17. Dylan

Chapter 17

Dylan

Mom used tongs to set a steak on my plate, next to the mashed potatoes and salad. “You still like your steak medium, right?” she asked, sounding too much like a waitress who wanted to make sure she did a good job. She even wore a dress and apron.

“Yes, thank you.” Painful silence followed as she put a steak on Dad’s plate next and then sat across from me and took the last one for herself. Dad had on his uniform, and his hat was resting on the counter behind him. His every muscle seemed tense.

I wondered if we both equally hated this.

Outside, the wind blew lightly, promising rain later that evening, but for now, the sun shone through the back windows. The tree house Shiloh and I used to live in all summer was still tucked into the huge maple tree in the backyard, along with the tire swing we’d hung when we were kids.

I tore my gaze away.

Silverware clinked as we silently ate our late lunch.

Lily had opted out of coming to this torturous Sunday family dinner, claiming that she and Charlie had plans together. I’d never once been jealous of my sister before, but there was always time for firsts.

“How’s Wint—

“What have you been—”

Mom and I both stopped talking, waiting for the other to finish. Dad’s knife scraped too hard against the plate, sending a high-pitched scritch through the room. Mom winced.

I took a bite, hoping she’d take it as a cue to finish asking her question.

“What have you been up to this week?” she asked.

I swallowed down my steak and took a drink of water. “Just getting settled into my apartment. Working out a lot.”

“I heard,” Dad mumbled so quietly, I almost didn’t hear him. I decided to ignore it.

“You and Rosie seemed friendly,” Mom continued, too nonchalant to pass for casual. Dad had stopped staring at his plate and was looking at me now as he slowly chewed.

“Yeah. I like Rosie. A lot.” Should I tell them we were dating? They were going to hear it through the Winterhaven grapevine soon enough, but we weren’t close enough for me to share personal information like that. Instead I went with, “She’s unexpected.”

Dad snorted, and his shoulders seemed to relax the smallest bit as he took another bite of his steak.

Mom cut Dad a look I couldn’t interpret. “Rosie is delightful,” she said firmly.

“A delightful pain in my—” Dad started to say, but he swallowed down his words when he caught both Mom and I glaring at him. He held up his hands like he was a criminal in a pat down. “I genuinely think the world of her.”

I relaxed into my chair, surprised that my immediate reaction had been protectiveness of Rosie.

“It’s her ideas I have a problem with,” he finished.

Mom laughed. “She’s keeping you young. And don’t pretend you don’t come home happy when you have a new Rosie story to tell.”

“The public intoxication one really took the cake,” he said in a gruff tone, but I could see the smile he was hiding behind his hand.

“The what?” I asked.

“After her shift at Icy Asps one night,” Mom said, “Rosie accidentally drank an entire pitcher of hard lemonade, thinking it was regular lemonade.”

“They don’t taste the same,” I said. “At all.”

“She thought it was regular lemonade with a surprise kick,” Mom said.

Dad jumped in to continue. “There was a kick alright. Turns out the gal is a lightweight, and she ended up belting show tunes up and down Main Street after midnight. It disrupted a lot of people’s sleep.”

“So someone called you?” I asked.

“Yep. It was dark, and people didn’t realize it was Rosie. They thought she was a rowdy tourist.”

“And she got in trouble for that? It sounds like an accident,” I said.

Dad paused and looked at me assessingly. “It was. The part she got in trouble for was painting a caricature of me on the side of the library.”

“Wearing his sheriff uniform and picking his nose,” Mom added.

Dad frowned. “It’s not necessary to describe it.”

Oh, but it was. This lunch was definitely taking a positive turn.

“It really was a remarkable likeness, especially given her intoxication level,” Mom continued.

Dad folded his arms. “Being accidentally drunk doesn’t give you a pass for defacing public property or for mistaking a broken chair for—”

Mom cut him off with a stern look, and Dad clammed up. Mistaking a broken chair for what, I wanted to press, but in that silence, awareness of all the things we weren’t talking about flooded back in. I remembered that look—the one that said Mom was shutting down that line of conversation, and it was not going to be opened back up.

“More water?” Mom asked as she topped off my mostly full glass. Things had almost felt normal while we’d been talking about Rosie. Maybe that was the key to having a good relationship with my parents—have it all revolve around Rosie.

We finished the meal with a few painful attempts at conversation around how Mom’s garden was doing, what new book Dad was reading, and how unexpectedly sunny the day was. Things you might discuss with a stranger sitting next to you on a plane.

