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

I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER worked through a book this quickly in my life.

Flipping to the next tab, I read the parts that Halle has highlighted for me in blue, ignoring all the parts she hasn’t. When her redhead friend was leaving last night, and Halle drunkenly slurred she had something for me in her purse, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

When she returned, she handed me the book she’d borrowed, explaining she’d read it and highlighted all the parts I might find interesting or relevant.

I’m already halfway through the book when she finally wakes up, jolting up in bed, clutching the duvet to her chest. I watch as a dozen questions hit her all at once. Her eyes widen, teeth nibbling at her bottom lip as she considers what to ask first.

“Hello,” I say, breaking the silence between us.

She swallows hard and I nod toward the bottle of water and painkillers I left next to her. With one hand keeping the duvet pressed to her body, she collects the pills and drink, quickly taking them. When half the water is gone, she replaces the lid and stares right at me. “Did we have sex last night?”

I double fold the tab for the page I’m on and put the book down in front of me. Pointing to the half-deflated air mattress below me, I meet her stare. “No.”

“Do you promise?”

“I’m on an air mattress that definitely has a slow puncture, Halle. Why would I have sex with you then not sleep beside you?”

“That isn’t an answer, Henry,” she says.

“Yes, I promise we didn’t have sex last night,” I say. Her shoulders relax. The tension in her face begins to disappear. “I don’t have sex with women who have more alcohol in their system than any other fluid.”

“If we didn’t have sex”—she clears her throat—“then why am I naked in your bed?”

“You didn’t want to leave with your friends and I was worried about you not being able to look after yourself, since I know you live alone. I wanted to put you in the empty room next door but Mattie took someone in there,” I explain. “So I found my air mattress and brought you in here.”

She takes another drink from the water bottle. “Yes, but why am I naked?”

“I don’t know. I went back downstairs because you left your purse in the den, and when I came back upstairs your clothes were gone. I offered you something to sleep in and you told me no.”

Her eyes widen again, and while she has whatever internal crisis she’s having, I recap what I just said to work out what was the thing that triggered it. Finally, long after I’ve given up recapping, she speaks again. “You saw me naked.”

Oh, there we go. “I’ve seen a lot of people naked.”

“You saw me naked,” she repeats, but I don’t think she’s talking to me.

“Friends sometimes see friends naked. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a big deal to me that you saw me naked. People don’t see me naked.”

She has no reason to feel insecure. “People are missing out then.” I wanted the joke to boost her confidence, but it doesn’t land. At all. Her cheeks flush pink and she goes back to looking unhappy. I don’t want her to feel bad, but sometimes when I open my mouth I just make things worse. “Do you want to see me naked to even things out?”

She laughs at that one, but that one wasn’t a joke. “As glorious as I’m sure it is, I’ll pass. God, you must think I’m so embarrassing. I’m so sorry. Drinking is a new thing for me and I think I overdid it. Again.”

“Can you stop apologizing for everything? It’s really unnecessary. I don’t think you’re embarrassing.”

“I bet the place is a mess after last night. I can totally help you clean up if you want me to, or I could get everyone breakfast. No, that’s silly. I can just get out of your hair so people don’t know I was here.”

“You don’t have to do anything. You’re not in my hair. People already know you’re here. Aurora checked to see if we wanted breakfast but you were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you. Plus, it’s lunchtime now and I think everyone went out.”

“It’s lunchtime? Oh my God, I never sleep in this late. I’m so sorry.” I watch as she starts to spiral and I’m beginning to think maybe she’s never woken up in someone’s bed before, so I don’t point out that she just apologized to me, again.

“This is a bigger deal to you than it is to me,” I say before she can say sorry for anything else. “I like that you’re here and I’m happy you came to the party. You’re not the first naked drunk person I’ve looked after, Halle. You’re not even the first naked drunk person this week. You really don’t need to feel embarrassed. It isn’t embarrassing.”

“I think I’ll just grab my clothes and get out of your way. I really appreciate you for being so cool about this.”

“We’re friends,” I say. “Have a shower. It will help you feel better. The box of stuff is under my sink and clean towels are on the rack.”

She nods but doesn’t move. When nothing happens, she smiles properly for the first time since she woke up. “Could you maybe, um, cover your eyes or something? I know you’ve already seen it, but I might die if I have to do this sober.”

Oh shit. “Yeah.” I lean back against my near-empty mattress and press the pillow to my face. As soon as I hear the shower turn on, I get back to my book.

“HENRY?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you pass me my dress, please?”

“Do you want to wear something of mine? You seem to be pretty against nudity, and your dress doesn’t do much to combat that.”

