The rest of December flies by. Before I know it, the holidays are upon us, and I’m rewarded with three weeks of downtime, family time, and stuffing-my-face-full-of-holiday-treats time.
I’m spending the break with my dad, but I’ll be in Connecticut with Dean for the first two days. His family is heading to St. Bart’s for a couple of weeks, so this is my only chance to see him until he gets back, at which point he’ll join me in New York for our last three days of freedom.
Dean had asked me to go to the island with him, but as much as I hate turning down a free trip to paradise, I’d rather be in Brooklyn. Who knows where I’ll end up after I graduate—I need to take advantage of every second I have with my dad.
Still, I can’t say I’m not bummed when I have to leave Connecticut. Although Dean had told me his parents were cool, laidback peeps, a part of me had doubted it. I mean, they’re filthy-rich lawyers who own three houses. Hell, maybe more than three. Dean doesn’t have a bragging bone in his body, so for all I know, his family has a house in every country on the globe.
You’d never know it just by looking at them, though. Dean’s mom wore jeans and a flannel shirt the whole time I was in Greenwich, confessing to me that her favorite thing about having time off is ditching the business attire she wears to the firm. Her name is Lori, and apparently she kept her maiden name and practices law as Lori Heyward.
Dean’s dad, Peter, is equally easygoing. He did some paperwork in his office every morning, but for the most part, he spent all his time with his kids, going skiing with Summer, playing two-on-one hockey with his sons on the outdoor rink behind their mansion. Yep, they have their own skating rink.
Dean’s brother Nick is one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He brought his new girlfriend, a lawyer at another firm, and though she was uptight at first, she was sweet once I got to know her.
And Summer…well, she’s just Summer. No filters, larger than life, contagious laughter. Sometimes I think I love Dean’s sister more than I love him.
As sad as I am to say goodbye to the Heyward-Di Laurentises, I’m excited to see my dad. I decide to splurge and take a cab from Greenwich to Brooklyn, and it’s late afternoon when I roll my huge suitcase into the front entryway and call out for my father.
I find him in the living room, wearing sweats and reading a book called The Physics of Hockey. He greets me with an indulgent smile, then fusses and gripes as I kiss his cheek and hammer him with questions about how he’s feeling. He finally cuts me off to ask about my visit to Connecticut. When I reveal what an amazing time it was, he looks slightly disappointed, which makes me frown.
We speak on the phone a couple times a week, so he’s already aware I’m dating Dean, but he’s been surprisingly tight-lipped about it. After I told him, he simply grunted and hasn’t commented on the relationship since.
He comments now.
“He’s not long-term, AJ,” Dad says with a tired sigh. “I hope you know that.”
The blunt words sting. I mean, it’s not like Dean and I are planning to mail out save-the-dates next week, but I don’t envision us breaking up anytime soon. We’re twenty-two. We’re in love. Going forward might be tough, what with me in LA or New York, and Dean in Cambridge for the next two years, but I’m certain we can make it work if we try hard at it. And once Dean finishes law school, he’ll be able to practice law wherever he wants. Wherever I am. We haven’t discussed it, but Dean hasn’t given me any indication he wants to break up after graduation.
“He could be,” I say quietly. “Long-term, I mean.”
Dad gives an adamant shake of his head. “He’s not.” His voice loses some of its hard edges. “Do you want to know the most important thing I learned after eighteen years with your mom?”
I sit on the couch beside him and wait for him to continue.
“Relationships are a fucking pain in the ass sometimes.”
I have to laugh. “Mom told me the same thing.” The thought of the last conversation I had with my mother brings an ache to my heart. “She told me you guys had problems at one point in your marriage,” I confess. I’ve never discussed this with him before. Mom had been open about their struggles, though. Not in detail, but she did make sure I knew how hard they’d worked on their marriage.
“We did,” he confirms in a pained voice. “It was the traveling. Eva gave up modeling after you were born, so she was always at home. And I was always on the road.” He gives me a fierce look. “I never touched another woman, AJ. That’s not what our issues were about.”
“I know.”
“It was goddamn hard. The long separations. The brief phone calls. I’d come home and we’d feel like strangers, have to get to know each other all over again. It took a lot of effort to work through that.” Agony flashes in his eyes. “Then she got sick, and it got even harder.”
