Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

“Cara, should I bring this plaid bathing suit that has holiday vibes or fully embrace the tropics and go with this teal one?” A figure stands opposite me, holding up something. I’m not sleeping nor am I looking in a mirror.

I blink a few times as Ilsa’s question echoes in my mind.

“She hasn’t touched her coffee,” Anna says, a foggy voice beyond my field of vision.

“I think you were right,” Ilsa says.

“Ha! Ten points for Team Anna.” Slippers slap the floor as if she’s doing a victory bounce as the conversation about Team Eggnog and Team White Lights from last night filters back.

Forget the cherry cola. I’m addicted to Pierre.

“Where’d you vanish to while I was whooping Anna’s butt at Life?” Ilsa asks, referring to the board game.

Giving my head a little shake, I take a sip of coffee. “Took a drive. Um, looked at lights.” It’s not a lie if I’m omitting details, is it? I can’t live much longer under the weight of all this deception—with the story I told Dadaszek and keeping things from these two. Knowing my sisters, they’ll get me to crack and confess.

“I vote to bring both. They’re small and will fit in your luggage. The big question is, what’s everyone wearing to the party tonight?” Anna asks.

Like suddenly getting splashed, I wake up. I blink a few times as water drips off my eyelashes.

Ilsa wears a guilty smile. “Oopsie. Got carried away with the sink sprayer hose.”

“There she is, our ray of scholarly sunshine,” Anna says, greeting me now that I’ve come out of my stupor.

“I forgot all about the team Christmas party,” I utter.

“Hmm. Could that be because you’re stressing over whether you got an A on your end-of-term assignment?” Ilsa asks.

“No, she was hoping for an A+,” Anna chirps.

They couldn’t know about the kiss class. Unless triplet telepathy is real and I didn’t get that gene either. There’s no way that they heard Pierre give me a passing grade last night.

“Do I talk in my sleep?” I ask.

Ilsa frowns. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I don’t think so unless it’s a new habit,” Anna says.

There have been several new developments as of late—namely that the line blurs between what’s real and fake with Pierre and me. I fear I’m crossing a line, especially because he’s on my father’s team. Plus, there’s the pesky Frenchman’s reputation, which puts me on guard.

As my sisters discuss their outfits for tonight, my thoughts drift to last night. To how everything about Pierre is manly yet stylish like he stepped out of a men’s magazine. Hard to believe he grew up on a farm when compared to some of the guys around here.

I cautioned myself to be careful around him, given his charm, but he seemed candid last night, especially when he shared about his sheltered life and how becoming a popular hockey player kind of went to his head.

Even though we kept our palms half an inch apart during my lessons, they brushed when he took off my coat, sending a shiver through me. It comes again now.

Anna asks, “Are you cold? Unless Dad runs the wood stove or the fireplace, he keeps this place like an ice box.”

My cheeks turn pink as if I was caught red-handed thinking about Pierre’s hands. They’re calloused, strong, and rough—at odds with the rest of his marble statue-sculpted self. Whatever they have in the water on his farm grew him up good. Yes, I’m admiring him like every other puck bunny.

That’s when I get the idea for how I can keep the division between us clear and our story about how I’m not interested in him intact.

“Ilsa, can I borrow one of your dresses?” I’m looking for something a puck bunny would wear.

“Trying to make Pierre jealous?”

Not exactly, but how did she know it had anything to do with him? I stammer, “Why would I do that?”

Anna refills my coffee. “Because he’s not over you.”

“I saw the way he kept looking for you in the VIP box at the last game,” Ilsa adds.

I counter, “He was probably confused because he saw triple.”

“Do you mean that you didn’t tell him that you’re—?” Anna gestures to the three of us.

I wince because that makes me sound like a bad sister and like they’re not a central part of my life. The truth is I’ve hardly had a chance to tell Pierre anything because this big fabrication is morphing fast like a love potion science experiment gone awry .

Ilsa balances her chin on her fist, elbow on the counter, and looks me dead in the eyes. “What else don’t we know, Cara? Care to share your secrets?”

I’ll tell them everything soon. Dad too. First, I need to transform myself into a puck bunny. Not to make Pierre jealous or even for him to notice me. No, I want to blend in, go incognito . . . and maybe spy a little. See if he gets mobbed by women or brings it on himself.

I shower and groom—exfoliate, shave, pluck, and moisturize—using Ilsa’s fancy Australian products.

Pilfering our shared bathroom, I wear more makeup than I’ve collectively done since prom. Thankfully, my art skills help me with applying concealer, blending in the contouring stick, and dusting my face with powder and blush. I add matching sweeps of eyeliner, mascara, and a festive red lip. Makeup of any sort is well outside my routine, and my sisters are going to be so mad I didn’t let them take part in my makeover.

You don’t need to have spent your life around hockey to know that arenas are cold. Frigid actually. Showing a bit of extra skin sends a shiver through me. In addition to the red dress I borrowed from Isla, I paw through my drawer, looking for a pair of leggings, stockings, anything. Since most of my clothing is in Los Angeles, all that I can come up with are the red and white striped tights I wore senior year in high school for our Christmas Spectacular Spirit Day performance at the Christmas Market.

As I tug them on, this brings to mind how it’s the last year of our town’s market, so I’d better go back to soak it all in before it’s a mere memory. My heart clenches with homesickness even though I’m here. But not for long.

Glancing in the mirror, the red dress and candy cane stripes kind of work. Now for shoes. The pickings are slim, so I scoot to Anna’s closet because our feet are closest in size. Somehow, Ilsa’s are half a size bigger, not that the difference ever helped people tell us apart.

From downstairs, Isla hollers, “We’re heading over to the arena. The last one in is a rotten egg nog .”

She’s not a fan of the seasonal beverage.