I’m not exaggerating. I nearly choked on my drink when I saw her and her tiny, shimmery minidress. I’m used to the floral dresses and the cardigans. I overheard her tell Aurora that she borrowed it from Cami’s roommate. It seems like she’s made more friends recently, which makes me happy. Judging from the groan that comes from the bathroom, I think she’s embarrassed again.

“I’m a big fan of the dress and you in it,” I add. “You just might be more comfortable in my clothes.”

She goes quiet for a moment. “If that’s okay…” I grab her some sweatpants and a T-shirt from my clean laundry basket and pass them through the gap in the door. “Thank you.”

When she finally reappears, fiddling with the band of my sweatpants, she looks much better than she did when she woke up. “Let me help,” I say, waving her over to where I’m sitting on the bed. Putting my feet on the floor, I move her between my legs, taking the sweatpants string and attempting to unknot it. She’s patting the ends of her hair with a microfiber towel, and the whole scene feels unusually domestic. “You smell really good.”

She chuckles. “Thanks. You’re incredibly prepared. I’ve only ever slept over at Will’s house, and even he didn’t have toiletries for when I visited.”

“Bad hockey player. Bad boyfriend. Figures,” I say, finally getting the last knot. I pull it tight so the waistband clings to her hips and tie a bow to keep it in place.

“He wasn’t a bad boyfriend, he was just—”

“I have no interest in hearing you list the redeeming qualities of your mediocre ex.” She snorts, a sound I’ve grown fond of. “I thought you hadn’t made that sound before. You’re well practiced at it.”

I shuffle back on the bed, resting against the headboard on the opposite side from where she slept last night. I pat the area beside me, indicating for her to sit down, which she does. “It isn’t a noise normally in my repertoire. I’m just not used to hearing people talk about Will with such… dislike. I think the only exception is my brother, Grayson. But I don’t think he really likes anyone.”

“Get used to it. Everyone on the team thinks he’s a dick.”

She looks to me at her left, lips curved slightly. “Noted.” Her eyes flick down between us. “Oh my God, you’re reading it?”

“Yeah. I’m just reading the bits you highlighted in blue. It’s really helping keep my attention. I liked the part where you drew the hockey stick, although maybe you should leave the drawing to me.” Her small smile has developed into a full grin. She’s beaming at me and I don’t know why. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just so happy it’s helping you.” She tucks her knees to her chest and rests her head against them. “I wasn’t sure if it would work, but it’s one of the things we’ve done over the years to help with Gigi’s concentration. We found that when the irrelevant bits were stripped away she was able to process the important ones a lot better. She prefers using audio now, but I thought this might help you. Gigi is my fifteen-year-old stepsister, by the way.”

“I remember. And got it,” I say, taking the book back and running my fingers across the colored tabs poking out the side. She left a Post-it note on the first page with a key to her tabs: yellow for his struggles and mistakes; pink for his victories; orange for things he’d do differently if he had time again; and green for advice he’d give to players of the future.

“Not everything in the book was about hockey, not unexpected given it was an autobiography. He talked a lot about his family and things he’s done since he retired that I guess wouldn’t interest you.”

“I wish all the stuff I don’t want to read was filtered like this. Maybe then I’d be able to pass Thornton’s class this semester.”

“Oh, I love Professor Thornton! I was supposed to be taking How History Shaped Art with him, but Will asked me to change my class schedule to free up my Fridays for hockey and I couldn’t get Thornton’s class to fit.” I’m so confused and I guess it shows on my face, because she adds, “I’ve done at least one with him since freshman year.”

“I don’t know what’s wilder to me. You being asked to change your education for hockey, or the fact that you like Professor Thornton. Or that if you hadn’t changed your schedule we’d have met a month earlier because that’s the one I’m in.”

“I like the idea that we might have still become friends in another reality,” she says quietly. “I can see why you’re struggling with him if you’re not a fan of reading widely. His classes are super intense on the front, but honestly he’s a teddy bear. He acts mean, but once you know how to write the way he likes, and which academic sources he favors, he’s easy. I’m going to take Sex and Sensuality in the Eighteenth Century with him in spring. How have your essays gone so far?”

“I’ve only submitted one. He said it lacked proper research and attention to detail.”

She frowns, and two faint lines appear between her eyebrows. “That’s harsh for your first essay. Did you talk to him about it?”

“Yes. I didn’t have much of a defense. I wrote about the wrong revolution.”

She lets her knees drop into a cross-legged position, and her fingers play with the bottom of my sweatpants that are too long for her legs. It’s weird seeing a woman wearing my clothes, but in a comfortable kind of way. “You just need to know what to look for with Thornton. When’s your next assignment due?”

Tuesday. “Two days.”

“How many words do you have so far?”

“Fourteen. My name and the title.”

