The Graham Effect (Campus Diaries, #1)

You can hear a pin drop in the women’s locker room. The team doctor and EMTs just left, satisfied I’m in no danger of a concussion. Despite what it looked like to the crowd, I didn’t actually hit my head out there—the helmet came off after I already landed on the ice. But the wind was completely knocked out of me. Lying face down, ears ringing and lungs seized, I forgot how to breathe for a moment there.

Now, Ryder sits beside me on the bench, while my parents and brother stand in front of us. Speechless. Now that the doctors are gone, the bomb Ryder dropped before I went down can finally be addressed. There’s no defusing it—that thing went boom the moment he broke the news to my parents. But I’m hoping the fallout of the explosion won’t be too devastating.

I bite my lip in trepidation, waiting for someone to speak.

“G, I love you. You’re my sister. But that’s the most cliché thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I got married in Vegas. That’s so generic I wouldn’t even write a song about it.”

“Wyatt,” Mom warns.

Dad still hasn’t uttered a single word. He’s completely expressionless. Not even anger on his face. Nothing. It’s like staring at a brick wall, a cardboard box, some inanimate object that’s incapable of telling you how it feels.

“Look, I know this is unexpected,” I tell them.

Because it was. Totally and undeniably unexpected.

But not thoughtless.

Despite what my brother thinks, we didn’t do the predictably tacky Vegas elopement. We weren’t married by a jovial Elvis, spurred by alcohol in our veins. We were stone-cold sober. We applied for an after-hours license because, well, that’s possible in Vegas. And then we had an entire night to think about it. To change our minds. We didn’t have to go back to the courthouse the next morning, but we did.

Ryder’s still hovering over me, running an agitated hand over my forehead because he doesn’t believe I didn’t hit my head. It’s cute. I touch his cheek in reassurance, and the moment my fingers connect with his skin, the anxiety leaves his eyes. I have that power over him, and he has the same power over me.

Like the night I sobbed in his arms after Fairlee shot down my dreams like a well-trained sniper and left me bleeding from a bullet to the heart. Bang. Dream dead. Ryder made it better that night. He makes it better every night. And day. And minute.

We make each other better.

“I know everything you’re going to say.” I keep talking when it’s obvious my parents won’t. “You think we’re too young. It’s too fast. But you’re wrong. And yes, I can imagine thousands of stupid, idealistic girls before me saying those exact same words after running off with their boyfriends. Wyatt’s right, it sounds cliché. But Ryder and I aren’t stupid.” I shrug. “And in case you’re just joining the party, neither of us has an idealistic bone between us.”

My brother snorts softly.

“We know exactly what we’re getting into. It’s not going to be perfect. We’re going to run into issues. Life’s going to hit us hard from all directions, all the time. But we’re choosing to do life together. We went into this with our eyes wide open.”

I notice a sheen of tears clinging to Mom’s eyelashes, and for a moment I revert into a little kid.

“Please don’t be mad at me,” I beg her, but deep down I know even if she stays mad forever, that’s just something I will have to deal with.

I’ve made my choice. He’s it.

Mom walks over and sits on my other side, putting her arm around me. “No, I’m not mad. I’m glad you recognize it’s not going to be all rainbows.” She touches my cheek reassuringly. “But this probably isn’t the time or place to discuss…this…in any further detail.” She stands up. “Are you sure I can’t take you to the hospital?”

I shake my head. “I really don’t want to. The paramedic said I didn’t even need to go into concussion protocol.”

I can’t play the rest of the game, though, which is fucking brutal. But the team doctor wouldn’t sign off on it, despite the EMTs saying it would probably be okay. It was the word probably that made Dr. Parminder frown. So now I’m benched. There’s half a period left, and I should be out there, skating with my team. Or at least sitting on the bench, cheering them on. But Coach Adley made me change out of my uniform, so I’m not even dressed for that.

“I’m going back out there,” I say firmly, rising to my feet. “Even if I can’t be on the ice with them, I can still scream my lungs out.”

Ryder takes my hand. “It’s gonna be loud out there.”

“My head doesn’t hurt,” I grumble. “I swear. It only took me a while to get up because I was winded.”

I glance at my family again. At the brick wall that used to be my father. His prolonged silence finally triggers something in me. Impatience. Annoyance. Maybe a bit of anger too.

“Are you going to say something?” I move to stand directly in front of him, trying to force eye contact. “Anything at all? Because you’re starting to scare me a little.”

His gray eyes lock with mine.

And finally, he speaks.

“This is, truly, the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

I flinch as if I’ve been struck.

“And I’ve never been more disappointed in you.”

“Garrett,” Mom says sharply.

But it’s too late. The bullet that took me down when Fairlee kept me off Team USA finds its mark again.

This time, courtesy of my father.





CHAPTER FIFTY


RYDER



The father-daughter problem


MY NEW MOTHER-IN-LAW COMES TO SEE ME A FEW DAYS AFTER the Briar women win the Frozen Four and bring the trophy back to our college after three years in other hands. She calls ahead, so I’m not surprised when I find her on my doorstep.

“Hey, come in,” I say, hanging up her coat for her. “Want something to drink? Coffee? Water? A shit ton of liquor to make up for these past three days?”

Hannah laughs. “Let’s start with the water and save the shots for after.”

She looks around as I lead her deeper into the house toward the kitchen.

“It’s cleaner than I thought,” she says with a grin. “I was expecting a bachelor pad.”

“Nah, we’re not total barbarians.” I pause, offering a sheepish look. “Shane’s mom sends a cleaning lady twice a month.”

That gets me another laugh. In the kitchen, she sits at the table while I drift toward the fridge to grab some water.

“Is Gigi moving in? She said she hadn’t decided yet.”

I glance over my shoulder. “I think she’ll just unofficially crash here until the semester is over. And then we’ll find a place together in Hastings.”

Shane and Beckett are still giving me serious grief about that. When I first got back from Vegas and told them I’d married Gigi, they were both highly amused. Ragged me about it for hours. Shane spent a full day referring to me as Mr. Graham. Beckett gave me honeymoon tips and some Viagra pills.

It was all fun and games until they realized this wasn’t just a lark or a marriage-on-paper-only sort of situation. Eventually I’d be moving out. We won’t be living here together for senior year. Since then, they’ve been a bit subdued.

When I pass Hannah the water bottle, I notice her eyes drop to the silver band on the ring finger of my left hand. Gigi and I grabbed the rings this morning from a small jewelry shop on Main Street. It still startles me every time I look down and see it there.

I don’t even remember which one of us suggested we tie the knot. I think it might have been me? I just remember walking hand in hand down the Strip that first night in Vegas and thinking there’s nobody else I want to hold hands with for the rest of my life. And for some inexplicable reason, Gigi agreed.

“Married,” her mom says with an amused look.

“Married,” I confirm.

It’s pretty funny when you think about it. We haven’t even been together a year.

“I know you think we’re crazy,” I say, shrugging.

“Actually, no. I don’t. I know my daughter. She doesn’t enter into things lightly. And I think I’m starting to know you too. You’re not impulsive.”

“No,” I agree.

I’m the opposite, in fact. Calculated. Perpetually skeptical of people who jump first and think later.

“Look,” I say roughly, after a short silence falls, “you don’t have to pretend you’re on board with this or that you even support it. I give you permission to react like your husband. Go full silent treatment on us.”