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“Derek?”

I turn around and look at my father.

Dr. Matthew King looks good for his forty-eight years. He is tall and still has a few inches over me. His shoulders are wide like in the day he played football in high school. People often tell me I’m a spitting image of my father and they are right. We share the same facial features with blond hair and blue eyes. The only thing I’ve got from my mother are my lips.

“Who was it?”

“Oh, no one important,” I lie with a smile. “Just some guy from the team. He thought he forgot something in my car when I gave him a ride earlier.”

“Did you find it?” He opens the door and we go back inside. Ace is sniffing around me, getting in between my legs.

“Nope, I guess he left it somewhere else.” I shrug.

“How’s the team doing?” Although Dad never played hockey, he fully supports me and goes to as many games as he can. He never tried to pressure me into playing football instead of hockey, and I’m glad for that.

“We are doing fine.” I hate to admit it, but Sanders is a good addition to the team. Even though we can’t communicate to save our lives off the ice, on the ice we have a killer connection that could help us bring the trophy home at the end of the season. “You should come to our first game in a couple of weeks.”

“I’ll check my schedule at the hospital and let you know.” He smiles at me and gives me tap on the shoulder. “You know I love to come and watch your games.”

Amelia

“What do you mean, you’re not going?” Mom cries out, looking between Brook and me. “It’s a tradition. You can’t not go!”

“Mom, calm down.” I pat Lola’s head to calm her down because Mom’s screeching woke her up from her nap. My poor baby. She won’t get her usual twenty-hour beauty sleep. “You are disturbing Lola.”

“You and that dog.”

Mom isn’t Lola’s biggest fan. She likes her just fine, but she doesn’t like the fact that Lola is in the house and sleeping in my bed. But there is no help with that.

When I got her she was just a small puppy and she couldn’t sleep all alone in her bed on the floor. It didn’t seem fair to me. So now there is no way of getting her to sleep anywhere else but in my bed.

“Really, Mrs. C, it’s not a big deal.” Brook turns the page in her book and looks at my mom. “It’s not like we are missing graduation or anything like that.”

“Yeah, Mom. It’s just a silly sleepover where we have to sleep in the school gym. On the floor.” Just the thought of it makes me shiver.

“But it’s…”

“A tradition,” we interrupt her in unison and giggle, rolling our eyes at the exact same moment.

She narrows her brown eyes at us. “You two,” she begins and points her finger first at me and then at Brook. “You are trouble, you know that?”

“If we are trouble then trouble’s looking really good these days,” Brook observes out loud before returning her attention to the book.

Lola sighs in my lap and I can only agree with her. “Seriously, Mom.” I look at her, hoping to make her see our point. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“I know, but, honey…”

“You are shitting with me!” Brook shouts. She then jumps off the window seat and runs out of the room like the devil is at her heels.

“What the…?” I look at my mom, confused with what’s going on.

“I don’t know.” She goes to the window and looks down. “I think you have…”

Lola opens her eyes, tilts her head to the side, and then, in a heartbeat, she is on the floor, running down the stairs, her long ears flying all around her while she barks happily.

“… company.”

I get off the bed and leave the book on the nightstand. With Mom’s inquisition, it was long forgotten anyway. “Who’s down there?”

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