She buries her head in her hands and laughs before looking at me again. “You don’t make it easy for yourself, do you?”

“I’m only like this for this class, I swear. I’m anxious I’ll get it wrong, so I don’t know where to start.”

“Let me help you. You’re struggling with the research material, right? I can just highlight the relevant parts and you can reference them.”

“Won’t that be really boring for you?” I ask. I know I want to take her up on her offer immediately. I’m so lost with this work and I’m not being dramatic when I say I don’t know where to start. I was planning to let the panic fuel me tomorrow after I get home from the gym. “And do you even have the time to help me?”

Halle shrugs. “I don’t mind. I don’t have anything else to do today. I was just going to work on my novel, but that isn’t urgent.”

“How is your novel going? Have you found your style yet?” I feel bad for not asking her that yesterday. That’s something I should have remembered.

“It’s going about as well as your essay, except your word count is higher. I was supposed to work on it last night, but, well, I was talked into coming here by Cami. But as embarrassed as I feel today—”

“Stop feeling embarrassed.”

“—it actually makes me feel super inspired. I want to write about people who have all these experiences and are a bit messy, but I think I can’t start because I don’t actually have any experience of my own. I never do anything,” she explains. “But maybe by doing stuff it’ll clear the creative rubble. Even if I did expose myself to you and also dance with your enemy, which I’m still very sorry for.”

“There are other ways to get experiences than putting yourself in Mason’s path. And we can have a friendship ground rule that means you’re allowed to get naked in front of me whenever you like, if that helps with your misplaced guilt.”

There are worse ground rules to have with someone who looks like Halle.

Her cheeks flush pink but she doesn’t look uncomfortable like she did earlier. “Do you have a tablet?”

“Yes, why?”

She climbs off my bed, my sweatpants hanging low on her hips. “Because you’re delaying us starting your essay by distracting me. I’m going to use the bathroom, you get your tablet, and we’ll start, okay?”

“Yes, Captain.”

I ORDERED LUNCH WHILE HALLE read my outline, and by the time the food arrived, she’d already downloaded a dozen PDFs and had started highlighting relevant sections for me to work with.

She’s lying on her stomach beside me, feet crossed in the air behind her, leaning against her hand speed-reading each thing she’s downloaded while I type on my laptop. She makes me stop writing after twenty-five minutes and take a five-minute break. At first I didn’t understand and thought maybe she was bored and wanted to chat, but she happily lets me sit in silence if I want to.

I don’t want to. I’ve been using my five minutes to ask her more about the book she’s writing. I won’t be reading it—unless she high lights the important bits for me—but I really like listening to her talk about stuff. Maybe I will join her book club.

It takes us a couple of hours to find the right rhythm, but when we do, everything becomes so much easier. She’s intelligent and knowledgeable, and the questions she asks me make me think harder before I answer her. Then she makes me write it all down before I lose my train of thought.

When I finally shut my laptop, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. “Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you. You’re amazing.”

“You did the work. I just highlighted stuff. I’m happy I could help you. I really should stop overstaying my welcome now and head home.”

“You’re not overstaying your welcome,” I argue. “I’d tell you if you were.”

“You would?”

“I would tell you to leave if I didn’t want you here. You’re not a prisoner and you can go if you want to, but if you want to watch a movie with me you should stay.”

Halle sits up on the bed to sit opposite me and I can’t tell if she’s about to move beside me to settle or run for the door. “What kind of movie?” she eventually asks.

“Horror. My friend JJ’s mom texted me a new recommendation last week. I was going to watch that.”

“Not a rom-com then?”

I sigh. “You’re just like the others. When my friends’ girlfriends lived here last year they were relentless. I watched so many shit movies.”

“How about we rock-paper-scissors for it?” she suggests, holding out her fist. “I win we watch How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, but if you win, we watch JJ’s mom’s suggestion and we both pretend that I’m not crying the entire time. Ready?”

I hold out my own fist, shaking it three times and choosing paper, knowing statistically she’ll choose rock, which she does. My hand wraps around her fist and she pouts up at me. “Best of three?”

“No, sorry, we didn’t agree on that ahead of time.” I reach for the remotes to roll down my blackout blinds and turn on my TV.

“Are you really not going to play me again?” She’s still a little pouty. Cute. Distracting. “That isn’t very sportsmanlike.”

“No. You snooze, you lose. Do you need extra pillows? Blankets? Protective weapon?”

“We’re good on the pillow front and no weapon needed,” she says, slipping farther into the bed. “I’ll use you as a human shield.”

I scoff as I press play on the movie, fluffing up the pillows behind her head to make her more comfortable. I slide down, too, relieved not to be on that damn air mattress, and pretend not to notice when she shuffles an inch closer to me. “Not if I use you as one first.”