Center Ice (Boston Rebels Book 1)

“I’m so glad you called,” I say after navigating through the lunch crowd and slipping into the seat across from Morgan. “I was going a little stir crazy in the office.”

“Why were you going stir crazy?”

“I don’t know,” I shrug, even though I know exactly why. Thoughts of Drew have consumed my every waking moment, and it has me on edge. I used to be able to go weeks without him crossing my mind. It’s only been two days since I first saw him again, and he’s invaded my every thought.

“You sure about that?” she asks.

I narrow my eyes at her. What’s that mean? For a minute, I worry that Lauren might have said something to her about Drew and me, but that really isn’t Lauren’s style. I still haven’t talked to Lauren yet because she’s been so busy between work and the kids, so I can’t imagine that she’d go telling her cousin. And I know Jules, who has kept my secret since she was eighteen, wouldn’t do that either. So Morgan can’t know. Can she?

“I just have a lot on my mind.”

I smooth my hair back from my face with both hands. It’s a blustery October day and the threat of rain hung in the air as I walked from the South End over to the Back Bay to meet her. By the time I arrived, my hair was already a windblown mess. Twisting my hair up, I secure it with a claw clip, glad to have the static-y mess off my face.

I glance down at the menu in front of me, and when I glance up, Morgan has her phone out and is snapping a picture of me. She turns her phone so I can see it. My cheeks are pink from the wind, but my eyes are bright. There’s steam rising up around me from the bowls of pho at the table behind me. “When being home too much finally gets to the homebody,” Morgan says, like she’s captioning the photo. It’s true, I’m a total homebody. At first, it was out of necessity, but now I suppose it’s out of habit.

“Will you send that to me?” I ask. It’s rare that someone takes a photo of me that I truly like, and I do like that one.

“Of course,” she says, and taps a few times on her screen before setting her phone down. “That would make the perfect profile picture on a dating app, you know.”

I give her the look that normally shuts people up, but she continues anyway.

“Come on, Audrey. Like I said the other day, when you work from home, how would you ever meet a guy otherwise?”

“I guess you’d have to go to the bars on the weekend, and meet someone the old-fashioned way,” I tease her. But even as I say it, I know that would never be doable for me because I have Graham at home. Which is why I was half-way considering her offer, until Drew walked back into my life. And now that he’s in my head—even cuter than he was in college, and the father of my child—how am I supposed to think about anyone else?

“Meeting a guy at a bar feels so”—she twists her mouth into an adorable pout as she thinks—“impersonal. Like the only thing I can tell about a guy if I see him at the bar is whether I think he’s cute or not. So, am I supposed to only go talk to him if he’s cute?”

“I mean, that’s normally how it works, isn’t it?”

“Ugh. Like I want to know not only if he’s cute, but if we have anything in common.”

“Isn’t that what talking to him is all about?”

“Oh yeah, because so much quality talking happens at a bar on a Saturday night.”

I’m struck with a memory from the last night I saw Drew. It was a couple of days after finals ended, and the seniors had just graduated that day. The enormous ceremony took place in the football stadium, which was something of a joke because the school hadn’t had a football team in over a decade.

I’d gotten a text from Drew telling me that he was at a bar close to campus called The Scarlett Letter, and that I should come celebrate him passing calculus and graduating.

It was the first time he’d suggested we see each other outside of our tutoring dates, though maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, because when I saw him right before his calculus final, he’d said, “We’re going to have to figure out a reason to see each other now that I won’t need you to tutor me anymore.”

This text, a few days later, felt like him finding a reason.

I’d wasted at least five minutes reassuring myself I wasn’t hallucinating and trying to calm down my racing heart. Then I’d convinced my roommate, Jasmine, to head out to the bar with me.

When we showed up, Drew and half the hockey team were taking up a massive booth in the corner. I was about to shrink back into the crowd and pull Jasmine with me, when the DJ changed the song and the crowd of people on the dance floor began jumping up and down, pushing us forward toward their table. When Drew looked up and saw me there, his whole face lit up.

We spent most of that night tucked away in that booth, talking while Jasmine busied herself flirting with half his friends. It had felt like I was seeing a totally different side of him, like maybe there was a depth to him that he didn’t show everyone because he had this other persona that people expected to see. And when I gave myself to him that night, it felt right. It felt life changing. And it was, just not in the way I expected.

“Besides,” Morgan continues, “I can chat with a guy and figure out if we click online, from my couch, in the comfort of my pajamas. I don’t have to get all dressed up and drop a hundred dollars on a night out.”

“Fair point,” I say. Then I think back to how jealous Drew was about Karl, and I wonder how he’d feel about me dating someone. His opinions shouldn’t matter—they don’t matter—but it also feels like the wrong time to start dating. How would I even explain the situation with Graham and Drew to someone I’d just met, when I haven’t even explained it to my own family? “I just don’t think it’s the right time for me right now.”

