Pinkie Promise (Carter Ridge Book 1)

I spend Wednesday on the couch, huddled under a fuzzy purple blanket with my laptop balancing on my belly. I have my hoodie drawn up over my head and the sleeves pulled down so that only the tips of my fingers are visible. They’re a sparkly lilac blur as I tap away at the keys.

I’m more than a little amazed that my thesis supervisor, Dr. Sloane, emailed me this morning with her first run-through of my initial thesis draft. What with it only being the very start of November I hadn’t expected her to be so prompt, especially when she has twelve other senior students that she’s supervising this year. She told me that I’m her only student who has completed their first draft, a fact which was so gratifying that it motivated me to get halfway through my second draft too. Then I spent the time after my thesis-blitz trying to find every potentially relevant document that may be of use to Dr. Ward – the professor who’s going to be my grant referee – seeing as I got an email from her at crazy o’clock in the morning asking me to re-send the grant documentation because she couldn’t find my previous email in her inbox.

Her recommendation only needs to be between one-hundred and three-hundred words long, so I’m surprised that she hasn’t rattled out something easy and generic instead of asking me for further details. As I send her the documents a nervous tremor surfaces in my stomach, thinking back to what Connell said when I mentioned that she was my reference of choice.

I mean, it’s only been a month since she told me that she would be my referee and she will have obviously been very busy, but then I think about someone like my supervisor who is getting back to me weeks ahead of schedule, and suddenly I’m wondering if maybe I did pick the wrong faculty member for my grant submission.

I log out of the college server and then treat myself to a peek at my manuscript. I scroll through the chapters, rereading bits here and there, and then when I get to the part that I’m now up to I drum my nails against the keys, wondering if any words will come.

I type slowly, cautiously, for the next half an hour, pausing every now and then for a sip from my Baby Yoda mug.

I write a little over the next forty-five minutes, and then I get a text from Aisling and I put my laptop aside.

AISLING: Where are you? We have cheer, like, five minutes ago.

When I look at the time I realise that it’s way later than I originally thought.

So yeah, I’m skipping cheer, but it’s only because I’m no longer on the squad. When I remind Aisling of this she instantly responds with:

AISLING: Participating in Nationals isn’t the only reason to be a cheerleader – we aren’t just a comp team, remember? We have an events squad too… 😉

I slowly sit upright because she’s being alluringly suspicious, making my heart beat a little faster in my chest. Why else would I come to training if I wasn’t flyering at Nationals?

Is there a chance that I can still spend my senior year doing cheer, even if it isn’t with the comp team?

AISLING: Get your tush over here now, Fallon!

I grin, grab my things and bolt out of the door.

*

I scooch my way along the plastic seats, looking for the one that corresponds to my wristband, and when I realise how close to the rink I am my cheeks go a little pink.

I’m practically on the ice. In fact, I think that I’m actually in the sin bin. I’ve never been to a hockey game before so I wasn’t sure what to expect but, just in case, I’ve dressed for Antarctica. Giant scarf, knit jumper, thick woolly tights. I huddle the scarf around my face and slouch further into my seat, slow-chewing my way down a candy cable while I anxiously wait for the players to appear.

The lights go down, the music goes up, and after a five minute countdown both teams are flying onto the ice.

I thought that it might be difficult to determine which player is which but Hunter’s body is so big that he’s impossible not to notice. Hunter begins stretching out his thighs, warming up for the first period, and the second that he sees me he gives me a heart-stopping smile.

I glance over my shoulder to check that he isn’t smiling at someone else and when I turn back to look at him his grin gets even bigger. Then he slaps down the shield at the front of his helmet and slides around to face his team so that they can have a quick pre-game discussion.

With the large expanse of his back facing me I see the name WILDE written across it in bold red capitals.

I don’t take a breath for the entire game.

Hunter is fast, ruthless, and borderline brutal. He hits the puck so hard into the back of the net that the severe strike reverberates down to my core.

If I wasn’t so amazed I think I would be terrified.

Hunter gets sent to the sin bin on one obvious occasion and I’m pretty sure that he did it on purpose, mainly because when he shoved into a guy with the thick swell of his shoulder the puck was literally on the other side of the rink. As soon as he’s in the sin bin he knocks on the board in front of me and, panting hard, he gives me a once-over and a wink.

“Oh my God,” I whisper, trying to cover my crimson cheeks with my scarf.

“What do you think?” he calls to me, smirking like a total hotshot.

“Hunter, do not tell me that you just got sent into the sin bin so that you could come and talk to me right now.”

He smiles sheepishly at his gloves, his cheeks almost as red as mine. “We’re already winning, Fallon. Wanted to make sure you were having a good time.”

Something warm and painful tightens in my chest. When he looks up at me from under his beautiful black lashes I can’t help but give him a small lip-biting smile, because I simply cannot believe that he just did that for me.

When the final whistle is blown and Carter U’s team has finished celebrating their win, Hunter pulls away from the group and quickly skims the ice over to me. Now that the game is over his movements are light and graceful.

He swerves to an easy stop in front of the sin bin and leans a palm on the board, his other hand gripping his helmet so that he can pull it over his head.

His hair is dark and sweaty, and his cheeks are flushed.

“Hey,” he rasps, excitement and adrenaline making him breathless. His voice is low and muffled on the other side of the glass. “I’m gonna be five minutes in the showers. Can we talk after? Can I meet up with you outside?”

