A Mountain Springs Christmas

Chapter 16

sixteen

CONNOR

As everyone was getting ready to leave, Katie’s dad looked out the living room windows, and everyone else crowded around to look, too. A good amount of snow had fallen. A foot, maybe?

“It looks like the snow plows are keeping up just fine.” He turned to look at everyone. “But they’re expecting it to keep dumping for quite a while. Will you all text the group chat when you get home and let us know you made it safely?”

Katie’s sisters said yes and they, along with Katie’s brothers-in-law and her nieces and nephews, all said their goodbyes. He was sure he heard at least twice as many callouts of “Merry Christmas!” as there were people present.

And then they all shuffled out into the snow, leaving just Katie, her parents, and Connor in the home. Without everyone’s shoes and coats strewn about, Katie noticed his bag. “Oh! I didn’t even think to show you to your room when you first got here!”

He picked up his bag and followed her down the hallway and into a bedroom. He had kind of expected a typical guest bedroom— white or cream-colored walls, a queen bed with a comforter in a neutral color and pattern, a dresser, maybe a generic piece of art hanging on a wall, but not much else. Instead, this was a bedroom filled with personality and items.

The walls were painted lavender. The bed was queen-sized, but the comforter was teal and purple and had a handful of fuzzy throw pillows. A dozen square, black-and-white framed photos hung on the wall above the bed. Inspirational quotes about dreams and creativity were on the walls and on objects on the dresser and shelves. A few trophies stood tall on shelves.

“Was this your room?”

“Yeah,” Katie said, scratching the back of her head. “My parents kept it the same because I stayed here on weekends and summers when I came home from college. I don’t know why they didn’t change it into a legit guest room when I got my own place like they said they were going to.” Then she laughed. “Maybe because I haven’t come to pack all this old stuff up yet. I kind of forgot they asked me to.” Her eyes went wide as she flipped a frame on the dresser to face down. “I probably should have.”

He dropped his bag on the floor and wandered around to check everything out. The place might not have been Katie’s for a while, but it still felt like the spirit of her was here. Like he was getting a glimpse into the younger version of her.

The pictures above the bed were a mix of beautiful landscapes, candid shots of family and friends, and close-ups of nature’s intricate details. All proof that she’d been good with a camera for a while. More photos, some sentimental notes from friends, a teacher’s scrawled encouragement torn from the corner of some kind of assignment, and a few fortunes pulled from cookies lay under the glass on top of the wood on the bedside table.

He walked over to the shelves and saw a few things he hadn’t noticed when he first walked in— a snow globe, probably from a family vacation, a ceramic handprint she’d made as a child, framed photos of her with her sisters, and a few photography and videography books. And right next to that, something that he was pretty sure was a photo album. He put one finger at the top of the spine. “Can I look at this?”

“Um, sure. I don’t really remember what’s in it, but I guess we’ll find out.”

The two of them sat on the edge of her bed and he opened it up. In the first picture, she was maybe ten and had a butterfly on her finger that she was holding out to the camera. A quick glance at the other photos on the page told him that this was a mix of random pictures from throughout her childhood.

He asked plenty of questions, and she told him story after story. It was mesmerizing to hear about her childhood. Seeing how she looked at the world. Hearing about what was important to her. He didn’t even realize that it was getting late until she tried to hold back a yawn in the middle of a sentence. He grabbed his phone. “It’s nearly midnight!” He couldn’t believe how fast time flew whenever he was with Katie. Why couldn’t it slow down instead?

Katie nodded. “And I’m betting Santa passed right by us.” She stood up and studied him, her hands on her hips. “When I was a teenager, I felt like a queen being able to have a bed this big— it was one of the perks of being the youngest— but I’m betting you won’t feel the same. You’re used to what? A Texas king-sized bed?”

Connor laughed, then flopped himself onto the bed, linking his hands behind his head. “This one is going to do just fine.”

“Your feet are hanging off the end.”

“That’s perfect because my feet get hot when I sleep. Plus, I’ll get to lay here and wonder what you were like as a teen. If I have any trouble sleeping, I can look at the pictures on your walls, the things on your shelves, and maybe come to a few conclusions.”

Katie ran her hands over her face. “I really should’ve come and packed stuff up before now.”

Looking through the photo album had taken his mind off everything. Talking about her as a high-schooler, though, got him back to thinking of when he was, too, and the school Christmas dance where he ruined her dress and caused countless other problems.

One of the many reasons why he arrived later yesterday than he had planned was because after seeing his dad, he decided he needed to spend some time with the standing punching bag in the hotel’s gym. But even that didn’t help keep his mind from going right back to his teenage years when he realized that his dad found his new life so much more interesting than a life with his family.

The shower after and the painstakingly slow drive up the mountain didn’t take his mind away from it, either. So once he’d gotten to Mountain Springs, he’d taken a detour and driven past the house his family had lived in back then. He didn’t know why— he wasn’t expecting it to give him closure or anything. And all it did was re-open old wounds.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Katie was studying him intently.

He nodded. “It was just hard being back in Charlotte, seeing my old teammates, talking with my best friend on the team. Things like that.”

She placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head.

