Winging It (9 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Toby

I’d thought I was pretty busy with just family, school, and the Raiders. When I added “helping Nat get sharp” to my list of responsibilities, any free time I’d had went completely out the window, but I didn’t really care. I talked Coach into letting Nat and me have the ice for a half hour after Raiders practices, and I did a little work on my defense skills playing against her one-on-one. After a couple days of that, I talked some of the other guys into taking turns staying late so we could work on multiplayer stuff. The women’s national team warms up for their tournaments by playing OHL-level teams, so I figured if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for Nat.

She ramped all the rest of her training up, too. Coach wouldn’t let her lift weights or do any of the other off-ice stuff with the team, but I bugged our trainer and nutritionist until they helped me do an assessment of her current fitness and came up with a plan for her improvement.

All of that makes it sound like I was doing a lot of work, but it was nothing compared to what Nat was doing. She might have lost track of her dream for a while, but now that she was back at it, she was relentless. Hard workouts without even the standard good-natured bitching, endless research into training camps and the hockey programs at different universities, and when she was on the ice? When she was actually skating, making plays, and taking shots and turning herself back into the hockey machine she’d been as a kid?

She was beautiful. Women’s hockey doesn’t have body checks, but they have body contact, so all the guys would play a bit physical with Nat, pushing her around and making her fight for the puck. We didn’t go full strength, maybe, but we went pretty hard. And at the end of a play, whether she ended up with the puck in the net or with herself sprawled out on the ice after a spectacular failure, she’d look up at me and just glow with happiness. As good as she’d looked that night she got prettied up for the Raiders game? She looked twice that good when she was on the ice, no makeup, sweaty and red faced, totally alive with the joy of the game.

She looked good at school, too. Lunchtime on Monday I was waiting for her at her locker; we hadn’t planned it, but I wanted to see her, and it was what we’d be doing if we really were going out. She stuffed her books onto the shelf with typical West finesse, meaning she almost ripped the cover off her politics textbook and tore a page halfway out of her binder, then burrowed into her backpack to find her lunch bag. As soon as she turned around, I caught her free hand.

She pulled it back, but not hard, and I hung on. “Boyfriend, right?” I prompted. Maybe it was a bit cheap, using that as an excuse, but it was just holding hands, nothing serious. And as soon as she nodded, her fingers relaxed, wrapped around mine, and everything was good.

By the end of the week we were totally comfortable with the casual PDAs, and she was initiating things probably half of the time. Leaning into me when we were sitting next to each other, stealing bits of my lunch and then grinning at me and offering parts of hers, fixing my shirt when the collar got folded under after Winslow put me in a headlock—all the little things. And every time her fingertips touched my skin, every time she looked at me with that light in her eyes, I wanted her a bit more. And hated Scott a bit more, too.

By Friday, I was about ready to jump out of my skin. We were doing well on the
public
displays of affection, but the few times we were together in private it was totally different. We didn’t have an audience, so there was no excuse for me to touch her, but I couldn’t think about much else, and probably Nat picked up on that because she was kind of jumpy and distracted herself. It was a mess.

We had a road trip starting on Friday morning, but I drove her home Thursday after practice, and in the car it was almost like old times. She was so excited about a nice play we’d made—her faking out Winslow and leaving the puck for me to pick up and shoot—that neither of us got around to being self-conscious, or whatever it was we were being. But then sitting there in the driveway, it all came back.

“You want to come in?” she asked. Then, really quickly, “You don’t have to. It’s not like Scott’s tailing us or anything—he wouldn’t know whether you come in or not.” Time for half a breath, but not enough for me to actually answer before she added, “But my mom got groceries yesterday—the fridge is totally stocked, if you want a snack.”

I knew the smart thing to do. I was interested in Nat, but she was interested in another guy, and it was stupid to torture myself by spending more time with her than I had to. Still, I said, “Yeah, I could eat something.” Which was pretty safe, since I could
always
eat something.