I nod up at him and he breathes a sigh of relief, shaking out his hair and then doing a nod of his own. I make my way slowly out of the sports building, not wanting to wait outside in the cold, but just as I’m about to breach the back exit I hear footfalls pounding behind me down the long corridor.

“Hey,” Hunter pants, catching up to me in a matter of strides.

He must have been less than three minutes in the locker room and, from one glance at him, I can tell why. His hair is now drenched and his clothes are only half on. His jeans are unbuttoned and his shirt is clinging wetly to his abs.

When we get outside we keep to the side of the building, and I rest against the wall as Hunter tosses his gym bag onto the blacktop. I watch in wide-eyed disbelief as he positions himself in front of me, pulling up the zipper on his pants and then leashing a belt through the loops.

As he feeds the tongue through the buckle he glances at me from under his lashes. His chest heaves in quick weighty pumps as he explains, “Didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

Don’t mind me. I let out a little laugh, cross my legs, and squeeze.

“What did you think?” he asks, crouching down slightly in front of me so that he can grab a hoodie from his bag. He has a hopeful smile tugging at his mouth which makes something warm and fuzzy tingle in my belly.

“It was… fast,” I tell him honestly, and a low laugh rumbles out of him.

“That a good thing?” he asks, pulling the jumper roughly over his head. He flashes me a dark inch of happy trail in the process and I’m suddenly very lightheaded.

“Uh, yeah,” I squeak. “Although I think that I missed every single goal. And it was… more rough than I expected. Like, you had blood on you at one point.”

Hunter nods down at me, gauging my reactions cautiously. “Yeah,” he says, like he knew that there was blood. Like he thinks that that’s normal. “Wasn’t my blood though,” he shrugs, and I choke out a small laugh.

Hunter laughs at my reaction and gives me a guilty smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that to freak you out. Hockey’s rough, that’s why I tried to ease up today.” When I blink at him, not fully understanding what he means, he clarifies by saying, “That’s why I played gentle tonight.”

“That was you… playing gentle?” I ask hoarsely.

Hunter drops his head and smiles, gripping at the back of his neck.

“I, uh, I usually get sent to the sin bin a lot. Only needed to stop by once tonight.” He grins down at me and I can’t help but return the smile.

“Oh, I just remembered,” I say quickly, grabbing the jumper that he leant to me at the car wash from my bag and holding it out to him. “Thank you for letting me… use your jumper.”

Hunter looks down at it with a frown, his hands stuffed resolutely in his pockets. “You can keep it,” he says, gruff and succinct.

I look up at him from under my lashes, almost shivering at the intensity in his eyes. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly. It gets… cold in Carter Ridge. You might need it.”

He gestures to his hoodie and says, “I’m covered, Fallon.”

“Hunter,” I argue, willing him to take it.

And not because I want him to. I want him to take it back because I don’t want him to. Hunter wanting me to wear his soft hockey jumper just feels so intimate, and the sparkly feeling in my belly is scaring me down to my toes.

He swipes his tongue over his lower lip, studying me for a moment. Then he seems to make some sort of decision and nods, tentatively retrieving the garment.

He grins at me when my fingers cling onto it for a millisecond too long.

“Okay, I’ll take it back,” he says slowly, giving me a lazy smile as he stashes the jumper into his bag. “Guess I’ll just have to find another excuse to give it to you again.”

I breathe out a dazzled laugh as the door to my left slams open, and a hoard of hockey guys come pouring out of the building. They’re Hunter’s teammates, and a few of them give him quick jerks of their chins or hold up their phones as if to say we have plans, remember? Hunter’s friend Tanner catches my eyes and I swear that he looks a little hurt. Then I remember the fact that he clearly wanted Aisling to come to the game with me – hence the extra wristband – and suddenly I feel bad for him.

There’s no way in hell that I’m going to tell him that the reason why she couldn’t come is because she was spending time with her boyfriend, but maybe if he stops by my new job at the diner again I’ll give him a to-go coffee as my treat.

Hunter waits a beat so that we’re no longer directly in the eye-line of his entire ice hockey team and then he takes a step towards me, propping a forearm on the wall above my head.

To my surprise he looks as nervous as I feel. His cheeks are slightly red and his eyes are down on our feet. The small crease between his brows tells me that he’s having a complicated internal conversation with himself right now.

I give his boot a little nudge and his head snaps up, eyes burning.

“Sorry,” he grunts, shoving his free hand through his hair. “I know I’m holding you up from, uh, a cheer social or something.”

It’s actually very sweet of him to assume that I have a social life. Since being benched from the comp squad I haven’t really been going out, although, after what Aisling told me yesterday, my cheer career may be about to take a new direction.

Hunter quietly clears his throat before he finally asks, “Wanna go out with me sometime?”

The toes of our boots are still touching. Nothing in the world could stop me from smiling right now.

But before I can answer him one of his teammates calls over from the lot, “Yo Cap, come on!”

Hunter’s eyes remain on mine for a good five seconds before he glances over his shoulder and precisely mouths the words fuck off.

I laugh out loud and Hunter flashes me his handsome smile.

I feel giddy and excited for the first time all term. I feel the way that you’re supposed to feel at college. Maybe meeting Hunter was exactly what I needed.

Maybe I don’t mind taking a few falls if where I land leads me to him.

So I tuck a curl behind my ear and ask, “What did you have in mind?”