The relief was palpable when Dad’s phone rang, requesting he come back to the station to take care of a situation involving a couple of teenagers. I hopped up when Dad did, ready to take the opportunity to flee.

We stood at the door, again locked in the uncertainty of if we should hug, high five, shake hands, or maybe do a group thumbs up.

“It’s good to see you,” Mom said. She leaned close like she might hug me but then patted me on the arm.

Disappointment rose and then left just as quickly. “You too, Mom. Thanks for lunch.”

“I’ll give you a ride back into town,” Dad said gruffly. I’d walked the two miles there. Winterhaven was small enough to get away not renting a car. I hopped into his cruiser, cracked the window, and closed my eyes briefly to the sound of birch trees rustling and the wind whistling down the dirt lane.

Some of my stress unwound as I breathed in the familiar scent of pine and maple and was inundated with memories of running around these trees, playing explorer with Shiloh and Hudson, not coming home until just before dark, convinced we’d found shark teeth and arrowheads in our search for treasure.

The silence was broken only by the sound of Dad’s radio going off intermittently. It sounded like some teenagers had broken into one of the vacation cabins on the south side of the island and threw a party. The tension between us rose as the description continued, and I was momentarily thrust back into being a teenager again, my dad busting one of those parties, his red face when he realized I was to blame, throwing me in the back of his cruiser.

Then the long, angry silence all the way to the station.

“Hang on.” Dad frowned as he pulled up in front of Lily’s house and eased to a stop. Her white mailbox was listed to the side at a nearly forty-five degree angle from the ground.

I got out of his cruiser and gulped in the fresh air.

“The daggum wind keeps knocking Lily’s mailbox down.” Dad lifted the mailbox into place, stomped some of the dirt around it, and then tested its side-to-side lilt. “It’s just not stable.”

Claustrophobia clawed at me—the island had me trapped. I needed skates. Ice. Blurred lines. Hockey.

“I’ve got to go—”

“Why didn’t you come home for the burial?” Dad asked abruptly as he stood. His stare felt like two spotlights. I was the criminal, and dad my interrogator as he loomed over me.

I stumbled back a step, then another. Then I started jogging, running, sprinting toward the apartment.

“Wait, Dyl—” I heard the crunch of Dad’s footsteps behind me at first, and then to my relief, they stopped.

But I kept going.

“Whoa, hey,” Rosie said as I nearly bumped into her coming out of Alaska Chic’s back entrance. “Whose chasing you?”

I paused to get my bearings. It hadn’t been a far jog from Lily’s house, but my mind had been in a different place the whole time.

“Are you okay?” She looked at me too closely for comfort.

“I’m fine.”

“Clearly,” she said dryly.

I swallowed. It wasn’t Rosie’s fault I couldn’t play hockey or that I didn’t come home for Shiloh’s funeral. But it felt like me versus this whole town sometimes. How could they understand the decisions I’d made when I couldn’t fully understand them myself?

“You have a few minutes? I have something I want to show you.”

“I have nothing but time.” It sounded more bitter than I intended.

She slipped her hand into mine and locked our fingers together.

I didn’t know why I followed Rosie, except that it was almost like I couldn’t not follow her. And not just because of the tight grip she had on my hand, or because I’d agreed to be her boyfriend. Rosie Forrester made me want to believe in hope again.

She seemed to sense I needed distraction and spent most of our walk talking about some of the strange characters who had come into the shop that morning from the cruise ship, including a family of eight wearing matching tan trench coats—and then the dad singing “The Rose” when he learned Rosie’s name. He ripped off his trench coat at one point to reveal a T-shirt that said Alaskans know how to chill .

“It happens more often than you might think,” she said.

“People ripping off their trench coats?”

“Yes. All the time. It’s like a trench coat strip-club in there.”

“That doesn’t sound disturbing at all.”

“As long as they all have punny t-shirts on underneath, I’m cool with it. Helps pass the time. And the serenade wasn’t as bad as some. He had a smooth baritone.”

I laughed, surprised to realize I didn’t feel quite as bleak as I had moments before. “What about ‘Kissed by a Rose’? Do you get that one a lot?”

“That’s the most popular option when it comes to my name. They all think they’re clever, too, like they’re the first person to make the connection.”

“Is your legal name Rose?”

“Yeah. My brothers started calling me Rosie when I was a baby, and it stuck.”