But at the same time, between Vaughan bringing up the rumor that the Explorers were looking for a new right wing and his agent asking when he wanted to submit the trade request, all of the trade stuff was working its way through his head, too.

Did he want to have his agent put in the trade request? Eight days ago, if he had known his dad was in Denver or if he had run into him then, the answer would’ve been a resounding yes. He couldn’t keep having those old wounds opened. He had told himself that he could make it here because he thought his dad had moved on far from this place. Like to another country, as Laura had last heard. But now, he knew that he could possibly run into him anywhere. His dad always liked hockey— he could even be at his games.

He was surprised it affected him so much. After that incident in his junior year, his mom got him into a great therapist. He thought he’d worked through everything. But apparently, working through issues didn’t mean they couldn’t resurface when unexpectedly facing them again. And he felt like every time he saw his dad, he would be sent right back to that place where he was angry all the time. When he hated who he was as a person.

Yes, his dad was in Denver. But Katie was, too.

And he could really use her level head and logical thinking to help him work through everything.

“Actually, I would.” He stood, and she took a seat on the edge of the bed. “When we moved away from Denver, I never wanted to come back. In the NHL, you can’t have a No Trade clause in your contract until you are twenty-seven or have played seven seasons. I had planned to have my agent negotiate a No Trade to Denver clause in my contract the moment I could. But then I got traded just a few weeks before I could have.

“So, I told my agent the day I got here that I was interested in putting in a trade request. It’s not the same thing, and it doesn’t guarantee anything— it just lets the franchise know that I’m not happy here and want to leave. They don’t tend to love having a player who doesn’t want to be on their team, so they’ll usually look to trade them.

“He hasn’t put in the request yet, though, because it can cause friction, but he texted me earlier today to ask when I want to.” He paced over a little rectangle of her floor, looking down at the carpet as he tried to put it all into words.

“And I do like the Glaciers. It’s a great team. Good teammates, a coach who knows how to push us, supportive management, and an incredible fan base. I’m just not sure if I can play my best here. There are too many things I keep running into that take me back to that person I hated being.”

He let out a long breath, stopped pacing, and looked up at Katie. “But I don’t know— what do you think?”

He had been so focused on trying to put all that was swirling around in his head into words that he hadn’t even noticed what his words were doing to her. And right now, she had an incredible amount of pain on her face. Slowly and carefully, she said, “I think that if you’re so unhappy here, you should put in the trade request.”

Taking two steps toward her, he knelt down just in front of her knees. “Katie, listen. You know this isn’t about you at all, right?”

“Yeah, I get that it’s not about me. I didn’t before this conversation, but I do now.” She stood. “Listen, it’s late, and it’s probably still snowing, so I should really go.”

He hadn’t even been thinking about the snow. He pulled out his phone to check the weather and road conditions as he followed her out of the room. All of the lights in the house were off except for the one nearest the front door, so her parents must’ve already gone to bed. Which wasn’t surprising, given the time.

“The snow plows are no longer keeping up,” he said as they reached the living room, still scanning info on his phone. “It says that emergency vehicles can’t get to people who are stuck, and they recommend not driving.”

She was still putting on her coat, though. The feelings of comfort and bliss that had surrounded them as they’d looked through the photo album were gone, replaced by an uneasy tenseness.

“You should stay,” he said. “You can sleep in your old bed— I can sleep on that giant sectional couch in the family room.”

She finished zipping up her coat and turned to him. “Connor, my parents offered you a place to stay. Not only if there was any ‘room at the inn.’ You have a reserved room. I do not.”

He stepped closer to her. “I really don’t mind.”

Instead of closing the gap between them even more, as he had hoped, she turned and grabbed one of her boots and put it on. “Connor, I’m not staying.”

He wanted her to stay because he wanted to know that things between them were okay. But even more than that, he wanted her to be okay. And going out into the snowstorm wasn’t the best way to do that. He walked over to the window and moved the curtains to look out. While they’d been talking and Katie had been telling him stories about her childhood, the amount of snow on the ground had doubled. It always amazed him how the skies could dump so much snow and do it without making a sound.

He turned to face her. “Would you like me to drive you home?” He grinned, trying to lighten the mood enough that she would take him up on his offer. “I have chains on my tires now.”

“I don’t need my hand held. I’ve been driving on snow-covered roads since I was sixteen. I am not inexperienced.”

They sometimes got snow in Charlotte, but it was rare and never more than just an inch or two, so she definitely had him beat in experience. He’d spent a couple of winters living in Mountain Springs, though, so he knew how bad the roads could get. He motioned toward the window. “But that’s a lot of snow. There’s probably close to a foot of fresh stuff on the roads. How about you at least take my car?”

She just gave him a look before tugging on one of her gloves.

He held up his hands. “I know, I know. You’ve got this.”

“I do,” she said firmly and got out her keys.

He knew enough about Katie to know that trying to convince her even further would only backfire. “Will you at least text me when you get home to let me know you made it safely?”

She nodded and said, “I will,” which at least lightened the heaviness of his heart just a bit. She turned to leave but then turned back. “And Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“Merry Christmas,” she said, then took a couple of steps toward him and gave him a kiss on the cheek before turning and walking out of the house. He couldn’t help but feel like his heart was leaving with her.