A lump forms in my throat. I was twelve when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I remember begging to go with them whenever Dad drove her to chemo. They never let me, and on the days where the side effects were too debilitating, when her skin was grayer than ash and she was vomiting so violently she’d cracked a rib, they would send me to my aunt in Queens. They hadn’t wanted me to see her like that. But I saw enough.
“Dean…” My father clears his throat, shifting the subject again. “I know men like him. They aren’t equipped to handle the big stuff. The life-changing setbacks. The game-changers. If you—God forbid—got sick? Or injured? Or if a recession descends on this country and bankrupts your man’s empire?” A disdainful note bites into his tone. “He’d fall apart like a cheap tent.”
“That’s not true,” I protest. “Dean is a good man. And he’s good to me. Good for me.”
“You’re fooling yourself, AJ. Yes, he’s good to you—now. He lives a perfect life. He pays other people to clean up his messes. And as long as everything keeps going his way, he’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you. But if shit goes south? He’ll be gone. He won’t stand by you, because that would entail stepping out of his perfect bubble, letting the ugly stuff in. That boy doesn’t do ugly.”
“You’re wrong,” I whisper.
He curses. “Christ, it makes me sick to say this to you, sweetheart. You think I like seeing that hurt look on your face? Rips me apart, AJ. But I want you to be prepared for when it happens.” Dad lets out a resigned breath. “Mark my words. You won’t be able to count on him. Better wrap your head around that now, before it’s too late.”
*
I don’t allow my father’s warning—and his completely unjustified opinion of Dean—to ruin the holiday for us. I get it. He’s worried. He doesn’t want me to suffer another broken heart. And I can’t even get pissed about the blunt way he’d presented his case, because blunt is my dad’s middle name.
But he’s wrong. Dean would be there for me if I needed him. He already has, rushing to my dorm the night Sean’s verbal attack ripped me to shreds. So I’m choosing not to second-guess the relationship I’m receiving so much joy from, and forcing myself to enjoy the rest of the break.
I spend Christmas Eve, which also happens to be my birthday, at home with my dad. We watch It’s a Wonderful Life, as we always do, and I bawl my eyes out, as I always do. Then we drink hot chocolate and he gives me the same present he always does—three hundred bucks, with a scribbled note telling me to buy myself something pretty. Dad sucks at gift giving. I don’t care, because I already got the only gift I wanted: my father, as healthy as he can be at the moment, alive and here with me.
A few days later, Dean is back from St. Bart’s, looking tanned and relaxed as he picks me up at the brownstone. I’m surprised he chose to drive, since it would’ve been easier for me to hop the train and meet him in the city, but when I question him, he just grins and says, “We’re not going to Manhattan. I have a birthday surprise for you.”
“You already gave me a birthday surprise,” I remind him. He totally had too—a call from St. Bart’s and the hottest phone sex I’ve ever had in my life. I made so much noise when I was coming I had to thank my lucky stars that my dad is a heavy sleeper.
“This one is even better,” Dean promises, and then he plants a quick kiss on my lips and pulls away from the curb. “I missed you.”
I can’t fight a goofy smile. “I missed you.”
Winking, he reaches for my hand and places it directly on his crotch. Which is sporting a noticeable semi. “Little Dean missed you too.”
“I can see that.”
I rub the growing bulge, and he groans. “Keep doing that and I’ll shoot in my pants,” he warns.
My smile widens. “Is that a challenge?”
I drag down his zipper and slide my hand inside, curling my fingers around his hard, pulsing shaft. Jeez, he wasn’t kidding. Less than a minute of stroking, and he groans again, clutching the steering wheel in a death grip as he chokes out one word. “Coming.”
I don’t let him ruin his pants, because they’re probably more expensive than my college tuition. Instead, I lower my head and swallow up his release, moaning as his salty, masculine flavor coats my tongue.
“Sweet Jesus,” he mumbles, then reaches out to tenderly stroke my cheek. “I fucking love you, baby.”
“Naah, you just love road head.”
“You.” He stubbornly shakes his head. “I love you.”