We didn’t say anything as we headed into the house, but maybe that was okay; maybe we were just comfortable enough that we didn’t have to talk. Not likely, but…maybe.

We made it to the kitchen, and Nat opened the fridge door and crouched down, then said, “Oh,” in a tiny, surprised voice.

“What?”

“There’s—” She reached into the fridge and pulled out a familiar red-and-white can. “There’s Coke. Is that still what you like?”

“Yeah,” I said cautiously. It felt like a trap.

She handed me the can, grabbed a root beer, then straightened up. “My mom drinks diet. I like root beer. I think she must have bought the Coke for you.” She took a shaky breath. “I haven’t told her anything. I mean, she saw us that first day, and I guess she knows we’ve been spending time together. And I never told her it was fake. She thinks—”

She broke off, pulled the tab on her drink, and waited for me to do the same, then reached over and tapped the cans together like a toast. “She likes you. She’s going to be—”

She stopped again, took a big gulp of her drink, and turned back to look into the fridge. “Sandwiches?”

“Your mom will be okay, Nat. I mean, I’m glad she approves, even if it’s not real. That’s nice. But she’s not expecting us to get married or anything. She’ll be fine.”

“I know,” she said. She turned around, the fridge door still open, and made a face. “I’m being weird. Sorry. I just—I really didn’t think this through too well, you know? I was only thinking about me, not about everybody else who might be involved.”

“We’ll all be fine,” I said. I wasn’t sure I believed it, at least about myself, but it was obviously what she needed to hear.

She looked up at me quickly. “
You
will be, for sure,” she said. “I wanted to say that to you. I mean, I know you’re mad at Scott, and I understand why and everything, but I wanted to be sure you knew—okay, it’s not like I’m an expert or something, but I was thinking about it the other day at the gym, and—” She stopped and frowned, then took a sip of her drink and said, “I need to start over.”

“Okay. And you should close the fridge door, too. This sounds like it might be a long one.”

She set her root beer on the counter, leaned into the fridge and started rummaging around, handing things back to me like she just knew I’d be there, waiting to take whatever she found, and of course she was right about that. When she’d found enough, she stood up and shut the fridge door, and I set all the sandwich stuff on the counter.

“Okay,” she said. “So, the other day at the gym, I was lifting weights. And I hate it. It’s boring. But then I was thinking about what you said the other night, about all the stuff you had to do to make it this far, and I realized—Toby, those were your weights. You lifted them and they made you stronger. You know? Like, it’s not bad when hard stuff happens, necessarily, it’s just exercise. I mean, there’s some stuff that’s just plain bad. If somebody dies or something, or if it’s too much and you can’t do it. Can’t lift it. And that’s why—okay, this all made sense when I thought of it, but it’s starting to fade a bit, but, yeah, I remember—that’s why we need spotters. In the gym, obviously, somebody who can help out if you can’t finish a lift. But in life, too. And the thing is, Toby, you’ve got lots of spotters. Your family, and the team, and I know I wasn’t always around but I think you know I would have helped if you’d asked, and”—she nodded at the Coke can on the counter—“seems like my mom thinks a lot of you, and there are plenty of other people, too. We maybe never needed to step in because you had it handled, but if you’d needed it, we could have.”

She stopped, frowned again, and asked, “Was that just totally pointless babbling?”

“No,” I said. Maybe it hadn’t been super original—basically a variation on the whole whatever-doesn’t-kill-you speech—but it was good anyway. “I like the spotters idea. I hadn’t really thought of that.”

She grinned but turned away before I had a chance to soak up the full beauty of the expression. “I lured you in here with snacks and then ambushed you with my cut-rate pop philosophy. Sorry.”

I caught her hand. It felt much more intimate here in her kitchen where we weren’t putting on a show for anybody. I would have let go in a second if she’d pulled away, but she didn’t. “It wasn’t cut-rate. It was good. I’m glad you told it to me.”

