Winging It (11 page)

Chapter Twenty

Toby

I was going crazy. I’d been okay at afternoon practice, just working my ass off and trying not to think, and after we got off the ice I did extra weights and some time on the bike to keep the distraction going. But Coach eventually kicked me out and told me to go home, and that was when things got bad.

With nothing else to occupy my brain, I showered and then fell into bed, trying to will myself to sleep while being tortured by images of Nat and Scott, together. Riding in the fucking Mustang, his hand straying over from the gearshift to her knee and then up to her thigh. Yeah, fine, it was a familiar move because I’d imagined myself making it quite a few times over the last couple weeks, but I’d never had the guts. I hadn’t wanted to risk what I had with Nat by trying to turn it into something more.

But Scott wouldn’t be risking anything, because he didn’t actually care. If Nat pulled away from
him
, he’d laugh it off. If she pulled away from me?

No, I’d been right not to take the chance. Except by not acting, I’d left myself open to this nightmare. Maybe they were already at the house. I’d never been to his dad’s place in the city, but I’d seen pictures and I knew it was nice. Nat was probably sleeping in one of those big four-poster beds, maybe with a canopy and gauzy curtains, and she wouldn’t really see Scott when he came into the room, but she’d hear him, and she’d push the covers aside—

I bashed my head back into my pillows, hard, about five times. It was enough to get that particular image out of my brain, but I knew there’d be more.

My phone buzzed the text message noise from the bedside table, and I grabbed at it so violently I just about fell out of bed. But when I looked at the screen, Dawn’s name showed up, not Nat’s.

U okay?
she asked.

I should have been stoic and manly, but this was Dawn. She knew me too well. So I typed back:
I’m going crazy.

So what are u going to do about it?

I stared at the phone. Was there something I could do? Something other than trying to give myself a pillow-concussion?
Should I drive down there?

Like Mr. Darcy, galloping off to Lizzy’s house after she told off his aunt?

I really should have been more careful about replacing her bookmark in the right place. But that was an issue for another time.
Maybe?
I texted back.

Sure is 2 bad there’s not some way to talk over long distances without actually traveling. Sure wld b convenient if we had magical boxes we cld talk into.

I frowned.
I should call her? What would I say?

You must tell her how ardently you love and admire her.

I don’t think you’re taking this as seriously as you should be.

My phone rang then, startling me into almost dropping it. Dawn’s familiar tone. “You wanted to make fun of me more directly, instead of by text?” I said when I answered.

“I wanted to tell you to pull your head out of your ass.
I’m
not taking this as seriously as I should be?” She snorted, and it was a sound I knew well enough that I could picture her face as she made it. “You’re the one who’s not taking it seriously! The girl you love—”

“Whoa! We’re not talking about love here!”

A long-suffering sigh, and then she spoke more slowly. “The girl you like very, very much has just gone on a road trip with your evil cousin. And you let it happen!”

“You think I should have stopped her? What, I should have wrecked that chance for her, and tried to keep her from going to the practice? Or I should have skipped out on my own commitments to the team and driven her down myself?”

“You should have told her how you felt before she left, Toby! She’s going into this half-half blind. She knows Scott’s interested, and she mostly knows
why
he’s interested, but between her being clueless and you being secretive, she has no idea that you like her. So she doesn’t even know she has a choice.”

“And if she knew?” I asked quietly. “You really think it would make a difference?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe she’d dump Scott and come running back to you.” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe she’d choose Scott anyway. Oh, Tobe, is that what you’re thinking? She’d choose him anyway, and then you wouldn’t have just
pretend
lost to him, you’d have
really
lost. Lost your girl
and
lost your pride.”

“Please don’t take this back to Jane Austen,” I said, suddenly exhausted.

She went on as if she hadn’t heard me. “Don’t you have to take the chance, though? I mean, sure, it’s a risk. I get that. But if you don’t try, aren’t you just going to be wondering what would have happened for, I don’t know, maybe forever? Like, you’ll be eighty years old, sitting in your rocking chair and wondering how your life could have been different if you’d told Natalie West that you lo— that you really, really liked her. Do you think that might happen?”

