Page 107 of Until We Burn
The tall pine trees rise around us. Their damp leaves are slick with fresh morning rain that drips down to cool the heat billowing from our heaving chests.
I grit my teeth and climb up another step.
Diana’s hair clip latches to the band of my gym shorts. It should feel distracting and uncomfortable, but it only makes me think about her during the entire hike. Our night on the phone plays in my head over and over. When I see raindrops drip from the leaves, a smile cracks across my face.
I just smiled for the camera, completely oblivious to the giant booger hanging down my nose.
“You psychopath!” Luke gasps. “Are you seriouslysmiling?”
“I just can’t wait to get to the top,” I pant.
Rowan grunts, wiping sweat off his forehead. He glares at me. “You’re a shitty liar.”
A breathy laugh puffs out of me. The adrenaline pumping through my veins falls flat when I remember what Diana told me last night. My smile falls. I scoop up a pebble and chuck it into the bushes.
“What’s happening between us might end sooner than we thought, though.”
The boys pause. They drop back against the tree as they look back at me, confused. “What do you mean?”
I tell them everything. Each detail magnifies the ache in my chest. I know there’s gonna be a day when Diana becomes a memory. I won’t wake up and see her name flash on my phone, I won’t smell her perfume in my bed sheets, and I’ll never be able to vent and rage with her about people neither of us have ever met.
Rowan frowns as he sees the thoughts play across my face. “You’re more than just whipped for Diana at this point, aren’t you?”
I rake my hands through my hair. “I keep trying to convince myself that I can control how I feel by remembering that what we have is temporary. I thought that would stop me from falling for her. But I have and now I can’t stop.”
Luke smirks and slings a limp arm around my shoulder. “Lucky for you, I already got us tickets to the Halloween party. Get Diana to go with you. Since time is ticking and you generally like being around her, this is your chance to spend as much time with her before it all ends.”
Rowan crosses his arms and shakes his head in protest. “No, that’s risky as hell, Kai. You’re already going behind her dad’s back to hookup, and now you’re going to take her to a party as your date? Don’t let the thrill make you forget how badly both of you might crash at the end.”
Doubt fills my mind, unsteadying the decisions I’ve planted.
Maybe Rowan’s right.
He’s been there before.
My eyes trace his tattoo. A flight of swallows wind around his forearm. Pieces of a Japanese name are inked into the spaces between each bird.
It’s been years and he still refuses to tell us why he got the tattoo and why he left his parents in Tokyo.
I rub the back of my neck. Maybe I should play it safe like Rowan says and leave the arrangement as it is: No strings. Just sex.
Luke groans, tossing his head back. “Alright, we know we’re a bunch of twenty-one-year-old dudes who don’t need to have their shit together, right? Not everything is going to work out the way it should.”
Anger rips through the last sentence, making me wonder if he’s really talking about me and Diana.
Rowan’s expression hardens. “We didn’t come all the way to Division I just to throw it all away,” he snaps.
“Everything has a risk, Row. Even the choices you think are safe.”
“That doesn’t mean we should be reckless and make decisions that don’t benefit us on the ice.”
“You can still get to where you want to go and live your life at the same time. Not everything should stay on hold while you try to get signed. You don’t have all the time in the world like you think you do.”
Rowan drops his head in defeat just as Luke blinks the tears from his eyes. His hand brushes the silver bracelet clinging to his wrist. His mom’s initials, CK, glints in the silver light. It’s then I realize that today marks the day when she died from cancer.
She passed away when he was eighteen, which is why Luke didn’t join us at DHU until a year later to start his sports management degree. Because of that, he’s now graduating in 2026 with Rowan who deferred his graduation by doing a kinesiology co-op.
Through thick and thin, Cindy King was a mother to all of us.
