hasn’t even tried to sleep with me. And now he’s ditching me? Axing me from the team? He doesn’t say anything for a full minute. Normally, I think the dramatic pause is a great performance technique, but in these situations? No, not a fan.

“Will, I don’t—”

“You okay to walk?” He nods toward the water. “Just for a few minutes?”

I follow him out of the car, gingerly stepping along the icy path. He takes my hand in his and leads us closer to the edge, the roar of water almost deafening.

“I’ve never been here in the winter,” he says. “You?”

I shake my head.

“I thought we should see it,” he says. “I mean, it’s here, right?”

I lean over the rail, staring down into the white abyss. I heard once that Eskimos have, like, a hundred different words for snow. Growing up in Watonka, I’ve been hit with all kinds of snow—fluffy, wet, slushy, icy needles, tiny flakes, blustery whiteout clouds of it—but it was always just
snow
to me. Just like ice was always the rink—Fillmore or Buffalo Skate Club or Luby or
Miller’s Pond or anywhere else—it was all just the smooth surface beneath my feet. But here, the river’s eternal mist has encased the world in glass. Every twig on every branch on every tree, the railings and the paths, the lampposts—all of it sparkles in the moonlight. And as I look into the deep, white maw of the earth, I see a thousand different meanings, a thousand different words.

Even on my father’s blog, in all his pictures and stories, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful and amazing.

I wish Josh was here to see it.

We walk along the path to a lookout, and I scrape a thin layer of ice from one of the signs. “Says here that the Falls erodes about one foot a year. Eventually it’ll crumble all the way back to Lake Erie.”

“Crazy,” Will says.

“No,
think
about it! All of this …” I spin with my arms wide, scooping up the landscape. “In forty-eight thousand years, everything we’re standing on will be gone.”

“Guess we’re running out of time, then.” Will slides his gloved fingers over my shoulders and leans into a kiss, hot and steamy in the frozen mist.

I pull away slowly, lingering in his arms. “Is this what you wanted to talk about?”

“Maybe.” He gives me that grin, and even though I know he’s hiding something, I’m powerless to push. Talk? What talk? We half kiss, half stumble our way across the ice-slick path back to the car. Will cranks the heat, and we continue our mad race against geologic time in the backseat.

Will kisses his way from earlobe to collarbone, his lips brushing the hollow of my throat, his hair tickling my skin. “I could do this all night.”

“Stop! Stop!” I mock push him away, but my giggling makes him more eager, his fingers strumming my ribs. “I’m serious, Josh—
Will
. Will, stop!”

He raises his head, mouth turned up in a partial grin. “Did you just call me Josh?”

“Josh? What? No.”

“You did. You went ‘Josh-Will’ and then—”

“I’m cold. My teeth were chattering.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Something going on with you and fifty-six?”

“No!”

Will pulls back, watching me close. “You sure? Because sometimes you guys have this
thing
, you know?”

“What
thing
? We don’t have a thing.”

“Like an unspoken … thing. Like there’s this inside joke or something. A thing, you know?”

My heart freezes up, then jump-starts, racing double time. “We’re just friends. It’s not—”

“Forget it.”

“It’s not like that,” I say. “We aren’t—”

“I’m not into sharing, just so you know. If you’d rather be with Blackthorn …” His eyebrow arches again to match his grin, sure and cocky and half-joking, and my stomach flip-flops. In a perfect
world … no. We don’t live in a perfect world. And here in the rusty old town of my life, there’s the boy who’s just my friend, who’s hugged me and looked at me a little too long and made me music but never made a
move
, and the boy who’s
always
kissing me and calling me beautiful and whispering into my ear, on and off the ice. The boy who’s here with me now, the roar of eighteen thousand years of water behind us softened by the warmth of the car, his breath hot and moist on my cheeks.

“I’m not,” I say. “I mean, I wouldn’t.” Still, my throat feels raw around the words, and I look away.

Will sighs, the levity we shared only a minute ago leaking out through the drafts in the doors. The car engine hums, the windows fogging up in the heavy silence.

“So … what did you want to talk about, anyway?” I ask. “You said—”

“Yeah. Listen, I really appreciate what you did for us this season. We all do. But I can handle the team now.” He refuses to meet my eyes. “The Wolfman. That’s what Don Donaldson’s calling me.” Will stares out the window and shakes his head.

“You’re …” My heart races, eyes water. “You’re kicking me off the ice?”

Will laughs, but it’s hollow and cold. “Don’t worry about your ice time, Pink. I told you that before.”

I don’t even process his words. “That’s it? I helped you guys get this far, and now that you’re Don’s pet
Wolfman
, it’s over? You got what you wanted, so you’re dropping me?”

Will finally turns to face me. Under the pale light of the
moon, his eyes shine, stung. He brushes his fingers across my cheek. “Dropping you? This is just team stuff. It has nothing to do with … with
us
.” He leans forward to kiss me, but I turn away, my mind spinning.

