Page 31 of The Promises We Were Never Meant To Keep

“How devoted I am to hockey?”

I tip my head back and look at him. His eyes are a little harder than usual and fixed on the road. I think he’s afraid of my answer. He’s throwing up a wall of defense even now. I can feel the bricks slamming into place.

I hurry to assure, “No. Of course, it doesn’t.”

Relief shudders from his lungs. “You’ll come with me, right?”

“When?”

“When I leave this place. When I get signed.” There’s a crack in his voice when he asks, “When I leave Rubble Ridge, you’ll come with me?”

I imagine it. It plays in my mind like a memory not yet made. It’s crafted in gold, as though spun by the sun on a cloudless day. Holt gets signed for the Vikings, and we pack our bags into the back of his rusted truck before setting off for the Island.

He’ll kiss me up against the truck before we climb in, and again when we’re in the cab. It’ll taste like hope and dreams, because it’ll be us against the world. I can see our first apartment. It’ll be little but clean, and we won’t have it long because Holt will be playing for the best team in Canada—biased, I know. But if Holt is playing for the team, it’s going to be the best. I’ll go to school, and we’ll meet up at home every night and…

“Thoughts?”

My smile stretches. My fingers link with his on my thigh as I say happily, “I was just imagining what our life will look like together.”

“Yeah?” His voice is so deep, so gruff with emotion. “What does it look like?”

“Happy.” I lean up to kiss his jaw. “Sunny.”

“Can’t forget icy.”

“Oh, there will be ice. Lots of ice.” I laugh, feeling light and hopeful now that I feel some direction for our life together. A place where I fit in the puzzle of his dreams. “You’re going to be the best player the Vancouver Vikings have ever seen, and I’m going to be your number one fan.”

All I have to do is find out what my own passion is. It can’t be all that hard, right?

13

YOU IN A SWIMSUIT

JUNE 2007 – 15 YEARS OLD

Walking out of school on the last day of exams is like walking into freedom. Feeling the sun blasting down on my face and seeing Holt standing there against his blue truck, arms folded, one ankle crossed over the other in a lazy stance that looks killer good on him—it’s a stage for the set of teenage dreams.

Holt’s lips slide into a grin that has my heart dancing happily in my chest as my own grin responds. Then it falters, just a little, as my eyes drift down the length of his body. He’s halfway to seventeen now, and it’s beginning to show. All the time he spends with the guys in the gym and on the ice is beginning to show in the lines of his muscular arms. He’s stacking muscle on muscle, his shoulders broadening, his jaw hardening.

I don’t know how someone can just keep getting more and more attractive.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to looking at Holt. I can’t imagine I’ll ever not appreciate how perfectly beautiful he is, in a manly way, of course. Holt would hate to be called anything but manly.

I snicker at the thought, and his grin hitches up at the corner. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking that you’re the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen.”

His head rears back just a bit. “I’m not beautiful. I’m ruggedly handsome. And I’m a not a boy.” He reaches for my hips when I’m close enough, tugging me forcefully into his body as he drops his head to growl against my ear. “I’m a man.”

“Oh, my mistake,” I tease, but I’m breathless now. My heart is a mess in my chest, every beat unsteady. Wobbly.

His voice drops in pitch to something deliciously dark. “If you knew the things I want to do to you, you wouldn’t be making mistakes like that anymore.”

My breath catches, want spilling into my core as tingles of awareness encased in fire spill across my flesh. Bravely, I run my finger down the length of his chest, watching heat fill his dark eyes. “What kinds of things?”

He lets out another low rumble, before he releases me with a groan. He peers down at me with slightly narrowed eyes, accusing, “You’re a devious little thing today, aren’t you, peach?”

“I don’t know.” I ask sweetly, “Am I?”