“Yeah?” she said. Then the grin again, and this time she didn’t turn away. “Okay. Cool. But be careful, because there’s more where that came from. But probably you’ll need some fuel to energize you through all my babbling. Grab us some plates, okay?”

So I got plates, and we made sandwiches and talked as we ate them, and we were good again. Comfortable and easy, and, yeah, I wanted to touch her, but I was okay with just looking at her. It was enough.

The team left early the next morning on our road trip way up north, with a game that night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. Long hours on the bus, watching game tapes, joking with the guys—and, a new twist this time around, talking to Nat on the phone.

The first afternoon she called to give me an update on her training, and we ended up talking for over three hours. I stared out the bus window at the bleak landscape of northern Ontario while she walked home from the gym, bragging about how her arms were trembling from all the reps she’d done, making it clear her analogy from the night before was still on her mind. We kept talking while she made herself dinner, and then we pretended to do our homework together, but we didn’t have any classes in common besides gym and ended up mostly just talking about teachers, and then coaches we’d shared in the past, and then funny stories about the good old days. When the bus finally pulled into the arena parking lot and the team had to head in for our pregame skate, I didn’t want to hang up. I probably wouldn’t have, except Nat gave me a breezy, “Have a good game,” and then the line was dead.

“Ah, young love,” Winslow said as he watched me stuff the phone into my jacket pocket. “Nice to see you abandon your teammates as soon as a girl enters the picture.”

“Abandon?” We were shuffling down the narrow aisle of the bus now, so I didn’t bother trying to look at him. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Physically,” Winslow said, jogging down the stairs to the pavement. “But mentally?”

MacDonald snorted as we joined him. “Don’t take any shit from him, Coop. He’s just jealous because
his
girl put him on a phone-call diet.”

“A what?” I asked. We were waiting for the rookies to pull our gear bags out of the bus’s storage area, so we had a little time to kill. And a phone-call diet was too good to not hear about.

“It’s not a diet,” Winslow said, sounding a bit hurt. “I wasn’t phone-fat. We’re just—” He paused, and when he started talking again it was pretty clear the words hadn’t been his to begin with. “We’re focusing on quality, not quantity. We’re both busy and have lots of commitments, so we need to be smart with our time. We have to—”

“Dia wants to study in peace,” Tyler interrupted, grinning at me. “So Winslow’s only allowed to call her when he has something to say, and then they’re only allowed to talk for five minutes at a time.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

Winslow frowned. “It’s not a problem. I have discipline. And lots of guys would be
happy
to not have to talk to their girlfriends all the time. It gives me a chance to—”

“Rag on other people for talking to
their
girlfriends?” I shook my head. “Enjoy your phone diet, Winslow, and don’t get pissy because other people are having phone feasts.”

My bag came out of the bus then, and I grabbed it and headed for the arena doors. Joking with the guys about stuff like that was pretty standard, but this time? It would have felt a lot better if it hadn’t all been based on a lie.

Chapter Seventeen

Nat

My phone had chimed a few times while I was talking to Toby that Friday night, telling me I had texts or incoming calls, but I’d ignored it. Once I hung up, though, I looked at the screen. I hadn’t given Scott my number, but he’d obviously found it somewhere, and there was a voicemail as well as two texts.

The first text was simple.
It’s Scott. Call me.

The next was just a little more in-depth.
Movies? Chick flick, even, if u want.

Toby was out of town, so I guessed this was Scott’s big opportunity.

Which meant it was
my
big opportunity, I reminded myself as I tapped the screen to make the voicemail play. Being friends with Toby again was great. Getting reenergized and inspired about hockey was exciting. But Scott Dakins was important, too. He was the reason all of this other good stuff had started happening, and he was gorgeous and funny and popular and perfect. He was my crush, my dream, my goal. And he wanted to go to the movies with me. This was a good thing, I told the heavy feeling in my stomach. It was just nerves, I figured.

