“Just conversation, O. Keep your mind out of the gutter.”
Riley punched him. “Come on, dummy. We’ve got work to do.”
The garage would be busy. “Sorry, guys. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“You can make up for it later,” Oscar promised.
“Not that sorry!” I yelled back.
Oscar climbed into the truck and shut the door without answering.
I spun around. Phin’s lips were looking a little blue. “Back inside, city boy. Before you turn into a popsicle.”
He rubbed his hands over his arms. “Yeah, probably a good idea.”
We trudged back to the cottage in silence. Once inside, Phin headed straight for the fire.
I dropped onto my couch cushions, feeling a little cool again, even in Oscar’s coat.
Phin looked at me. “I’m sorry I got you stuck in this. It’s Christmas Eve. You must have family stuff going on.”
Now I felt bad for being upset at missing Christmas. “Riley goes to Christine’s family on Christmas Eve. Oscar and I eat some junk food and watchDie Hard. We do most of our celebrating on Christmas Day, and hopefully we’ll be good to go then.”
“That sounds nice.” He sounded envious.
“What do you do?”
“If Lina can get me, we go to a big party downtown on the twenty-fourth. Then recover Christmas Day till her dinner party. If I’ve escaped her, I usually hang with some of my teammates. Ducky had a fun thing last year, but he’s injured now, so…”
I’d rather hang with his teammates than his family too.
Phin
Another reasonI’d left Toronto: I wasn’t in a party mood. I didn’t want to be the odd man out with the couples, and Ducky’s injury had hit home for all of us—just how vulnerable our careers were. It made me anxious to figure out what I was doing after hockey.
How did she keep bringing up these serious thoughts? Time to change course. “We’ve got a lot of time to kill. What should we do?”
“You don’t have the clothes for outdoor sports.” She shrugged. “I don’t either. So we’re stuck indoors. We can’t watchmovies with no power. Are there any books here while we have light?”
“Unless it was raining, we didn’t stay inside much during the summers, did we?”
“No, we were outside all the time. I prefer that, normally, but that’s when I can dress properly and have a hot shower waiting for me.”
I was not going to think about Skye in the shower. She’d…Nope.Needed to shut those thoughts down. “I don’t think Lina is the outdoorsy type, but I don’t know if there’s anything off-grid to do.”
Skye pushed herself up. “I’m going to take a look. I should have asked my brothers to bring some kind of entertainment.”
I’d have offered to help but I was feeling uncharacteristically lazy. And cold. It was nice for a bit not to have any expectations or requirements, nothing to do but try to stay warm.
A few minutes later she came down the stairs with an air of triumph. “I found a box of old games.”
I squinted at her. “You like games?”
She shrugged. “We’re small-town people. We amuse ourselves.”
“I’m not playing Candyland.”
“I have no desire to play Candyland.” She set down the box. “I think it’s stuff from before. When we were kids.”