Page 33 of Second Draft

“Do you watch hockey?”

“No.” I shake my head. “Sports were never my thing.”

“You preferred reading.” He smiles, exposing the dimple in his cheek.

I nod. “So what do you do now? Travis never told me.”

“I’m a sports journalist for a crappy little magazine in New York called The Shutout.”

I place my fork on my plate and look at him, probably bug-eyed, because that was the last thing I expected for him to say. “You’re a writer?”

“Not really.” He shrugs. “I just report on the games. It’s mostly stats. I wouldn’t call myself a writer. Not like you. You’ve actually written something substantial.”

“I told you it’s not very good–”

“Maybe. But if it’s your dream, then you should pursue it.”

“I think I’ve had enough rejection letters for one lifetime.”

He clears his throat and attempts an accent when he says, “Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”

I raise an eyebrow and laugh. “Yoda?”

“Bruce Lee.” He chuckles, and pushes a casual hand through his hair. “I used to have a poster with those words in my room when I was a kid.”

“Well it seemed to work for you. You got everything you wanted.”

“Not everything,” he says, his expression serious and trained on me.

Oh.

I lick my lips and look away. “I guess we’re not meant to get everything we want.”

He doesn’t respond, but I can feel his eyes on me as I move the spaghetti across my plate with my fork.

“You should eat before it gets cold,” he says, the mood between us changed once again.

The rest of the meal is filled with small talk.

As dark and broody as he comes across, Carter is actually very easy to talk to. I learn that he grew up in a large Victorian style house not far from here. And that despite his bad boy image, he really was the Golden Boy. Somehow, he managed to still do well in school, and even got a college diploma while juggling hockey.

The way he talks about his parents makes my heart ache. They seemed to have had the perfect family, at least until the accident.

Now all Carter has left is Travis – and he’s gone because of me.

Guilt settles in my chest.

“I’ll wash the dishes,” I say, standing and taking my plate to the sink.

“There’s this crazy contraption that actually does that for you. I think it’s called a dishwasher,” he teases, placing his dirty dishes on the counter.

I shake my head and tell him the unfortunate news, “Yeah, that’s broken too.”

“Shit. Seriously? What the hell did Travis spend the money on that I gave him then?”

“Do you really want to know?” I lift my brows at him.

“Probably not.” He shakes his head.

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