His voice on the phone was smooth and calm. “Natalie. We should do something tonight. Give me a call.”

That simple. Totally easy, totally casual.

It should have been easy for me, too. I shouldn’t have felt guilty, as if I was thinking about cheating on the guy who was just pretending to be my boyfriend. The guy who’d made me give him a treasured trophy as payment for the privilege of his services.

The guy who’d given me the kick in the ass I’d needed to start working to earn
more
trophies, ones that could be at least as treasured and earned in my future, not my distant past. The guy who’d been adding to his already grueling practice schedule in order to help me out, who’d been calling in favors to get me people to skate with, plus training and nutrition advice. The guy who agreed with me about the comedic value of every scene of
Slap Shot
and who was willing to body check me across a parking lot to earn the privilege of carrying my gear bag.
That
guy.

I wasn’t going to cheat on that guy, even if it was just imaginary cheating on an imaginary relationship. So I left my phone inside and went down to the garage to pull my net out. Felix the plywood goaltender was going to be my date that Friday night, and I was totally okay with it.

My mom had installed a good lighting system for the driveway back when Toby and I had been kids, letting us play long after dark on cold winter nights. And after about ten minutes of shooting, I was in the zone, completely focused on what I was doing. So it wasn’t all that surprising that I didn’t notice the car that pulled up at the foot of the driveway, its headlights blending into the overall brightness, the rumble of its engines unnoticed over the hum of energy in my ears.

When I finally stopped to gather pucks, though, I turned to see the dark blue Mustang parked at the foot of my driveway, and I froze. What was I wearing? Definitely no makeup, and I hadn’t showered since the gym. Scott had better not try to smell my hair
now
.

“Hey,” he said gently, his smile sweet in the harsh glare of the driveway lights. “I left you a couple messages, but I guess you didn’t get them.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I used the blade of my stick to scoop a couple more pucks into their bucket and said nothing.

He stepped a little closer, bending to pick a puck out of the snowbank at the side of the driveway. “This is your big Friday night fun when Toby’s out of town? You’re not allowed to go out on your own?”

“Allowed? I’m allowed to do whatever I want.”

He nodded like he was agreeing with me out of courtesy. “Sure, okay. So, do you want to do something? It’s probably too late for a movie after you get cleaned up, but we could get something to eat or go for a drive.”

“It’s snowing,” I said. “You think it’s a good idea to drive a Mustang in the snow?”

“It does just fine. And we wouldn’t have to go far.” He waited a few seconds, then said, “You need some time to shower or something?”

That kicked me into gear. “No. I’m working early tomorrow, so I’m just going to do another bucket and then go to sleep. Thanks for thinking of me, though.” I honestly couldn’t have said whether I was being faithful to my imaginary boyfriend, following Dawn’s play-hard-to-get advice, or just being smart about my need for sleep. Probably a combination of all three, with a little extra annoyance that this guy was taking my interest so totally for granted. I mean, okay, he was right—I
was
majorly into him. But he could have done a better job of pretending he didn’t know that.

He frowned at me, clearly not impressed with my decision. “You’re sure? This chance might not come again, you know.”

Okay, I’d given him no damn reason to think he needed to respect me or not be totally full of himself. I had to take
some
responsibility for his attitude. But that line? It went way too far. “You mean you might stop following me around like a lovesick puppy dog? You might give up on the cheesy pickup lines? You might start treating your cousin’s relationship with a little damn respect? Okay, great. I’ll take the chance.” I turned and sent a blistering shot toward the net. Top shelf, stick side. Suck it, Felix.

And as soon as I saw the puck hit the mesh, I realized what I’d said. I’d gone way beyond playing hard to get, and for no real reason. I could have been girlier, acted cuter, or smiled or whatever the hell it was girls were supposed to do when guys came on to them. At the very least, I could have played it cool, just shrugged Scott’s warning off like I didn’t care. There’d been no reason to get all aggressive about it.