“Rosie fits.” My breathing was coming easier now, and when I exhaled, it felt like some of the stress from my lunch went with it. How long had Dad been holding onto that question for?

Everyone had to be wondering. I’d been avoiding Hudson’s calls and texts since the funeral, not sure how to face him. Hudson had even been living less than thirty minutes away from me for the last couple of months, taking care of Shiloh’s wife, Amelia, and their daughter Quinn. He was giving me space—something he knew me well enough to know I needed. Or he was avoiding me because I was the tool who skipped his brother’s funeral.

Shiloh would never have missed mine if our roles were reversed.

If only they were reversed.

Rosie’s soft hand squeezed mine and brought me back to the present. We turned onto the dirt road that wound behind the high school and stopped at the old baseball field. Dust was kicked up as people in baseball caps and orange shirts played catch and casually talked with one another. I didn’t recognize most of them, but Charlie spotted me and waved. She’d pulled her hair back into a long ponytail that swung from the back of her hat as she jogged over, her gaze zeroed in on our held hands.

She pulled me into a hug first, then Rosie. “So …” Charlie motioned toward our hands.

“Oh.” Rosie laughed and rested her head on my bicep, bringing her coconut-scented hair closer to my nose. “Charlie, meet Wickham.”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, my gosh. Rosie.”

“He agreed to it.”

“What’s a Wickham?” I asked.

“The rake Elizabeth Bennet falls for,” Rosie said.

Rake? I mouthed to Charlie, who sighed, but was also fighting back a smile.

“Dylan has agreed to help me get Max to notice me. Including teaching me his ways and pretending to be my boyfriend,” Rosie said.

“To make him jealous.” Charlie nodded thoughtfully. “It might work.”

“Exactly,” Rosie said.

“Why anyone would want Max’s attention is another question.” Based on Rosie’s glare, my opinion was not appreciated.

“So what’s going on here?” I motioned to the field, eager to change the topic. Charlie shot a too-knowing glance at me.

“Icy Asps practice,” Rosie said. “We’re playing our rivals next week, so it’s all hands on deck.”

“Especially with Hudson and Bennett both gone for work,” Charlie said grimly.

“Bring it in!” Rosie yelled, and everyone started walking toward them.

“The Icy Asps?” I whispered to Charlie.

“The restaurant sponsors our team.” Charlie straightened her shoulders as her fiancé, Greg, approached, softball in hand.

“Savage,” he said with a tough-guy nod. He dropped a protective arm on Charlie’s shoulder and eyed me like I was competition. Bro, I’m her cousin.

“How’re your shoes?” I asked.

He checked out his new-looking sneakers, confused. Clearly not remembering that we’d stuffed bananas in his shoes for revenge. “I got them from a specialty store. Expensive, but worth it.”

Be nice, Charlie mouthed with a subtle point at me.

I shrugged innocently and bit back my retort for Greg.

Rosie nudged me in the side with her hip and whispered, “She’s usually telling me to be nice. I don’t understand the dig but well done.”

I accepted her high five, which earned us both a glare from Charlie.

“Should we get started?” Greg asked loudly. “Since Bennett’s not here, I’ll act as team captain today.”

That earned a couple of quiet groans that Greg ignored. A few people cast subtle looks at me, but so far no one had thrown rotten food. Maybe because Rosie was stuck tight to my side, protecting me.

When had I started accepting protection from women half my weight? At least the guys on the Peaks couldn’t see me clutching her hand like a kindergartner being dropped off for his first day of school.

“Run around the field ten times and then let’s break into teams.”

“He always makes us do this,” Rosie said with a groan. She dropped my hand to stretch her legs. “The power goes to his head.”

Everyone started in a jog, and she only made it a few steps before she glanced back at me. “Coming?”

I waved my hand. “I can’t play.”

“Only good at hockey?”

Competitiveness rose in me. “I’m good at baseball. I have a contract restriction against playing other sports.”

“We’re just running around the diamond. Are you allowed to do that?”

I knew where this was headed. Rosie was like that old story about the frog in boiling water I was told as a kid. Still, I couldn’t resist the challenge in her stare.

I kept pace with Rosie for the ten laps, and then we gathered near the dugout to listen to Greg be drunk with power. “You playing?” he asked me.

“I’m just here to watch.”

“We’re short a player to cover all the bases.”

I hesitated, which was enough for Rosie.

