Page 50 of The Two of Us

Cat hollers in excitement and I narrow my eyes at Ambrose. I don’t put it past him to purposefully give me the left side, but there’s also no way for me to prove it.

“Stay on your toes, Mouse.” He grins, as he makes his way to the starting point.

I mutter an insult behind his back. Why is he being such a prick?

Cat and I position ourselves in the middle of the lake, bringing together the tips of our hockey sticks. Despite Ambrose’s taunts, excitement hums through me. Out here, it’s just the three of us like it used to be. A little older. A lot changed. But still just us three. Ambrose holds the puck above our heads, counting down from five. Before his mouth has the chance to form around one, a voice calls out from the edge of the woods.

“What do we have going on here?”

Brandon is already making his way onto the ice, the rest of us staring at him in shocked silence. My body stays frozen in place as he stops at my side, his warm lips meeting mine in greeting. They make me feel colder.

I find my voice. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to play.”

“I mean, how did you know I was here?”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “I followed you.”

I feel exposed and embarrassed, too embarrassed to turn toward Ambrose and Cat and see the judgment on their faces.

Ambrose says through clenched teeth, “We already have enough people.”

I steal a glance at Cat and her glare is identical to her brother’s.

Brandon laughs, but it’s condescending. “Well, now that I’m here, there’s four of us. If my math’s correct, that means we could easily do a two on two.”

“Let’s just go back to my house,” I suggest, tugging on his sleeve.

He doesn’t take his eyes off Ambrose. “Come on, man,” he goads. “Look at you. Surely you can’t be intimidated by someone like me.”

To a stranger, it might sound like Brandon is being playful, but I recognized the challenge in his voice. Ambrose hears it too, taking the bait.

“Fine. Cat, you’re with me.”

Ambrose ushers Cat a few feet away to discuss their game plan while I stare at my boyfriend in horror. “Brandon. I toldyou I was hanging out with Cat today.”

He smiles at me, but his words are ice. “I stopped by your house as you were leaving. You left your copy of Wuthering Heights at my place. I just wanted to see where it was you were sneaking off to in the middle of the woods. I wasn’t even going to stay.”

He moves closer to my ear, his whisper harsher than any scream could be. “But then I saw him. It’s suspicious that my girlfriend doesn’t want me to know that she’s hanging around another guy, don’t you think?”

My nose burns at the accusation. “I didn’t even know he was coming! Cat invited him without telling me. I would never lie to you about that.”

“Are you both ready or do you need a room?” Ambrose shouts, walking back our way.

Their approaching bodies are blurry and I quickly rub at my eyes. Ambrose looks from me to Brandon, his jaw locking while Cat’s mouth turns downward.

I clap my mittens together and smile. “Let’s do it! We’re gonna crush you two.”

Not even fifteen minutes pass before I realize that I spoke too soon. Brandon and I don’t crush anything except our dignity. The score is 10-2, much to Ambrose’s satisfaction. What started out as light banter has quickly turned into outright trash talk between the guys and Cat and I take turns rolling our eyes at their testosterone battle. Ambrose even refuses to use his inhaler when he clearly needs it.

Since there are only two hockey sticks, Cat and I let the boys have them and designated ourselves as their defenders, solely utilizing our feet. Brandon snaps at me every few minutes, claiming I’m tripping over my feet too much or getting in his way, while Ambrose and Cat move fluidly around the ice, anticipating each other’s moves.

When the score reaches fifteen for Cat and Ambrose, I throw my arms up in defeat, completely out of breath. I’ll gladly give them the win if it means I can finally go home and defrost myself in a hot bath.

“I concede!” I yell. They’re less than twenty feet away from us, but the winds have picked up, making it difficult to hear.

Brandon makes a disgruntled noise behind me and I turn as he slams the hockey stick onto the ice with shameless anger. A soft crack escapes from where his stick makes contact, causing tiny fracture lines to stretch out toward my boots. In any other situation, the near-quiet breaking might have been a beautiful sight. Mesmerizing, even. But I’m aware of what it means here on this fragile spot of the lake.

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