“I’m not sure we can call it skating yet, but…” I tease, and she pushes my arm with a tiny grunt in dissent. Yeah, I lock that touch away, too. “I’m joking. You did great.”

“Well…I’m no hockey phenom,” she says, her voice dragging out that last word.

“Neither am I,” I sigh. I don’t know why it makes me uncomfortable, but I just don’t want her thinking I’m more special than I am.

Our silence is drowned out by the ad for legal advice blaring through Dwayne’s car speakers, and I watch, helplessly, as she finally steps from my car. There are so many things that I could do right now. But just beyond her, the front door to her house has cracked open, and the porch light has flipped on, the blinds to the front window wide as well.

“I hope this was as good as some school dance,” I say, every drum of my heart rattling my insides. I’m not sure how I’m going to drive home unable to feel my feet and fingers.

Her feet on the curb, and her purse pulled across her body, Emma stops just before closing the car door, leaning in just enough so I can hear her, and whoever is standing at the doorway behind her can’t.

“I’m not sure,” she says, squinting one eye as a smile breaks through slowly. “I think we’re going to need to try it again so I can be sure. Skating or dancing…it’s a tough one.”

“You’re on. I play Sunday morning, and I’m all yours after noon.” When I realize how my words sound, my stomach drops. Emma’s smile pushes further into her cheeks, though, and suddenly I don’t care so much about sounding desperate for her. I am desperate, and I want nothing but more seconds with her.

“I’ll meet you at the rink. I’ll come watch you play,” she says, winking as she shuts the door finally and skips up her walkway. She quickly passes a man I assume is her father, and he lingers in the light of the porch, his arms crossed in front of his body, until I pull completely out of view.

When I get home, Dwayne and my mom are both up and at the kitchen table eating bowls of cereal. I can sense my mom’s desire to ask me a million questions as I grab a soda from the refrigerator and move down the hallway, but I catch the subtle look from Dwayne telling her not to pry, and I’m grateful for him.

With my lights off, I crawl into bed, kicking off my jeans and shoes, and pulling my pillow over my eyes so I can imagine Emma in my mind. Eventually, I fall asleep, but not before I make a list of the million things I need to learn about her—top of that list: what her lips taste like.

Chapter 3

Emma

“All I’m saying, Em, is that you can’t take any risks right now. I’m not saying that you can’t have a life. Of course you can have a life. It’s just…for now…for the next little while, however long that is, you have to take life slow.”

My mom has been sitting on the foot of my bed, explaining her decision to me for at least an hour. I quit listening five minutes in, when she finally choked out the part where I have to stay home today instead of going to the hockey rink to watch Andrew. Correction: she didn’t say I had to stay home, she said she wouldn’t give me a ride.

My dad took my little brother, Cole, to this Tiny Tikes soccer program, something they do at this indoor gym by the mall. Not that it matters, because I know he wouldn’t take me either. It’s part of their concerted effort to make decisions about my life while they whisper behind their bedroom door at night—decisions that I am not a part of making.

“Em, you do understand, don’t you honey?”

My mom has asked this question at least six times. Each time, I say no. I say it again.

“I’m never going to agree with you. It’s ice-skating. I’m not going to get hurt. Nothing is going to happen. It’s only slightly riskier than walking,” I roll my eyes.

“Honey, you know that’s not true. You could fall and break something, and the time it would take you to heal, it all plays into everything,” she says. She’s making things up at this point, but I don’t argue. There isn’t a point.

I was standing out in the front yard with her and my father, watching my brother race around the dying grass, when the woman who lives across the street came over. Mom mentioned I was a sophomore, and the woman asked if I’d met anyone nice yet. I said I square danced with Andrew Harper.

I said too much.

After an hour of hearing this woman expose every wound and skeleton that exists in the Harper home, two things became certain—my parents would never approve of Andrew, and I would never be able to forget him.