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Declan

The glare frohts washed over us as cars pulled in and out of the convenience store parking lot and made us look shady as hell parked up around the side The fact that we even had to go through these hoops annoyed the shit out of us

Sitting at the side of the gas station, aited for Es We’da party at his place with only the liquor his parents had in their fully stocked bar Let’s just say no one wanted that to happen again Top-shelf booze with a group of high school kids with no concept of their alcohol limit… I shuddered asnightmares

Heath leaned against the door in the back seat, staring at his phone He’d been glued to it ever since we left school It was an intensity he didn’t normally have Usually, he was all chilled out and laid back, this was a side of Heath we didn’t see too often Who knehat the hell he was up to

The usual place we ordered our kegs from had been shut down by the liquor control board It e kids, but it really screwed up our plans for this end-of-year rager Finals were finished Letters were signed—for most of us anyway

Our last house party before ere all sent across the country fro local withup to Boston together, naturally, and E Putting things off until the last minute as always

We’d all already been drafted provisionally onto our NHL teae was a four-year-long developram Then there were the intensive sued in the NHL If Archer was there in the summers, I was screwed

I had to ia Plus keepkicked out of college would mean I was screwed if I didn’t hts in Notasshole wanted to try to ruin my life twice

The fear of not being able to hack it burst through more often than it had before This hockey scholarship was the only way I was going to college The only reason I’d made it into Rittenhouse Prep was because ofwas thein my life We’d always be a team, even if ere apart But the pressure was on, and when that happened anywhere other than on the ice, I looked for an escape

“Oh, E our last training session,” Heath said unhelpfully from the back seat

“Travis? Really? That’s fucking cool He’s a legend” Em checked the rearview mirror

And I tried rip and took a deep breath They didn’t know They didn’t need to know that the one and only time I’d seenthrough ot louder

“Don’t you want to meet hi

“No, I don’t want to see hinant, I didn’t want to be saddled with a kid” He stood froh his hair He looked faht have seen him before He was tall Dark hair like mine