“Everyone, circle up.” Rosie clapped her hands for her pep talk. “It’s been a tough season, but we’re going to pull through. We have grit. We have spirit. And I have dirt on all of you. You’re all terrible at hiding your dumb decisions.”

Wow. This was the worst pep talk I’d ever heard.

“We’d all like to keep those secret things secret, right? That’s what I thought. So Dylan’s going to play with us, but no one’s going to say anything so he doesn’t get in trouble with the Peaks for breach of contract. Sound good?”

The team nodded warily, shooting glances at me like I was the one who’d blackmailed them.

“Excellent.” She turned to me. “No excuses. You’re on my team. Let’s go. Hands in, everyone!”

Just like everyone else, I put my hand in the circle, and we yelled, “Goooooo Asps!” before we split up. This was Rosie’s world, and we were all just living in it.

Our team was in the outfield first.

The clouds had grown more menacing since lunchtime, and I had a feeling practice was going to get rained on. I enjoyed playing with the team more than I expected. Rosie was a strong catcher and loved to slide to the bases. Not ten minutes into practice and her entire backside was dusty from her slides.

Not that I was looking looking at her backside. They’d put me on second base, which meant I had a real nice view was all.

It didn’t take long for me to get into the game and feel the exhilaration of playing. Since I was a kid, I’d loved playing sports. I’d had a ton of energy, and my parents had put me in every sport Winterhaven had to offer. I’d loved playing most of them, but Shiloh had been gifted in hockey so that’s where he ended up. Hockey was as good a sport as any other, and I’d rather play on Shiloh’s team anyway, so hockey it was.

It had been a long time since I’d played something just for the fun of it.

It was fun to throw a ball again, even if my arm was rusty. I’d never played on a co-ed team before, and this one was all ages—from older teenagers to someone who appeared to be in their seventies.

I kept waiting for the snide, under-the-breath comments about me, but they didn’t come. They were mostly giving me a wide berth, but it wasn’t filled with animosity. Finally, I let my shoulders relax and enjoyed the game.

The other team struck out, so we switched sides to bat.

I was third in line, anticipating batting more than I really should have.

A small group had gathered to watch, which changed the vibe of the practice. Instead of focusing on the game, everyone’s eyes kept darting out to the observers.

Especially Rosie’s. I studied the group and landed on why. Max was there. And Lily. A little kid in a baseball jersey was holding Max’s hand, and two other adults were there as well, chatting.

I waved at Lily, but she either didn’t see it or pretended not to see it. I wasn’t worried about pictures getting back to the GM. First, because I couldn’t picture him getting worked up over a hometown softball scrimmage. And second, this paled in comparison to everything else.

It was Rosie’s turn to bat, and I returned my focus on her.

“She’s almost as good as me,” Greg said, begrudgingly. “Hardly ever misses.”

The pitch flew toward her, and I could see right away that she was going to swing too late.

“Strike one!”

She dropped her arms to the side to shake them out and then got back into position. She looked toward Max again. He was smiling and talking to Lily, but his eyes were on Rosie.

The ball left the pitcher’s hand and this time, Rosie swung way too early.

“Strike two.”

“Just a second,” I said, leaving Greg’s side to jog over to Rosie. I held up my hand to indicate to the pitcher to wait a minute.

“What’s going on?” Rosie held the bat down to the ground.

“I don’t know. That’s what I came to ask you.”

“Nothing. Just having an off day.”

Charlie approached on the other side. “Please tell me this isn’t a Lizzy with mud on her dress situation.”

Rosie blinked, her eyes too wide to be actually innocent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A little mud was an intriguing imperfection that Mr. Darcy couldn’t resist.”

Rosie dropped the innocent act with a huff. “I thought you supported the plan.”

“Not if it means making yourself less. Be an accomplished lady, Rosie,” she pleaded. “Please.”

These two were talking in code. A really weird code.

But I could guess enough based on how Rosie’s gaze drifted to the stands again. “Ignore Maximillian. There’s nothing a guy likes better than to see his girl killin’ it. Trust me.”

“It’s Max,” she grumbled, but her eyes had a spark in them. “And I’m not his girl yet.”

“Yeah, but he’s going to wish you were.”

“Let’s move!” Greg yelled. He tapped his watch.

“I’m just going to back away slowly,” I said.

“Good idea.” Rosie put the bat over her shoulder and zoned in on the pitcher. “Things are about to get real.”