“Okay, but don’t think I’m not bringing this up again sometime in the near future. You’re too young, smart, and beautiful to be sitting home alone every night. You deserve someone who makes you happy, Audrey. And not because you can’t be happy on your own, but because you already are, and you deserve someone who will bring even more happiness to your life.”

When she puts it like that, it does sound nice. But in my experience, relationships are rarely that uncomplicated. Even my brother and Lauren, who have the healthiest, happiest relationship I’ve seen, started out rocky and spent five years apart before they reconnected.

“Thank you,” I say. “What about you? Any promising guys on the horizon?”

“Well,” she says, a smile spreading across her face as she rolls her eyes, “there is a guy I was talking to last night. We ended up video chatting with each other, and he is really cute, and really sweet, and we’re going to see each other next week after I get back from Las Vegas.”

“Yes! That’s awesome,” I say, and then we’re distracted as the waiter comes over to take our order.

Once he leaves, Morgan says, “So, I had an ulterior motive in asking if you wanted to grab lunch.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Now that I’m managing Petra’s social media for her, I’m looking to expand in that area a bit. Lauren already connected me with Sierra,” she says, referring to another of Lauren’s best friends who, along with Petra and their friend, Jackson, round out Lauren’s tight-knit group of friends from when she lived in Park City. “She used to run the social media accounts for the National Ski Team, and now she co-runs one of the most popular travel accounts on Instagram with her husband, Beau. She’s also talking about starting a Bookstagram account, because that girl is a diehard romance fan.”

Even though I’ve met Sierra a few times and knew she was a photographer, I didn’t realize the extent of her social media presence.

“So that’s been really helpful,” Morgan says. “Now I’m interested in taking on some more accounts, and I’m wondering if you’d be interested in me helping you manage and grow the Our House account?”

“Yes!” There’s not a moment of hesitation. Our social media accounts fall under my purview, and it’s one of my least favorite responsibilities, mostly because of my own lack of understanding about, or interest in, how social media can be used to help generate leads. “Please…can you just take the whole thing over?”

“We haven’t even talked about compensation,” Morgan says with a laugh. “What if my fee was ten thousand dollars a month?”

“Is it?”

“No.”

“Okay, so I’m sure we can work something out, but I absolutely hate managing our accounts⁠—”

“That’s what Jules said, which is why I’m making this offer. But Audrey, you and Jules are the face of that company, and if you want your social media accounts to be successful, you’re going to have to make an appearance once in a while.”

“I am on there. I’ve posted pictures from the various articles that have been written about us. And the shots we had taken when we first launched the company.”

“That’s all completely scripted. People want to see more behind-the-scenes stuff, not just professional photos of completed projects or photos that appeared on other media outlets. You guys are selling Our House as the preeminent all-female construction company in Boston. But the thing people want to know when they hire a design and construction firm like yours is that they’re not only going to like the end result of what you create, but they’re going to like working with you. Show them who you are, let them get to know you, and you will have more business than you know what to do with.”

“We already have more business than we know what to do with. Our waitlist is six months out.”

“So you may need to grow.” She says it like doubling the size of your business every year for the past few years isn’t enough.

“We are growing. We’re just trying to do it at a sustainable rate. And we’re committed to only hiring extremely qualified people. You probably won’t be surprised if I tell you there’s a shortage of female subcontractors. Women are greatly outpacing men when it comes to going to college, but not when it comes to the trades.”

“Maybe because not enough young women know that it’s an option for them. What kind of relationship do you guys have with trade schools in the area?”

My jaw drops open. I had never considered creating the kind of pipeline from trade schools into our business that she’s suggesting. If we could help coordinate apprenticeships and then hire people full-time once they’re licensed, instead of having to hire them as subcontractors, that would help a lot with scheduling and costs. It would also mean a lot of additional business expenses, but in the long run, it might be the best way to expand our company while also maintaining the quality we’re committed to. “That’s kind of genius.”

“Thanks. I do have an MBA, you know?”

“You what?”

“Yeah. My undergrad is in business, and I had a job all lined up in Austin after graduating from NYU, but I was moving there with my college boyfriend, and he broke up with me. So rather than move there and be entirely on my own, Lauren hooked me up with a job as Petra’s admin in Park City. I worked on my MBA part-time, and I just finished it last year before moving back to Boston.”

“Holy shit, Morgan. That’s amazing. And you’re using it how?”

“Well, for starters, I’m setting up my own social media company. Eventually, I may also work with companies on other types of growth strategies, but for now, this is what I can handle while still working for Petra. So, are you in?”

“Only if you promise you’ll also advise on some of these other types of growth strategies,” I say. “And if we can afford you.”

“We’ll work it out,” she says. “And my first post is going to be the picture I just took. I’m going to caption it, ‘Quick lunch meeting to work out some exciting new business plans. Any guesses what’s coming next?’ People love the opportunity to engage; you just have to invite them to do so.”

“I trust you to handle this,” I tell her. And I do, even if it might mean that she wants me to appear on there a bit more. I really do hate the spotlight, but if it’s what’s needed for our company to keep growing, that’s what I’ll do.