But when I turned around, Scott wasn’t storming back to his car, abandoning me forever. He was still standing there, still watching me. And when I met his eyes, he smiled. “My pickup lines aren’t that cheesy.”

Was I going to get away with this? Only if I kept bluffing. “Totally cheesy. I think I might be developing lactose intolerance just from having heard them.”

“Maybe you just need to build up your tolerance. Develop your appreciation.”

“Like a fine wine?”

“Exactly. My lines are like a fine wine.”

“But I’m in training—no alcohol. Maybe you should find someone else to appreciate your fineness.”

He stopped for a second, then asked, “In training for what?”

“For hockey?” I gestured at the net, my stick, all the pucks, and made sure the “duh” was clear in my tone.

“Toby’s got you drinking the Kool-Aid, huh?” He sounded disappointed, like he’d thought I was better than that. “He recruited you into the cult?”

I stared at him. “You’ve
seen
me play hockey. It’s nothing to do with Toby, or being in a cult, or whatever. I play hockey. I’ve always played hockey.”

“Sure, as, like, a fitness thing. You’ve
played
hockey, but now you’re
living
it? You don’t want to have fun on a Friday night because you’d rather shoot pucks at a blocked net?”

“I
am
having fun on a Friday night. This is fun. And take a look at the net, buddy. Does it look new to you? This isn’t something I’m just picking up because of Toby.” Which was kind of true, kind of not, but I wasn’t going to get into my whole hockey history right then.

He took another couple seconds to think before he said, “I’m fine with chicks playing hockey.”

I’m not sure if it was the word “chicks” or something else, but I wasn’t impressed. “Oh, that’s such a relief. I’ll be sure to let my teammates know they’ve got your approval.”

“And I’m fine with you being a bit snarky with me, too. I mean, it’s not super pleasant, but, whatever. I can take it.”

“Again, it is great to hear you say that. A real weight off my shoulders.”

He ignored the sarcasm and edged a little closer. “It’s intriguing, really. It makes me wonder what you’re hiding. What’s so sensitive and delicate that it has to be protected behind all this snark?”

“Maybe I’m snark all the way through.”

He was even closer now, close enough that I could smell the mint on his breath. “I really don’t think so,” he said softly. He leaned down, his gaze never leaving my eyes. “I think there’s something really special under the snark.”

Some part of my rational brain was still working. Barely. “How would you know that?” I whispered. If he had the right answer—hell, if he had
any
damn answer—I was done for.

“I can just tell.”

He could tell. He could just see that about me, could see that loving hockey and being tall and strong didn’t make me sexless or ugly. He knew I was special, because— “Because Toby has good taste in women?” I asked and lurched backward, away from him. I held my stick in both hands in front of me like I was about to cross-check him. And maybe I was, if he tried to get any nearer, because clearly I couldn’t trust myself when he was at close range. And Toby, fake boyfriend or not, deserved my loyalty. “You should leave, now,” I said.

That’s right, I was kicking Scott Dakins off my driveway.

He took a step backward. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure at all.

And he left. He turned and strolled down the driveway, not a care in the world, folded his long legs into that hot car, gave me a casual wave, and drove away.

As soon as he was out of sight, I collapsed into the snowbank at the side of the driveway. What the hell had I just done? Given up a chance at something real with Scott out of respect for something fake with Toby. I could have been sitting in the passenger seat of that Mustang right now, driving off to a new adventure. Well, I guess I could have been sprinting for the shower right now, getting cleaned up so I would be presentable enough to ride in the Mustang. And probably I would have needed to put some makeup on, and Scott had surely been hoping for something a bit sexier than my sweatpants and raggedy old hockey sweater. So it wouldn’t have been
easy
to get into the Mustang, but it would have been worth it, absolutely.

Instead? I flopped my head back into the snow, which was kind of icy and harder than I’d expected, and I stared up at the sky. I could have been with the guy of my dreams, but instead, I was alone. I was being faithful to my fake boyfriend.

I was an idiot.