Damned if my heart doesn’t soar. I settle back in my seat, gazing out the window as we cross the bridge toward New Jersey. I don’t know where the heck he’s taking me, but I’m happy to let him. I’d follow Dean Di Laurentis to the ends of the earth. To the bowels of a volcano, if he asked me to be the Meg Ryan to his Tom Hanks. To fucking Mordor, if he asked me to be the Sam to his Frodo. To—
“We’re here,” he announces.
I’m jolted out of the most ridiculous train of thought I’ve ever ridden. Dean parks the BMW in front of a small building in what seems to be an industrial area in Newark. I peer through the windshield to read the sign. Then I gasp.
My head whirls toward him. He’s grinning.
“Oh my God. Really?!”
“Yup.” He hops out of the car and rounds the front bumper to open my door. I take the hand he holds out, and I’m practically skipping all the way to the glass double doors. Excitement bubbles inside me. My chest feels hot and gooey, and the thick layer of emotion clinging to my throat makes it difficult to get a single word out.
I look around the front lobby of the dance studio, then meet Dean’s twinkling eyes. “I thought you said you didn’t want to salsa dance. And Dean Di Laurentis only does what he wants, remember?”
He shrugs. “I am doing what I want.”
My eyebrows knit together as I wait for him to clarify.
“I’m making you happy.”
Squish. That’s the noise my heart makes. Because it’s so fucking full of love it can no longer contain it all.
*
Dean
Real life is beckoning. I want to shoo it away and tell it to bother me later, but that’s not the way the world works. As much as I loved lying on the beach with my folks, and catching up with my siblings, and putting a smile on my girlfriend’s face by surprising her with dance lessons, it’s time to snap out of holiday mode and into life mode.
My first week back at campus is busier than ever, as hockey practice, classes, and coaching the Hurricanes eat up most of my time. Luckily, Allie is busy with rehearsals again, so she doesn’t complain that our sex life is pretty much a series of quickies this week.
On Saturday, the team loses another home game. Nobody is even saying the word “playoffs” anymore, because we all know it ain’t happening. Despite that, I keep working one-on-one with Hunter. No matter what happens this season (spoiler alert: nothing will happen), Hunter will still be playing for Briar next year, and hopefully serving as a team leader for the others.
Coach O’Shea, who’s been shockingly pleasant lately, signs off on an hour of extra ice time for us on Sunday night, which Hunter and I make good use of. The solo session goes well, and I drive home from the arena in a good mood. Since I don’t have an early practice tomorrow, Allie’s spending the night and I can’t wait to fuck my girlfriend. Really fuck her. I’m talking three straight hours of balls deep heaven, instead of the hurried trips to the bone zone we’ve been taking all week.
My head is down as I wander into the kitchen. I’m so focused on the task of checking if Allie texted that it takes a second to register that my roommates are sitting around the table. Even Tucker, who’s been AWOL since the new semester started. I don’t even bother teasing him about it anymore. It’s obvious he has a girlfriend. Or maybe a boyfriend? Fuck, he’s so secretive these days that nothing would surprise me.
“What’s up?” I ask absently.
Nobody says a word.
I tuck my phone in my pocket and glance around the table. Their stricken expressions make my heart beat faster.
The moisture I glimpse in Logan’s eyes makes it stop beating altogether.
“What’s going on?” I demand.
The eerie silence drags on. Logan scrubs his fist over his eyes.
Fucking hell. Now I’m worried. No, now I’m scared.
“Seriously, if someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on right this fucking second—”
“Coach called,” Garrett interrupts. His voice is low. Somber.
I wait for him to continue. My hands feel like two blocks of ice. And now they’re starting to shake.
“He just got off the phone with Patrick Deluca, and, uh…”
Okay, this is moving in a direction I didn’t expect. Pat Deluca is the coach of the football team. What the hell would he have to say to Coach Jensen?
Garrett sees my confusion and keeps talking. “I guess Deluca called him because he knows we’re friends with Beau—”
Beau? “This is about Maxwell?” I cut in. “What about him?”
Logan averts his gaze.
So does Tucker.
The only one with the balls to meet my eyes is Garrett, who exhales in a slow, unsteady rush before speaking.
“He…ah…died.”
