She nods yes and smiles. I push the gear into park and step out with her to open the trunk. I lift her bag for her, and purposely touch her hand on the exchange, noting the small twitch her fingers make when I do.
“Have a good time,” I say, and she looks up at me, pulling both straps of her bag over her shoulders, her face bunched, not sure what I mean. “The dance…have a good time at the dance tonight.”
The scheming part of my brain is already playing out the conversation with Dwayne to help him chaperone—or to see if there’s anything I can do to be there in that gym tonight. I wouldn’t know a soul, other than the couple guys I’ve gotten to know in PE. But I’d know Emma.
“Oh…yeah...thanks. I might not go, though,” she says, glancing over her shoulder to give her mom a sign that she’s coming. Her mom waves, and I lift a hand to wave back. I hope she doesn’t know about the Harpers.
I stand there a bit frozen while Emma steps up on the curb, thanking me for the ride. When I move to close the trunk, I glance at my skates again, and take a deep breath before shutting my eyes and blurting something out.
“I could teach you to skate. If…if you want. Sometime. Not tonight, but I was just thinking…I could teach you,” I stammer. I feel like an idiot, and I’m already working out a way to backtrack my words and give her an out when she interrupts my self-doubt.
“Why not tonight?” I look up to meet the silver of her eyes, the small curve of her lips, the smile, the flirting.
“Tonight works too,” I say. “I can pick you up. Say…six?”
“Yeah…” she turns and takes a few more steps toward her house, before glancing back at me over her shoulder. “Six. I’ll be ready.”
With her back to me, I push down to make sure the trunk is latched, then move toward the open driver’s door, watching her meet her mom and little brother at the front of her steps and head inside. I pull away from her house slowly, careful not to stare at the ornate window trim and the many other things that make this house stand out above every other home in Woodstock. It’s sort of fitting that Emma lives there, though. She’s the kind of girl who gets noticed.
It only takes a few minutes to get to our street, and I mentally calculate how easy it would be to bike to her house or to walk or jog. I call Dwayne as soon as I get into our apartment, asking him to use his car again tonight to go to the rink. He doesn’t ask how the ride home went or for any details about my sudden need to play hockey on a Friday night. I think part of him thinks that we’re bonding over this. Maybe we are.
Dwayne was always closer with Owen, but he didn’t start dating my mom until Owen left for college. I was left with the awkward shit. Dwayne’s come to a few of the hockey scrimmages with me, and he’s helped with a few assignments, but other than that, our conversations have been limited to grocery lists and my mother’s work schedule. Of course, now we can add Emma Burke to the small catalogue of conversation items, too.
I spend most of the time at home alone pacing my room before leaving to pick up Emma, switching out my dark gray T-shirt for a long-sleeved black one and slipping on my gray jeans. I look like Owen when I wear this, and I think there’s a part of me that feels his confidence in my veins when I resemble him.
I leave a note letting Dwayne and my mom know I went to the rink, propping it up in the small bowl for keys and mail that my mom has by the front door, then lock up fast and jog to Dwayne’s car. Within minutes, I’m back in front of her house, the motor idling while I try to find the right thing to say for each possible person who might answer the doorbell once I ring it.
Pulling the keys from the ignition, I push open my door with my foot and step onto the roadway just as Emma is skipping down the front walkway of her house.
“I saw you drive up,” she says, working a large sweatshirt over her hips and slipping her hair through the hoodie on the top. She’s wearing black leggings and a purple sweatshirt, and she looks like a damned princess.
“Wow, I had a whole speech prepared for your parents and everything,” I smirk, opening the door while she slides inside.
“They’re not home,” she says quickly.
I close the door and step around the front of the car. As I open my door, I notice a figure looking out the window at the front of her house, the shadow lingering long enough to let me know that someone’s watching us leave.
I slide into the driver’s seat and start the car again, looking beyond Emma and out her window before shifting the car into drive. She follows my gaze, then looks back to her lap quickly, focusing on her seatbelt and the small purse she’s brought with her. I wait a few extra seconds, hoping she’ll look at me. When she’s still focused on the zipper of her purse, I relent and pull away from her house.