Daydream: A Novel (The Maple Hills Series Book 3)

OF ALL THE BORING THINGS I’m required to do this week, watching Anastasia weigh cooked rice is the most boring.

I lean against the palm of my hand on the other side of her kitchen island, observing her move the glass container from the counter to the scale and back, over and over. By the time she moves on to chicken breast I’m half asleep. She occasionally turns around to stir the sauce she’s concocted for all of this food prep, but other than that, she’s a cooking robot, hardly saying anything.

“Santa Monica will be more fun than this,” I say, hoping that will be enough to convince her. The reality is anything would be more fun than this.

“I don’t have fun scheduled in my planner, so like I said, I’m going to have to pass.”

“All you do is skate and study. You need a break.”

“That’s not true. I also eat seventeen thousand times a day like a fucking shrew.” She abandons adding broccoli to her meals and leans against the counter. I don’t think she knows how tired she looks. “Did Nathan put you up to this?”

“No.” She stares at me in the way she does that makes me feel like I’m being disciplined by a parent. “He didn’t. He said you were stressed and it made me realize I hardly check in on you. I haven’t intentionally neglected you.”

“You haven’t neglected me at all, Hen. I know you have a lot going on with school and hockey, and you’re spending a lot of time with Halle”—a borderline unhinged smile spreads across her face—“who I want to hear all about, by the way. I had to find out you were dating from Mattie, and I spent our entire lecture stunned. Didn’t learn a thing.”

“We’re not dating. We’re friends.”

It’s annoying how smug she looks right now. “I’m your friend and you’ve never kissed my forehead or held my hand.”

Fucking Mattie. “That’s your own fault. Grow six inches and then we can talk about it. I’m not bending over to be nice to you.”

She flips me off and huffs. “I’m just saying. Special rules for special friends and all that. I would love for you to have a girlfriend. I worry about you when you’re being slutty.”

“I haven’t even kissed anyone in more than a month, so you can stop worrying. Were you worried about yourself when you were being slutty?”

I don’t know why I haven’t kissed anyone, so I don’t have an answer if Anastasia asks. I could come up with tons of excuses about stress and hockey. I wouldn’t admit to her that I’d feel weird kissing someone in front of Halle, and we’re together a lot. I don’t even want to kiss someone. Maybe I overdid it in the summer, and now I’m in a different phase. Maybe I like the idea of kissing the same person. I don’t know.

She rolls her eyes and plucks a grape from the bag in front of her, waving it about as she talks. “I dispute I’ve ever been slutty, but the point is, sex is fun—”

“I know you think that. I’ve heard you do it tons of times.”

She launches the grape at me. “—and if you’re doing it because it’s fun, great. But you start running through women when you’re lonely.”

“I wish I hadn’t told you that.”

“Well, suck it up because you did. It would just make me really happy if you could have both. The companionship as well as the other stuff. You like her, right? Even if you’re not officially dating.”

“I like her, but I don’t know how to or want to date someone. What if it ruins how good things are?” It’s something I’ve thought about a lot since Halle’s emotional outburst. All I wanted to do was hold her and look after her. I hated having to leave because I had other commitments. I’ve also thought a lot about how the idea of her hooking up with someone makes me unhappy, even though she was joking. And how I want to watch her have friends and be confident that she’ll keep them.

Anastasia plucks another grape and pops it into her mouth. “How would you feel if she dated someone else?”

“Don’t know… I do know. I’d feel unhappy. I don’t understand why, though.”

Anastasia raises her shoulders and smirks at me, like she’s somehow just easily unraveled a great mystery. She hasn’t; I’ve already considered all of this. “Because you like her, Hen. Which is amazing, but I get why it’s hard to process if you haven’t liked anyone before. If the idea of her being with someone else makes you unhappy, make a move before someone else does.”

“You’re not being as helpful as you think you are,” I groan.

“I am helpful, you’re just stubborn. Don’t fucking procrastinate with your feelings, Henry. If she’s so great that you want to be around her all the time, someone else is going to think she’s so great and want to be around her all the time.”

“You should come to Santa Monica today and meet her,” I say, not bothering to answer the stuff she said. “Make your assessment in person.”

“Nice deflection, but no. The pier sounds like a nice place for a first kiss, though. Very romantic.”

“Definitely more romantic than pressed up against a door.”

This time a handful of grapes fly in my direction.

“DEEP BREATH. YOU’RE FREE,” HALLE says to me quietly as we wait for everyone to get out of their various cars in the parking lot.

“I don’t feel free.” She nudges me with her hip and shushes me, so I lower my voice. “They’re not riding with us on the way home.”

Kris and Bobby said a group date was discrimination toward single people, i.e., them, and demanded to be invited. Mattie said he was happy to be discriminated against because his fear of seagulls makes him strongly anti-pier. I also think he’s seeing his ex again. To balance things out, because apparently that’s a thing we need to do, Halle invited her work friend, Cami, and Cami’s roommate, Ava.

