2
OLIVIA
“ I ’m spending entirely too much time around the hockey team because of you.”
When my best friend Summer doesn’t respond to my complaint, I turn my head to look at her. Her glazed-over eyes make it clear that it went in one ear and out the other.
I guess it’s hard to blame her for being lost in a cloud of puppy love when I follow the direction of her gaze and see her boyfriend, goalie for the Brumehill Black Bears, Hudson Voss, wearing a flannel shirt tucked into a pair of jeans that hug his muscular thighs.
Summer and I just left our Art History class, the one class we’re taking together this semester. We were on our way to Brumehill Brews, the on-campus café, for lunch, but first, she wanted to stop here to check out the hockey team’s photoshoot.
The Black Bears coach volunteered the team to the art department for photography majors to use as practice for advertising-style photos. The photographers are having them dress up in all kinds of outfits and pose in front of various picturesque backdrop screens.
Summer says the guys think their Coach has a thing for one of the photography professors, and this is his way of scoring points with her.
The players don’t seem at all inconvenienced, looking like they’re having the time of their lives posing and soaking up the attention.
I’m far from surprised that a bunch of hockey boys would be total sluts for the camera.
Speaking of total sluts …
One of the players I don’t know steps aside, and suddenly my eyes are pointed at Tuck McCoy.
He’s in the middle of laughing about something. Like he usually is.
His laughter makes the dimples on his cheeks carve even deeper than usual. The angle of his jaw as he laughs accentuates its razor-sharp outline, heightened by the dusting of rough stubble across it, a shade darker than his sandy-blonde hair.
Guess it’s easy to laugh when you’re someone like Tuck. When you’re rich. When you play a sport that your entire college is obsessed with and everyone, faculty included, treats you like a celebrity for it.
I know that’s a petty thought to slink into my head just at the sight of someone laughing. But those thoughts are like antibodies, keeping me from succumbing to his looks, his smooth charm, his honey-sweet southern drawl.
Antibodies I need considering he’s been trying to get with me ever since we met.
But I can read him like a book.
He’s everything I know I need to stay away from. Entitled. Cocky. A guy who grew up rich, privileged, and talented. A guy who internalized the message that everything he could ever want is his for the taking, that all he needs to do is reach out and grab it.
I can read him, because I know the type. I know the type intimately, sad to say.
Tuck McCoy is cut from the same cloth as my ex, Ryan. The guy I wasted too many years and way too many tears on.
Which makes the way certain parts of my body react to what he’s wearing right now particularly inconvenient.
He’s sporting a flannel shirt, too. I guess that’s the theme of this part of the photoshoot. Unlike Hudson, he has his sleeves rolled up. Exposing his thick, muscular, veiny forearms.
Heaven help me. Tuck McCoy shouldn’t be allowed to roll up his sleeves like that.
It should be against the law. Banned by international treaties, Geneva Convention style. It’s a weapon that’s simply too powerful. I can’t stand the guy and the sight has even me imagining licking those forearms like they’re popsicles.
Ugh. I quickly reprimand myself for that thought.
It doesn’t matter how beefy his forearms are or how good those jeans make his thighs look or how that rugged flannel shirt tucked into them accentuates his wide shoulders and broad chest—Tuck McCoy doesn’t deserve my lust.
“Can we go now?” I ask Summer. “I’m starving.”
But just then, Hudson notices her and decides to stride over, framing her chin in his massive hand and pressing a kiss to her lips.
I have to admit, the way her eyes flutter closed when his lips capture hers, the way her body leans into him so effortlessly, so naturally, so securely … well, sure, I’m a little envious.
Even though I’m not even close to ready to open my own heart to another person after the disaster of my relationship with Ryan—who also happened to be a hockey player.
Has that fact biased me against their kind? Yes, it has. Hudson’s the rare exception, because I’ve seen how good he treats my best friend.
But as for the others? They’re not getting any benefit of the doubt.
When Hudson pulls away from the kiss, he and Summer take several beats to stare lovingly into each other’s eyes. Beats of time during which my stomach growls. I really am starving.
Speaking of hockey players who absolutely are not getting the benefit of recently mentioned doubt …
“Don’t those two lovebirds just make your heart sing, Lockley?” There’s no mistaking the easy drawl rumbling next to me. Tuck McCoy’s sauntered right over without me noticing.
And he’s doing that thing where he calls me by my last name.
I guess he thinks it’s supposed to be cute. It isn’t.
“Uh. Sure,” I deadpan. What else am I supposed to say?
“Hudson! Tuck!” Lane Larsen, the Black Bears’ team captain, calls from where the rest of the team are still standing by the photographers. “Get back here! We’re about to get changed for the beach scene!”
“Beach scene?” Summer asks, her voice thick with interest. Her eyes roam up and down Hudson’s body. “Does that mean you’re about to wear … swim trunks?”
As Summer and Hudson shamelessly flirt, Tuck coughs, drawing my attention to him. “I’m about to be wearing swim trunks, too, Lockley. If that little tidbit of information is of interest to you.” His eyebrows wiggle suggestively.
“It would take me weeks to think of a tidbit of information less interesting to me,” I retort.