Once he gets what he wants …
Kara warned me that he’d call it off. But he’s
not
calling it off. Not the way Kara meant, anyway.

“If you’re not ending things between us,” I say, “why do you want me to leave the team?”

“Because you should focus on your—”

“Don’t say it’s about my training. Or that the guys don’t need help. Something else is going on. I’m not stupid. What happened tonight? Something with Dodd?”

He traces lines into the glass with his finger. “Did you see those guys in suits, sitting in the box with Dodd? My father showed up at the end.”

I nod.

“The rest of them were recruiters. NHL Central Scouting.”

“Will, that’s … wow. That’s amazing. Do you think they’re talking to Dodd and your father about you? Trying to set something up?”

“Yep.” Will taps his fingers against the window. “You ever been in a position where you have to make a choice between two things, and both of them are either really good or really bad? Like, it doesn’t even matter what you do, because either way you’ll have to give up something or hurt someone or ruin stuff and …” Will sighs and grabs my hand. “Forget it. I’m totally babbling.”

“No, I know exactly what you mean.” I lean back against the seat and close my eyes, thinking about Dani again. And my mother. The restaurant. Bug. Cupcakes. Skating and training and the Wolves … all the things I’ve been choosing between this winter. All the things that get left in the cold whenever I say yes to something else.

Maybe that’s the lesson I’m supposed to learn from my father, the Avery legacy left with the deed to the diner when he jetted across the country without us. Whenever you make a choice, something or someone becomes the
un
chosen, and that path vanishes forever, unexplored.

Will’s voice drops to a whisper. “I’m in a bad spot, Hudson.”

“Why? What’s going on?” I touch my hand to his face and turn him toward me. “Talk to me.”

He looks at me for a long time, eyes glassy and red. “I can’t.”

“Will, I’m—”

“Believe me when I say it’s not about you. And it’s nothing crazy like drugs or cops or anything. Okay?”

I nod slowly, swallowing back the hurt. Why won’t he tell me?

“It’s just … it’s all hockey stuff,” he says. “Family stuff. God. I sound like one of those people who drops this big bomb looking for attention and then acts like everything’s fine. I’m not trying to …” He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“If you want to talk, I’m here. Okay?”

“I can’t tell you the details.” He slips his hand into mine again and I lean my head on his shoulder, both of us breathing
softly, water pounding furiously outside, all around us. “I don’t mean to be such a downer. I just wanted to say you don’t have to practice with us anymore. Dodd’s on my ass about everything now, and if he finds out you’ve been helping us …” He sniffs in a deep breath, but he doesn’t look at me.

I hate the thought of ditching the team. I hate even more that Will is asking me to. But I knew from the first day that we couldn’t tell Coach Dodd. Strictly off the record, that was the deal. And now that Dodd’s more involved, and the NHL people are nosing around, I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.

I don’t know what else to say to make this okay. I just know that right now, here in this beautiful white palace, I don’t want either of us to feel bad anymore. My hand circles his wrist and pulls him closer. He hesitates as he turns to face me. Looks at me dead-on, eyes searching mine in the soft glow of the streetlamp over the car. He leans forward and I look at him and I say it, just a whisper. “Let’s forget about everything else. Just for tonight. Just for right now.”

He nods slowly and I pull him toward me and we send our obsessions away, over the Falls in an invisible barrel. Will leans against me, hair crackling in the winter air as I pull the shirt over his head. There’s no more talking, sad or serious or anything else. His hands are strong as they run along my shoulders and arms, his eyes taking in my face, lips brushing the skin of my neck, whispers hot in my ear until I’m afraid my entire body will turn to mist, leaving nothing of me to bury but the long pale silk of my hair laced through his fingers.

His mouth presses against mine, soft like the gentle snow falling outside. The muscles in his back tighten beneath my hands, and then he kisses me harder. Deeper. He’s done this before. Maybe a lot, even, and I let him take over—no awkward fumbling or pointless questions. With Will, I don’t have to think; my mind is free to roam, just like that night at the Empire Games. Maybe it’s like that for him, too, our mouths pressed together in the car, breath on skin, erasing everything else.

Beneath the weight of him, I close my eyes and let go. I run through the doors of my mind faster than I’ve ever run before, Will’s mouth moving over my skin. Door after door after door, I crash through them all as his fingers loosen the buttons on my shirt, his hands gentle on my stomach, and then I’m gone. Out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but white ice ahead, far from my mother and Hurley’s and the food critic, far from Dani and Trina’s cupcakes and everything I’ve messed up this winter, far from school and the team and Fillmore Steel, far from my father’s blogs, farther even than the old Erie Atlantic train to nowhere, running until there’s nothing left behind but a darkness so black and barren that not even a memory can grow there.