“Jesus, Dawn, I was going crazy
before
you called. You really think I needed the extra pressure?”

“Well, yeah, maybe, if extra pressure is what it’s going to take to get you to actually
do
something.”

I was quiet for a second, trying to let my brain stop spinning. And once it finally slowed down, it settled on a detail that wasn’t completely related to me and Nat but seemed like it might be important anyway. “Hey, Dawn?”

It was her turn to sound a little cautious. “What?”

“How come you’re doing this? I mean, you and me didn’t talk for months after we broke up, and then you finally call off the shunning because you want to fix me up with someone? What’s going on? Is this, like, a power-trip thing—it’s okay for me to move on as long as you’re the one who says who I move on with? Or is there something else?”

It took her so long to answer that I thought she might have hung up, but finally she said, “I don’t know. Maybe the power trip—I mean, I’d call it something else, probably, like ‘reasserting my autonomy’ or something. But that’s all. Or maybe—I don’t know, Coop. I care about you. You know? I mean, don’t get your hopes up! We are
not
getting back together. I don’t want that at all.”

There had been a time when I would have felt like I had to jump in and make it clear that I didn’t want it, either. Our breakup had been mutual, but for a while we’d each gone pretty far out of our way to make it crystal clear just how happy we were about the whole thing. But that time was over, so I kept my mouth shut, and she continued.

“You’re a good guy. I like you, and you were a big part of my life for a long time and I want you to be happy. And I think Natalie could make you happy. So…that’s all, I think.”

“Completely all?” I prompted. She knew me pretty well, but it wasn’t like she was a total mystery to me, either.

She sighed. “Maybe also I’d like you to hook up with someone just to make it clear to the whole world that you and I are absolutely over. I mean, I’ve heard about your puck bunnies—there were a few people who were
more
than happy to tell me about who you left parties with—but I mean more than a hookup. It’d be easier for me if you had a real girlfriend. Just in the past couple weeks, with everyone thinking you’re dating Natalie, it’s like I’m allowed to exist again. I’m not just sitting on the shelf waiting to get picked up again if you change your mind. I’m out there, and guys are talking to me and even flirting with me, and I like it.”

“I never said anything to keep guys away from you,” I said quickly.

“Come on, Cooper. You don’t
have
to say anything, not in this town. You know that.”

I guessed I did. “You heard from schools yet? For next year?”

She sounded a bit more upbeat at the idea of getting the hell out of Corrigan Falls. “Not yet. Fingers crossed for McGill, obviously. A whole city full of sexy French men who have never heard of Toby Cooper or the Corrigan Falls Raiders? It’s going to be
très bien
!”

“So do you regret it?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth,
I
was the one who regretted it. Not the relationship, but asking the question. “Going out with me for so long? It was a bad thing?”

“No, Coop. It was good. But now it’s over, and it’s time to move on. You know? We can’t just live in the past—we have to look to the future. We have to find the
next
excellent thing.” A pause, and then she said, “Which, in your case, might just be Natalie West. Right? She’s pretty excellent, isn’t she? Maybe even awesome?”

I sighed. “She’s okay, I guess.”

Dawn laughed. “Okay, tough guy. She’s tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt you?”

“Of course I have no idea where those words came from.”

“Of course,” she agreed charitably. “So, you’re going to call her?”

“I don’t know. I guess. Maybe.”

“Don’t be a baby, Coop. Do it.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” I said and ended the call.

Nat. She was three hours away by car, but I had a device in my hands that would connect me with her instantly. If I had the guts to use it, and if she wasn’t already involved in something that would make her not want to pick up the phone.

Damn. That mental image was enough to have me tapping the screen, and by the time I’d come to my senses and realized I had no idea what I was going to say, the phone was already ringing at the other end. Even if I hung up, she’d know I’d called.

“Toby?” she said, and her voice sounded kind of blurry. Hopefully from sleep, not because she’d been—never mind!

“Hey, Nat. Sorry if I woke you. I just wanted to wish you good luck. Tomorrow, I mean. At the practice.”