I absolutely could not care less that Tuck McCoy is about to be wearing swim trunks, his bare torso fully exposed, looking like a total surfer bro with his golden tanned skin, scruffy sandy-blonde hair, and bright blue eyes …
Alright, I think it’s time to go.
“Summer, I’m going to starve to death if we don’t leave now,” I groan. My complaint syncs perfectly with Lane shouting at Hudson and Tuck to get back to the photoshoot once again. Mercifully, Hudson and Summer give each other a peck of a goodbye kiss.
“Catch you later, Lockley,” Tuck drawls as Summer and I turn to leave.
I, of course, decline to dignify him with a response.
We walk from a heated room in the art building out to the freezing cold of Vermont in January.
The only saving grace is that there’s no wind. Still, the temperature is hovering at the very bottom of the double digits, and coldness wraps around every one of my limbs even though I’ve zipped my cute, cream-colored puffer jacket straight up to the neck.
The cold might be biting, but it’s still beautiful today. The sky is a smooth, bright blue without a cloud to be seen. The campus walkways are shoveled clear, but elsewhere the ground is still covered with last week’s snowfall, and the way the sun reflects against the pure white snow is dazzling.
The bare skeletons of the trees are still trimmed with fresh white snow along their branches, the temperature staying too low for it to melt off. I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with the crisp, bracing chill of the air. Every season is beautiful up here, and the scene that surrounds us is lovely enough to make up for the cold.
When we step into Brumehill Brews, I’m still glad to be out of it, though. There’s nothing quite like stepping out of the cold and into a warm, bustling café right in the frozen center of winter.
I order a bowl of vegetable soup and a hot green tea; Summer orders a sandwich and a coffee. When we take our seats, I dip down to breathe in the warm steam rising from my teacup, letting it suffuse through me and unthaw my chest.
Feeling warmed up, I shrug off my jacket and rub my hands together before taking my first blissful sip.
“Know what Hudson said the other day?” Summer asks.
I smirk. “Well, I know what Hudson said to you a couple nights ago, when he clearly didn’t know I was walking past your door to the bathroom.”
My smirk grows into a grin when Summer’s cheeks flush red. I’m happy for Summer that she has an incredible sex life, and I’m also happy that, since we live together, it gives me plenty of ammunition to make her blush like this.
My best friend pushes past my comment. “He told me that he and Tuck went to the bookstore the other day, and Tuck was asking if he knew what your favorite books are.”
I groan and roll my eyes. I slurp up a spoonful of my soup to counteract the sour taste that rises in my mouth from hearing Tuck’s name.
“Just fishing for material to hit on me some more,” I explain.
“You know,” Summer says, drawing out the syllables like she’s leading up to something she knows I’m going to dispute, “he’s really not as much of a cocky playboy as he seems.”
I narrow my eyes at her accusingly.
“Well, okay, he kind of is both of those things,” she concedes. “But he actually really is a nice guy.”
My lower lip curls. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Always. I’m just saying. Tuck might be cocky, spoiled, a little obnoxious sometimes … but he’s not a bad guy.”
“Hm,” is all the answer I give, shifting my attention to slowly slurping my hot soup.
I can understand why Summer would want me and Tuck to get along better. Tuck and Hudson have strangely kind of become best friends—more on Tuck’s initiative than Hudson’s—and it would be more fun for everyone if I weren’t at Tuck’s throat whenever we’re around each other.
A traitorous thought sprouts in my mind: is it possible that I’m being too hard on Tuck?
Is it possible that Summer’s right, that he actually is a nice guy? That his interest in me is genuine?
Is it possible that … that I’ve held this grudge against hockey players for too long? After all, Hudson is a hockey player and he’s a total sweetheart to Summer. I couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend for my best friend.
Maybe it’s time for me to …
But before I can finish that thought, my phone vibrates on the table. My eyes snag on the image displayed on the screen.
Those charitable thoughts evaporate from my mind, and it feels like there’s suddenly a ten-pound lead ball sitting in my stomach.
My iPhone chose this moment to share a “memory” with me—a picture that I thought I’d deleted, but somehow survived in the far reaches of my photos.
I’m in the picture. Smiling into the camera, my eyes bright and happy and enthusiastic. And I’ve got my arms wrapped around … my ex. Ryan.
Tension tightens in my chest as my gaze settles on his image. It’s the first time I’ve glanced at a picture of him in … I don’t know how long. Months. But not long enough.
The guy who was my whole world from junior year of high school until winter break during my freshman year of college.
The guy who was screwing around with other girls the entire time. The guy who had me so wrapped around his finger that I convinced myself not to notice, even though he barely even tried to hide it.
The guy who was entirely aware just how hard I’d fallen for him and used that fact to take advantage of me emotionally.
The guy who was rich, cocky, too hot for his own good, and treated life like a game where the only thing that mattered was his own satisfaction. The guy who expected the whole world to bow down to him just because he was a star player on our high school hockey team.
A guy that a certain someone who Summer and I were just discussing has way too much in common with.
I punch in my passcode, open my Photos app, and swiftly delete the image before placing my phone face-down on the table next to my cup of tea.
You know what? No—I don’t think I’m being too hard on Tuck.