Page 28 of Suits and Spark Plugs

His eyes lit up, and I felt a little swoop. “Yes. I actually played hockey in high school.”

“Really?” That’s what I said, but what I really thought was, “Of course you did.”

“I was pretty good.”

“I believe that about you. Cool.”

“What are your hidden talents?” he asked.

He spun to skate next to me and tucked my hand in his elbow. I didn’t know what to do with the now free hand I had, so I let it flail in the air at my side. Seemed like it was helping. I hadn’t fallen yet.

“Uh, nothing really. I clean house, cook, work at the diner, and do school. I’m a pretty boring book to read.”

“I doubt that. I’ve been entertained for a couple of months now.” He shot me a warm look, and I felt caught off guard by his genuine affection. “What do you do when you aren’t cooking or cleaning?”

“Work or school.”

“You’re holding back on me,” he nudged. “Your life can’t really be that dull.”

It was. Except for one thing. My painting. I wondered what his reaction would be if I opened my bedroom door and showed him the canvases stacked all around, filled with pictures from my head. I painted anything and everything. I wondered what he’d think of the piles of brushes, the smears of paint I’d spilled, or the underlying tang of paint thinner. I tried to open my mouth, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I wasn’t like so many other people, quick to open up and trust. I took time, even if it sometimes made me feel like something was wrong with me.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I ended up saying.

“Fine. Then I’ll just have to keep asking until you’re ready to tell me.”

He suddenly pulled us to a stop and leaned in to give me a kiss. He’d seriously underestimated my skills, because rather than enjoying a sweet moment, I toppled over backwards, pulling him with me. I slammed the ice flat on my back a heartbeat before he landed on top of me.

“Maybe we save the kissing for solid ground,” I puffed out with a groan.

“Or, maybe I take advantage of this moment,” he replied in a whisper.

He didn’t linger over the kiss. We were, after all, in the middle of an ice rink surrounded by families. However, there was an intensity in it that I hadn’t felt from him before. I shivered once more, but this time it was from the unspoken message: Blaine was ready to move to the next step, and it was time for me to buckle up for the ride.

CHAPTER NINE

Iwoke up a few days later and knew, before coming fully awake, that Dad was home. I could feel it in the way the house seemed full again. I could hear soft conversation coming from my parents’ room down the hall, and the sound brought with it a comfort and security I missed. Then confusion had me sitting up straight in bed. Why was he here, and why was he in the bedroom? As far as I knew, nothing he needed remained in this house.

As a child I’d been a major daddy’s girl. He’d tweak my curls and rub his whiskers on my cheeks, all the while telling anyone who would listen that his Liv was an angel. It had been that way even after Sadie, the mini female version of him, was born. The two of them were both tall and lean, dark and good-looking, with charismatic personalities. Maybe our connection came because I was so much like Mom, who was his comfortable opposite and, as Dad had insisted, his one true love.

When he’d changed jobs and essentially moved away a couple of years ago, it had felt like our house shrank in on itself, as though its life force had left it. We’d all relied on Dad’s personality giving us a sun to revolve around. Mom was wonderful too, but she was more like me. Quieter, slower to warm up, slightly wary around others. She was the moon to his solar flares.

I sometimes thought of our home as a bounce house with a small leak. Over the weeks that he was gone the house would slowly collapse in on itself. Then he would come home, put some duct tape over the hole, pump it back up, and leave us in better shape. Only, his return visits grew sparse, and then when he would finally show up instead of duct tape he was using regular old gift wrapping tape that never quite attached firmly, and the house never got fully inflated. Finally, it had become my job to try to keep adding air, but it was getting harder, and it hurt to think about.

I heard his footsteps stop outside my door right before a knock sounded. “Olive, rise and shine,” he called, using my silly childhood nickname, before pushing my door open. He was wearing regular street clothes and grinning as though he’d just slipped back into his old life.

“Dad?”

“I’m making breakfast for my three lovely ladies. Be downstairs in ten minutes.” Too concerned to make a sound, I nodded before he moved down the hall to make the same announcement to Sadie. I couldn’t hear Sadie’s reply, but it was eight o’clock and I doubted she would be very happy about having Dad pop in without any warning either.

I’d struggled for a long time to figure out how one person leaving could tear things apart when the majority of us were still here. It was also hard for me to understand how I could continue to love him so much when I had a stone in the pit of my stomach, always suspecting he was holding things back from us, things that could have made life easier, truths that would set us all free.

I finger combed my hair, swished some mouthwash, and hurried downstairs, wanting some alone time before the others made their way down. I was happy to find him by himself, whipping up pancake batter and humming something along to the radio that sat in the window. It was the old kind with an antenna and circle-shaped dials that you had to rotate to find a station. It was only on when he was home.

“Hey, Olive, how’d you sleep?” he asked.

“When did you get here?”

He ignored that and leaned over to give me a light kiss on the head. “Mom says you’ve been a real help to her. Thanks, Liv. You know I depend on you to keep things going when I’m away.”

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