“I’m sorry.” She covers my hands with hers. “It’s not bad, but it’s going to complicate things.”
I nod and wait.
“I was offered an internship opportunity to work on costume design this summer for an off Broadway production company.”
My eyes widen, but almost immediately, excitement and pride give way to understanding, and that heavy feeling I’ve been carrying all night finally makes sense. “In New York?”
“Yeah.” She swallows thickly, more tears welling.
“The whole summer?” I don’t need to ask why she’s upset. We’d planned to spend at least part of this summer together. She was going to work at the library and take a course, and I’d coach kids’ hockey, like I do most summers, and train. And now she’s going to be hours away, too far to drive for a visit. We’ve been avoiding the other inevitability—finding out where I’ll be playing—but there’s no escaping this.
“It’s two months. It starts basically as soon as we’re done with exams, and I’d be there all of June and July.”
I’m trying to figure out how often I can fly there to see her. Selfishly, I want her to stay here with me, to find something local so it’s not as difficult. But I can’t be selfish when it comes to her future. Lavender is insanely talented, and she’s going to do great things.
“You have to take it.” I shift her so she’s straddling my lap.
“I know.” She traces an infinity symbol over my heart. “But it won’t be easy to go.”
“What if I came with you?” I scramble for a way to keep us together.
“To New York?”
“We could get an apartment. I’ll get a job, and then you won’t be out there alone. Then we can still have the summer together.” I don’t want to deal with the thing that worries me most—what’s going to happen after the summer. So many things are already up in the air, and I just got her back. I don’t want to let her go.
Her eyes light up with hope, but dim quickly. “What about hockey? You play all summer.”
“There are training camps in New York. I can talk to my dad and see if we can get me hooked up out there.”
“What if that won’t work?”
“Then we’ll figure it out. But you have to go, Lavender.” I force the words out, even though I feel the pain of them physically in my chest.
She runs her fingers through my hair, her smile sad. “I know I do. And I love the idea of you coming with me, if we can make it work. But even if we can’t, I need this. I don’t want to regret not going, and I don’t want that regret to taint what we have, not when we’ve already been through so much to get back to each other.”
“We’ll make it work, no matter what.”
I’m aware this conversation is one we’re likely to have again, sooner than either of us wants. Two months in New York should be totally doable. But I worry about the inevitable distance we’ll face come the fall.
But I don’t say any of those things. Instead, I capture her mouth with mine and get lost in loving her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Take a Stand
Lavender
Present day
THE NEXT MORNING, Kodiak broaches the subject of coming with me to New York with his parents, which spurs an impromptu parental visit. We have enough time to shower off the sex smell and tidy up the living room before the ’rents descend.
I fire off a warning to River, in case he decides to come home. He’s been a lot better about things since he and I had it out, but that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned about his reaction to me going to New York for the summer. He’s still River.
Kodiak’s parents and mine arrive together in a brand new giant truck at two in the afternoon. Lainey’s behind the wheel, though. I freaking love Kodiak’s mom almost as much as I love my own. She and I have a lot in common, minus being geniuses, and seeing this tiny woman get out from behind the wheel of a boss truck is awesome.
My mom engulfs me in a hug and whispers, “I promise it’ll be fine. Just let your dad feel like he’s being heard.”
I figured this wouldn’t be as simple as everyone thinking it was a fabulous idea for Kodiak and me to move to New York for the summer.
Lainey and my mom have brought enough food to feed an entire hockey team. They go about setting up a charcuterie board while our dads raid the beer fridge.
“Should we do this in the living room or at the dining room table?” my dad asks, draining half his beer in two long swallows.
Yeah, he’s definitely stressed.
“I would say the living room, but that’s where the guys hang out and play video games, so there’s no telling what’s stuck between the couch cushions.” Two weeks ago, it stunk to high heaven in there. I forced the guys to clean their shit up because I couldn’t even walk by the room without gagging. Turns out, it was a rotten hot dog that had ended up under the lounger.
“Dining room it is.”
Kodiak grabs me a cooler, likely out of habit. Plus, it’s the weekend. I take a seat beside him. His foot is tapping on the floor, and he keeps swallowing and blinking.
Our moms sit across from us, with a dad on either end. It reminds me a lot of the family meeting we had after the Courtney incident back when we were kids.
I link my fingers with Kodiak’s under the table.
“Is that alcohol?” my dad asks, nodding to the bottle in my hand.
“It’s a cooler, and it’s, like, two-and-a-half percent. I’d have to drink a case to even get a buzz.”
“You’re underage.” He glares pointedly at Kodiak.
“Pretend we’re in Canada, Dad. And I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you partook in some drinking when you were my age.”
“I lived in Canada when I was your age.”
“Exactly.”
“She’s not doing keg stands, Alex. Let it go,” Mom says.
He leans back in his chair with a frown. “Is this what’s going to happen if you go to New York? Is Kody going to be buying you alcohol? You know people make a lot of bad decisions when they’ve been drinking.”
My mom snorts. “Like making out in public with hockey players where people can take photos that end up on the internet for all eternity?”
I bite my tongue so I don’t laugh, or say something to make this situation worse.
My dad shoots my mom a look. “You’re not helping, Vi.”
She bats her lashes and arches a brow. “I’m not trying to.”
My dad turns to Rook, like he’s looking for him to weigh in. “Well, Kody has always proven to be fairly responsible, and Lavender has never gotten into trouble as far as I’m aware. So I can’t really see my son going out and getting your daughter sloshed for shits and giggles.”
My dad seems to realize this isn’t a great argument to start with, so he switches gears. “Moving in together is a really big step, even if it’s only for a short period of time. Merging your life with someone else’s isn’t seamless, and moving to a big city is another big change.”
He laces his hands and rests his forearms on the table, leaning in and using his soft dad voice, the one he used to pull out when I was having a particularly bad panic attack. “Maybe it would be better to wait a couple more years until you’re a little older, Lavender. This is the first time you’ve ever lived away from home, and New York isn’t within driving distance. I don’t want you to take on something you’re not ready for.”