Bobby and Ava are both from California, so on that basis alone, despite the fact they’re from totally different places in California, Aurora and Halle assumed they’d be a good match. They’re not. I’ve just had to listen to the two of them arguing about sports teams for the entire ride here.

“I still think they’re a good match. All that rage toward each other has got to go into something.”

“That’s like saying they’re a good match because they’re both blond. It makes no sense.”

“Love doesn’t have to make sense.”

“The only thing Bobby loves is happy hour and free food.”

Halle nudges me again with her shoulder, but she’s suppressing a laugh. We watch the pair of them continue their argument, now on basketball instead of baseball, and I clearly don’t see what Halle sees. By contrast, Cami isn’t talking to Kris at all, instead choosing to talk to Emilia and Poppy.

“I assume you’re ditching us,” Robbie says as soon as he joins us with Lola.

“That would be correct,” I say, unsurprised when I’m met with an eye roll.

“Only you could get away with inviting us all to an event then leaving us,” Lola says. “It’s like you don’t want me and Halle to be friends.”

“I don’t. Halle is the nicest person I know, and you are the most terrifying. I don’t want to mix those two personalities.”

Lola bursts out laughing, but when I look at Halle she appears shocked. “You can’t say that,” she mouths, but I know Lola well enough to know what I can and can’t say. She likes it, which I don’t understand, but I try not to ask too many questions.

After some negotiations, we—well, Halle—agree to meet up later after spending some time doing our own thing. The others mostly want to go to the beach anyway, whereas I’ve promised Halle to help her win a prize.

“I haven’t been here since I was a kid,” she says as I slip my hand into hers and we walk along the pier.

She looks down at our joined hands then up at me. “I love how committed to the date experience you are.”

It takes me a second to realize what she means. I truly don’t remember the moment I decided to reach for her hand. “I forgot this was supposed to be an experience. I just like it. We don’t have to…”

She holds my hand tighter as I start to unweave my fingers from hers. “No, I like it, too.”

“Good. Games or funnel cake first?” I ask as we approach the entrance to Pacific Park, the amusement park element of the pier. She considers my offer, eyes bouncing between the various counters then back to me.

“Games, then tacos, then funnel cake, maybe? I feel like it’s only fair to tell you how bad I am at anything that requires hand-eye coordination.”

“This is a great opportunity for me to tell you I’m great at everything.”

“Again. Tell me that you’re great at everything, again. Your humility is my favorite thing about you, by the way. I’ve literally never won a teddy at these things—not even the shit tiny ones.”

I wrap my arm across her shoulders and tug her closer to my body, kissing the top of her head as we walk toward the first game. “I’ll help you win the biggest one.”

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, my parents taught me that it’s more valuable to be the person who helps someone achieve their goals than to be the person who achieves it for them.

I’ve always understood that mindset, and my moms reminded me of it often to help me fight my natural instinct to just do things myself because it was quicker and easier. However, as I watch Halle fail for the fifth time, it’s getting harder and harder to remember that I should be helping her achieve her goal of winning, and not winning for her.

“I see you weren’t exaggerating,” I say carefully.

Halle looks at me over her shoulder, scowling, before she proceeds to launch the ball at the target again. When the ball goes through the center of the two clown faces she’s supposed to be knocking down, she curses loudly. This is the fourth game where we’ve had this very specific problem: Halle’s athleticism.

“These games are rigged, y’know,” she mumbles, stomping in my direction and resting her forehead against the center of my chest. “Not even you can beat a rigged system.”

“I don’t think your ball is getting close enough to anything to claim you’re being conned. Do you want me to have a go?”

I cup the sides of her neck with my hands and she looks up at me. “I don’t want to give them any more money. They’re scamming us. Let’s go get scammed by someone else.”

When I let go of her neck, her hand slides into mine like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and I think back to what Anastasia said about never holding her hand. She’s right, but I think the main difference between Halle and Anastasia is that I’ve never been attracted to Anastasia. And now I know Halle likes it, too.

We stop in front of a ring toss game and I can immediately tell that this isn’t going to go well. I can’t watch this. “Let me help,” I say as I place myself behind her. “You need to throw it like this.”

I rearrange her positioning until she’s at least close to having a chance. “I really want that massive duck.”

I blink hard because I definitely thought she said something else.

On the wall is a stuffed duck the size of an average child and I can’t escape the thought of it sitting in the corner of Halle’s room while we sleep at night. Thankfully, Halle isn’t good at this game, either. When her turn is over, she looks disappointed. More than when she was bad at any of the other games. Why do I care so much?

“Can we go again, please?” I ask the guy.

“But I’m so bad,” Halle groans.

“You’re fucking terrible. You’re in carnival time-out—stand to the side.”

