Page 33 of Heart Check
We sit there for a long moment, and then Dawson turns to me. I don’t know why I hold my breath. His mouth twists in a funny way and he jerks his thumb out the window toward the porch. “You wanna come in? Since you drove all the way here and everything…”
Despite the casual tone, his eyes are intent on mine.
I know all sorts of people turn up for the hockey parties, but would it be weird formeto? After all the accusations and bad blood this fall? Even if Dawson didn’t leave the bad reviews,someoneat this party surely did, and I’m not in the mood to be abused some more.
Dawson’s eyes dip to my mouth, and I realize I’m biting mylip from nerves. “No one will mess with you. I promise.” His voice is gruff and serious. Protective.
I draw in a shaky breath, do my best to let it out slowly and think rationally. What’s waiting for me at home, anyway? My English homework, my imbalanced budgeting spreadsheet now that my site’s shut down, the sense of being outside, on the edges like always?
Theyesflooding my body surprises me. Iwantto go in. I want to keep hanging out with Dawson.
So I shrug, trying to keep my voice nonchalant, like I go to hockey parties all the time and have never said a bad word about the team. “Sure.”
Dawson’s eyes widen. “Really?”
My face burns. “Oh, sorry—if you were just being polite—”
“No, no,” he hurries to say. And he smiles, so high-voltage it could power the whole town. “I want you to come. For real.”
I pull out my phone, bending my head so he doesn’t see how red my cheeks get atthat. I shoot my parents a quick text saying I’m spending the night at Marissa’s. Who knows how long I’ll be here, and I don’t want to have that conversation with them tonight when I barely understand what I’m doing myself. There’s an unanswered message from Marissa waiting for me (we still hanging out this weekend?), which I ignore with a flash of guilt. I can’t tell her where I am. She’d never get it.
But it’s just one night, right? Then we can go back to our own little bubbles.
“You ready?” Dawson’s holding the passenger door open, waiting for me with a tentative, almost nervous smile. It pushes all my misgivings out of my head.
I smile back and follow him inside.
The foyer’s littered with everyone’s cast-off coats and shoes. In the living room, people are clustered in knots, sipping from Solo cups. I spot half the football team and a bunch of the girls’ volleyball stars. There’s an almost frantic relaxation in the air, everyone laughing a little too loud as they swap family holiday horror stories.
“What can I get you to drink?” Dawson asks, bending to my ear so he can be heard over the thumping of the bass. “Water, soda, something harder?”
His hand brushes the small of my back as he guides me toward the kitchen. With him curled around me protectively like this, I kinda get the hockey guy hype.
I blink hard at my own thought. “Something harder.”
Our fingers brush as he passes me a hard seltzer from a cooler, raising a questioning eyebrow as if asking if he chose okay. He opens his mouth, but just then a bunch of his hockey bros descend.
They’re a knot of arms thumping on backs, sentences started by one and finished by another, and I can’t follow anything that’s happening. They remind me of puppies falling all over one another in a playful litter. The one thing I can see for sure, though, is the tension ebbing from Dawson’s shoulders as he’s enveloped by his team.
Finally, they break apart to survey me. “TheHarper deigned to come to one ofourparties?” Ryan says with a grin.
I stuff down my nerves, doing my best to ignore the sense that I’ve walked into enemy territory and am about to be pounded into smithereens. At least there’s no sign of Noah. “Well, this guy was stranded, so I drove him here.”
“And I invited her,” Dawson says with an easy shrug. “So be cool, okay?”
It shuts down the conversation faster than I would’ve expected, and my shoulders relax a notch or two.
“We’re cool.” Alex smiles, accepting it like we’ve been friends forever. He’s always been nice—a smile for everyone, not into the cliquey stuff like so many of our classmates. “Your only job tonight is to have fun, okay? Can we borrow Dawson for a minute?”
“Nothing to borrow,” I say, trying to look casual and chill as I wave them off.
“Make yourself at home!” Ryan cries, slinging an arm around Dawson’s shoulders.
Dawson locks eyes with me as he gets towed away, a crease appearing between his brows. I smile back, trying to be as reassuring as possible. No way am I going to ask him to babysit me.
But as soon as the crowd of them disappears around a corner, I take a deep breath. Hockey party. What the hell have I done?
Clutching my drink, I wander into the next room, smiling politely at anyone who looks my way and desperate for a distraction. Following the flow of people leads me to a foosball table. I recognize the three people clustered around it—Lucas from my precalc class, Carrie from ninth-grade English, and Sabrina, head of the Spirit Committee. I’ve never had a class with her, but you simply don’t go to Hamilton Lakes High andnotknow Sabrina.
