Page 62 of More Than Chemical
He parked the car. “What?”
“How do you purchase alcohol when you’re underage?”
He laughed. “How old do you think I am?”
“You’re a freshman. So, nineteen. Maybe twenty if you took a gap year.”
He grinned and opened his door. “I’m twenty-one.”
I tilted my head. “But I thought?—”
Dallas shut the door, leaving the car running for me. It didn’t take him long. Soon we were back on the road with a glass bottle in a brown bag.
“Okay. You need to explain. How can you be twenty-one years old?” I asked.
He switched lanes. “I played juniors for two years after high school.”
“Junior hockey?”
He nodded.
“Which league?”
“The USHL.” He looked over his shoulder and switched back.
“That’s tier one.”
“I guess so.”
“Which means you’re really good.”
He shrugged. “I haven’t played a game since the season ended last April, so probably not.”
“I don't understand. Usually tier-one hockey players go on to play some level of college hockey. Why aren’t you?”
He parked on an incline and cranked the emergency brake into place.
“Well” I urged.
He didn’t move, just stared down at his hand gripping the stick shift. “Sometimes things don't work out and you have to start down a different path.” He glanced at me. “But then sometimes the new path intersects with the old, and it’s hard to know which path you’re supposed to be on.”
Dallas popped the trunk and got out of the car with the bottle of wine.
Hearing him rummaging in the back, I sat still. Old path. New path. He was really good at speaking in riddles. Especially when it came to preserving his male ego.
I got out and came around the car. Dallas had pulled out a bright orange sled and a blanket.
“We’re going sledding?”
“Maybe. It might be a good way to get down the hill after we’re done seeing the view.”
He put the wine and the blanket in the sled, and we started up the sidewalk. It curved around until we reached some partially cleared steps leading up to the top of the hill. We made it, and embarrassingly enough, I was out of breath. He wasn’t. Now that I thought about it, when we’d gone skating the other day, I hadn’t heard him huff or puff once.
There was a bench at the top of the hill. He brushed it off and laid out the blanket, and we sat down next to each other. He’d been right. The view was incredible.
Tree branches framed the night sky. In the distance, I could see the lighted skyscrapers. Each building had its own shape and size, and observing them like this, all together, I felt small. Insignificant.
“It’s gorgeous,” I said.