“Oh. Thanks. I mean, I think you already did that, before I left home, but thanks again. For setting it up, too.”

“No problem.” And that was when I should have led into a Dawn-approved topic. But instead I said, “Things have been going okay? Scott’s being—I don’t know, he’s being as non-asshole-y as possible?”

“He’s really not a bad guy, Toby.” Her voice was soft, still a bit sleepy, maybe, but with something else that I didn’t want to think about too much. “I mean, what do you know about him and his dad? About how they get along? He always puts a brave face on things, but I don’t think he bounces back and forth between Toronto and Corrigan Falls because he’s, like, savoring the best that both places offer. I met his dad tonight, just for a second, and he was—he was not nice to Scott. Not at all.”

This was the last thing we should be talking about. I should have gotten Dawn to write me a script or something. “Yeah? I don’t know. His dad’s always been a bit of a jerk, I guess. I mean, none of the family can stand him, but that’s mostly because he dumped my aunt for a younger woman.”

“That’s what I’m saying, though. I think he kind of dumped Scott, too.”

I didn’t want to be hearing this. “So that makes it okay for Scott to try to steal my girlfriends?”

“Not okay, no. But—have the two of you
ever
gotten along? Like, did you used to be friendly when you were kids? He showed me some pictures he has of the two of you playing around when you were younger, all covered in mud and grinning like little maniacs. You looked pretty happy with each other then.”

What could I say to that? “Yeah, I guess we used to be fine, before he decided to start trying to steal my life.”

“And when did that start?” she asked, her voice so calm and level I might as well have been talking to Dawn.

I groaned. “About the time his parents divorced, I guess.”

“Huh. He had a cousin about his age whose parents were still happy together, and he got a bit jealous? That’s…totally natural, isn’t it?”

“Okay, his shit has gone beyond being a bit jealous, Nat. He’s a dick.”

“He’s being really nice to me,” she said softly. “I know I’ve been kind of…clueless, I guess. I mean, I had a crush on him, so I ignored his bad behavior. I know I did that. But I’m getting to know him better, Toby, and he’s honestly not a bad guy. I really like him. For real.”

And, yeah, that was about the point that my stomach got so tight I thought I might throw up. I’d made this call so I could confess
my
true feelings, and instead I was getting hers. And she was sharing them with me because, of course, I was just Toby. Just some guy she’d used to get to the guy she really wanted.

“Are you still there?” she asked.

I managed a sort of grunt. And then I took a deep breath. It was time to rip the bandage off fast, not drag it out slowly. “The two weeks is almost up,” I said. My voice sounded fairly normal, at least to my ear. “Our fake dating time. You want to call it off now? Clean break, you can tell Mr. Wonderful you’re available, and we can both move on?”

“Oh,” she said. She sounded kind of startled.

“I can still help you with hockey,” I said quickly. I wasn’t going to hold that over her head, wasn’t going to try to bribe her into something she didn’t really want. “I mean, you don’t need that much from me, really, and pretty soon the team’s going to be in playoffs, so we won’t have time for extra skating or whatever, but if you need something you can let me know and I’ll do what I can to help out. Okay? But it’s probably time to let go of the fake dating?”

“You’ve been really great,” she said. “I mean, you’ve done more than we agreed to, and I know it hasn’t been easy for you. I totally appreciate it. But the two weeks is up, what, day after tomorrow? Can we wait until then? We could break up at school, if that’s okay—make it a bit public.” She stopped, then made a weird sound, something that sounded like a laugh mixed with something else. “Wow. It almost feels real. But of course it isn’t. It never has been. So, yeah. Good. It’s over. Thank you, Toby. You were a real friend. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

And that was that. A few more empty words, and then the call was over. I lay there in bed, staring at the ceiling, my fingers still wrapped around the stupid phone that had let me charge into that shit show of a conversation. Less than thirty-six hours and Nat and I would be over. We’d never really existed, of course, but even that pale shadow of a relationship, that friendship pretending to be something more, would be gone. Nat was in Toronto with Scott, and I was alone in Corrigan Falls, staring at the ceiling, with a gnawing, aching pit in my core.