It isn’t even hard, and the more rings that land on the bottles, the more excited she gets, which results in her cheering me on.

“Please stop shouting.”

“Sorry, sorry. Go, Henry,” she whispers. “You can do it.”

She’s right and I do, leading me to say something I never thought I’d ever have to say. “We’ll have the massive duck, please.”

“My hero.” She accepts the duck and can only just fit her arm around it. “I’m going to call him Henry.”

“Please don’t.” She looks so happy it makes me ache. “What else do you want?”

We retrace our steps, going back to every counter we walked away from empty-handed. I shoot hoops, guns, balls, beanbags, and kick soccer balls until you can’t see Halle under the pile of stuffed animals. Halle’s staring at me like I personally made them for her.

There’s a massive cow tucked under my arm and two bears in my hands as we find a bench at the end of the pier. I take a seat and Halle unloads her haul beside me to find herself seatless. “Didn’t think this through,” she mutters, trying to stack them to make room.

I hand her the bears and pat my lap, indicating for her to sit. She looks at her pile of prizes then back at me and opts to sit on my knee. “This is my favorite day since I moved to LA. I can’t decide if that’s sweet or sad. I think I’m edging toward sweet. Thank you, Henry.”

“Thank you for not making me watch you continue to lose.”

Her arm rests across my shoulders and she looks straight at me. Her face is close to mine and I concentrate on her mouth as she talks. “Look, I know hockey is your thing or whatever, but… have you ever considered a professional career in carnival games? Because you’re really annoyingly good. And don’t tell me you’re good at everything, because not every guy can just walk up to a game and win it.”

My eyes meet hers. “If he wanted to, he would.”

“That’s what the word on the street is.”

I rest one of my hands on her thigh and she leans in to me as we listen to the ocean beneath the pier. The one thing about dates with Halle versus every other date I’ve been on is I don’t want them to end. With everyone else, I’ve looked forward to going home—alone or to hook up. With Halle, even though it’s not strictly a real date, I want it to keep going.

“You’re being very quiet,” she whispers.

“It’s my brand.”

“What’re you daydreaming about?”

You. Always you. “Telling Bobby that he has to give up his seat in your car because of your massive duck and it’s friends.”

She starts laughing, and it’s the only sound I’d choose over quiet. “I’ll let him name them. Is it maybe time to join the group aspect of our group date?”

“What if I said I enjoy not having to share you?”

She swivels in my lap to look at me properly, and her ass pressed against me reminds me how long it’s been since I had sex. “I’d say share me now and have me to yourself again later. I need to write but you can stay tonight… if you want to, that is.”

I’m not always great at reading facial expressions, but I feel like I can read Halle pretty well. She looks hopeful, and I know it’s everything to do with wanting to get to know people better. Halle thinks she’s an introvert, but she isn’t. I’m an introvert. Sure, she likes doing things like reading and writing, which are solitary activities, but she’s her happiest surrounded by people.

I can only imagine how difficult the past few years have been for her. Desperately craving connection only to be left alone or unappreciated by people who don’t get her.

“I want to stay,” I say. “Let’s go hang out with other people then. But just know, I’m only doing it to further your romantic experiences.”

“I think there are definitely other things we could be doing to further my romantic experiences besides hanging out with Kris and Bobby, but I’ll take it.”

The breeze is blowing her hair, sun bouncing off the high points of her face. I reach out slowly, using my finger to tuck the strands dancing across her cheek behind her ear. She looks so beautiful; I wish I could capture her right now, but even with a paintbrush or pencil in my hand, I fear I wouldn’t do her justice. I wonder if she’d believe me if I told her.

She should be told. She should hear it every single day, but would she like it if I was the one saying it to her?

“There are,” I say. “I could give you a list.” My eyes flit to her lips. Anastasia’s voice plays in my head, repeating that the pier would be a romantic place for a first kiss. Does Halle want to be kissed? I’ve never been so unsure before. “You look beautiful right now. Is that okay for me to say?”

The hand of the arm around me cradles the side of my neck. She shifts slightly in my lap. “Do you really mean that?” I nod. “Then it’s okay for you to say.”

I wonder how many other complimentary things it would be okay for me to say. We’re so close our noses could touch if we leaned forward slightly. She smells like cotton candy and the vanilla of her hair products. I inch closer slightly. “Halle…”

“Henry,” she says quietly in the only way I want to hear her say my name from now on. I cup her cheek and her free hand covers mine. Her eyes look past me. “We have an audience.”

Whipping around to check where she’s looking, I see our friends standing with ice cream cones thirty feet from where we’re sitting. As soon as they realize we’ve noticed them they start walking toward us, when all I want to do is to yell at them to disappear.

Halle removes her arm and puts her hand in her lap with the other. I want to disown my friends. Bobby takes a long, unbothered lick from his ice cream as he stops in front of the bench. “Tell me that duck is not sitting next to me in the car.”