Page 100 of Until We Burn
“Aiya,”Diana suddenly hisses.
I straighten up. “What’s wrong?”
“Andrea just texted me. She wants me to clear out my things from the office tomorrow.”
“I thought her takeover was only temporary?”
“Not to her. She wants me to get it done first thing in the morning,” Diana grumbles. There’s a rustle on the other end. “Ugh, and it’s already 1:30 a.m.”
I pull my phone away to check the time. My shoulders drop when I realize she’s right. “Shit, yeah.” I frown. “If you gotta go, that’s fine?—”
“No, no, I don’t mind staying on. Talking to you helps me panic a little less.”
That dumb smile takes over my face again, and my heart stutters. I’m sinking too deep into this, but I’m too high on her to pull away now.
“You gave me ideas on how to torture Simon and Matthias Valdis, so I also owe you one.”
I go back inside and climb back into my bed. I leave the phone on speaker, adjusting the volume until I can hear Diana without waking the boys. I lay back on the pillow, propping my arm behind my head as I stare at the ceiling.
Diana’s bed sheets rustle in the background. “What do you have planned for tomorrow?”
“Team bonding at nine in the morning. We’re going to do the Grouse Grind.”
“The Grouse Grind?” Diana lets out a breath. “I respect what you do. I really do. At the same time, I don’t knowhowyou do it. Hockey sounds so brutal.”
I shrug. “It can be. But it also gets exciting because you never know what’s going to happen on the ice. One single move made in one split second can change everything. It’s like you’re playing against time and feeling invincible while doing it. There’s no other feeling that comes close to it.”
“Whatwas it like when you started playing it for the first time?”
I close my eyes, smiling lazily in the dark. “It was like sword fighting and flying at the same time. At least, that’s how five-year-old Kai thought about it. I remember I was running around the front yard of my parents’ house with my Uncle Manu in Mo’orea. We thwacked atennis ball back and forth with these brooms and just tried running as fast as we could. At the end of the day, Uncle Manu said, ‘Wait till you try this while gliding on ice.’ He made it sound like the coolest thing in the world…and it was.”
The small bedroom surrounding me fades away, and I slowly feel cold winter air streak across my face as I tell Diana the story of my first skate at the Shipyards. She giggles at the part where I tripped and wiped out Uncle Manu’s ex-girlfriend.
“After that, I begged my parents to let me live with him in Vancouver so that I could play hockey. They agreed back then because their business was taking off and no one back home had a lot of time to look after me. Playing hockey gave me purpose and direction, and Uncle Manu did everything he could to let me keep playing.”
“I really like Uncle Manu,” Diana muses. “He’s fun to talk to.”
“I saw you guys talking after the first game.”
That moment gave me the kind of hope I haven’t felt in a long time. Watching Diana talk and laugh with Uncle Manu while I settled down from the high of winning a game made me feel like I was living the life I’ve always dreamed about.
I know what we have isn’t meant to last. Friends with benefits rarely do. But it’s with Diana that the future I want doesn’t feel completely out of bounds. It grows into a fate that feels secure in my bones the more I think about it.
“Oh, yeah,” Diana chuckles. “Uncle Manu told me an adorable childhood story about you.”
I groan. “He did not.”
“He told me about the time little Kai would bob down the stairs on his ass instead of doing his homework.”
“Traitorous bastard,” I mutter. Diana giggles, making me smile. “In that case, you owe me a childhood story to even the scales.”
Diana scoffs, “I do not.”
“Judging by your reaction, I’m guessing there are tons of them that are probably embarrassing.”
“I—” Diana bursts out laughing.
“What?” My eyes fly open as I beg into the phone, “Come on, tell me!”