I am. So is Pierre. This thought brings me right back to our clandestine class in his apartment. My inner temperature spikes. If I stay this warm, I won’t need a jacket tonight.

Anna yells. “Wait for us.” Feet thunder as she and Cal race across the house.

“I’ll just meet you there,” I call.

Doors slam, a truck starts, and they pull away, leaving me wishing for a Bannanna or a McMann of my own.

After rooting through Anna’s closet, I find a pair of boots that work . . . if I can walk in them. They’re black, have a four-inch heel, and reach the top of my calves with a ring of faux fur.

I take a look at myself in the long mirror at the end of the hallway. The red velvet dress hits mid-thigh and is skin-tight. The tights add a festive flair, and the boots are rather bunny-like. All I need is a cotton tail to complete the outfit.

Driving to the arena with the heat on full blast and wearing my pink jacket, I lament having to leave it in the car. But if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right. Shoulders will be exposed, people!

When I find my sisters and a few family friends along with the Knights’ managerial staff, including Dad’s assistant Helen, who is like a grandmother, the VIP box falls silent except for the announcer welcoming each of the players from above.

“You look—” Ilsa starts.

“Like a Christmas elf.” Anna has on a headband with a mini Christmas tree on top, complete with blinking lights.

“I was going for puck bunny,” I mutter.

Anna holds up a headband with a jaunty green and red elf hat with a bell at the end and floofy pom poms on twisted pipe cleaners and stuffs it over my freshly styled hair.

She says, “I got them for everyone.”

My sister goes suddenly, concerningly still like there’s a bear behind me. I hear a grunt and turn slowly.

“Someone put that elf back on the shelf,” my father mutters, eyes wide with shock or horror. “A sweater, a jersey, anything.” He glances around for an assist, but everyone remains stationary.

I freeze, mortified, well, and I’m super cold.

Ilsa huffs. “Dadaszek, Cara is an adult woman. She can wear a dress to a hockey game if she wants.”

He shields his eyes. “You call that a dress? I’ve never in my life seen her in something so—” He shakes his head, at a loss for words.

“Yes, you have. It’s my dress. I wore it two years ago on Christmas Eve.”

Anna also comes to my defense, “Dadaszek, we’ve gone over this. Just because you want us to go around wearing burlap sacks doesn’t mean we will.”

“I don’t want guys like—” Unable to articulate what he wants to say to us in front of a crowd, my father’s face matches the Christmas stockings strung above the windows overlooking the rink.

Just then, Pierre appears in the doorway to the VIP box, full gear, stick in hand. His gaze locks on me and that chiseled jaw slowly lowers. “Whoa.”

I can’t tell if it’s a double-take style Whoa like Hubba Hubba or a rubbernecker Whoa like what is that hot mess doing in the VIP box? And this is why I’ve never been kissed. I’m an overthinker and a nerd. A lethal combo. I’m the dorky sister. Not the gorgeous and sophisticated one like Ilsa and not the adorable and independent one like Anna .

I’m basically a shrunken Buddy the Elf if he had nearly three collegiate degrees.

With a pair of bullets for eyes, my father stares down Pierre.

“Coach, Vohn wanted me to grab you. Says it’s urgent.”

My father grunts again, puckers his lips like he wants to say something to me, and then turns toward the door. “Kids these days.” Pointing to Pierre, he says, “Arsenault, eyes—and hands—off her.”

If only he knew about the first Kiss Class.

“Good luck!” I holler.

The room is relatively quiet after that scene.

I mutter, “That’s not how I meant for that to go.”

Nope. My plan has been foiled because not only did Pierre see me in my bunny elf costume—which, let’s be real, I look more like a clown—my father simultaneously insulted and infuriated me.

As soon as he’s down the hall, I enact plan B. Slightly flustered, Dadaszek’s assistant Helen proffers an apologetic smile.

Not giving myself a moment to talk myself out of what I’m about to do, I take a page from Ilsa’s book and ask, “Is that the new mascot?”

Helen turns, and from her black blazer, I discreetly unclip her ID badge with a bar code that grants employees access to otherwise secure doors. No sense in stopping now. Just heap on the coal for Christmas.

“Looks the same to me,” she says.

I smile. “I guess it’s been a while.”

Hurrying toward the locker room, I dip into the gear supply closet, waiting for the buzzer to signal the start of the period. When I’m in the clear, I sneak across the hallway and slide into the locker room just as so many puck bunnies used to do, snagging their favorite player’s jerseys .

The story goes like this, when I was a kid, the Knights were a little looser, a little wild, you might say. When my sisters and I started to reach maturity—around the same time the burlap sack suggestion was made—my father started to encourage the team to be more family-oriented, to settle down, and to commit. It took half a decade with player turnover, but not only is there less puck bunny player drama, the team is a well-oiled machine and the top in the league.

But before that, the tradition was a puck bunny would sneak into the locker room, nab the jersey of the player she had her eyes on, and wear it during the game with the prospect of a post-win meetup.

I’m on a slightly different but adjacent mission.

When I find the locker marked Arsenault , I peer around, making sure that I’m alone. It opens with a squeak. Inside, I find exactly what I’m looking for.

When I pull the sweater over my head, I inhale Pierre’s cinnamon spice scent. As I make my return to the box, head held high, I’ll be sending a message loud and clear. It will go something like this:

Me: ’Fit check? Is this better than a burlap sack?

Dad: Grunt, grumble, groan.

Pierre: Let’s meet for Kiss Class, lesson two.

Back in the VIP box, my sisters each give me a quizzical look like they might soon invest in a stylist for me, given the ugliness of the sweater, but with the candy cane tights and the headband, it kind of works, if one of Santa’s elves drank spiked eggnog. To be clear, I haven’t, but kissing Pierre is intoxicating.