Half truth

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The pep rally was a blur. Even as I snapped photos, I didn’t feel like I was actually there. Physically, yes. If you’d been in the stands or standing beside me, you would’ve been able to say that I’d been there taking pictures for the paper. A true Peter Parker, hiding my face behind an enormous camera lens. Mentally, I was elsewhere. I was with Lincoln, wondering if he had anything to do with the Lana thing. Maybe she’d been in the car with him when he got in that accident. Maybe she died and he didn’t know how to cope with it so he hid it? A shiver raked through me. Would Lincoln hide something that big? I thought of my father and his relationship with Lana, which I now confirmed was true. I had too much evidence to deny it. Would Lincoln hide it for dad’s sake? For The Eight? My hand itched. I reached up and grabbed the necklace around my neck. Nora had given me my own skeleton key to open the front door of The Lab, a way of officially welcoming me into The Eight. I’d been happy to accept it when she dropped me off at home, but the longer I stood there with it around my neck, the more it felt like a noose rather than a gift.

“Have you gotten any good pictures?”

“I think so.” I glanced at Max, who was standing beside me. “How many do you think I need? I’m dying to get out of here.”

“Too many people?”

“More like . . . not in the mood for this.”

“So you’re not going to the party tonight?”

“What party?”

“Just a keg party out in the main lawn.”

“That sounds exactly like everything I want to avoid tonight.”

“Come on, let’s stand on the other side where the actual media is.” Max laughed and tugged on the strap of the lanyard around my neck.

We shouldered our way through the crowd until we made it to the other side. Max let out a relieved breath.

“There are a lot more people here than last year,” he said. “It’s Fitz’s last year, so it was bound to be crazy.” He pointed to the other side of the arena, where we’d just been. I’d seen people waving something around, but I wasn’t paying attention. Now that I was on the other side, all I could see were huge foam gloves that said FITZ on the bottom.

“He’s not even the goalie.”

“I know, but Fitz’s Mitts.” Max nudged me. “It’s a Canadian thing, I gather. We call them gloves, they call them mitts, so yeah, Fitz’s Mitts. Get it?”

“No.” I frowned. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of hockey, these people threw something else my way. “I thought they were called gloves?”

“Those are his Canadian supporters,” Max explained. “They call people who have good stickhandling Nifty Mitts, hence, Fitz’s Mitts.”

“Oh. So they’re like . . . his groupies?”

“Fan base, but yeah.” Max laughed.

“Hm. It’s cute.” I repeated it in my head: Fitz’s Mitts. It actually was cute, though I wouldn’t say it aloud.

“Wait until he skates onto the ice. It’ll be mayhem.”

“It’s pretty loud already.”

“This is not loud in comparison to when he comes out,” Max shouted over the noise. “Do you still hate each other?”

“No.” I blushed. “Water under the bridge.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good, because Fitz is the kind of guy who could make your time here a living hell if he wanted to.”

“How would he do that?” I raised my brows. “Our school has a zip code. It’s not like I have to see him.”

“You take pictures of sports events for the paper.” He shot me a look. “You’ll see him. Besides, as big as campus is, I bet you’ve seen all of them around everywhere.”

“True.”

“And I’ve heard the way girls talk about him. Cry over him.” He shot me another look.

My heart pounded, but I tried to keep my expression neutral. I did not want to hear anything about my boyfriend’s past. I’d convinced myself to get over his partner at The Eight from last year and stop obsessing over the thought of him with anyone else before me. It was a dumb thing to think about anyway. It wasn’t like I could change any of that. I put it out of my mind as the crowd got louder, cheers and screams sounding as the music was lowered and the a

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for . . . this year’s hockey team!” the a

The crowd roared. The lights shut off and spotlights shone on the ice, moving back and forth as the music started up again. Players were introduced as they skated onto the ice, and I clicked photos of each of them. The crowd seemed to get louder with each one. I wondered if they’d done it on purpose, given them an order of popularity to come out in. If so, I felt bad for the first one. Nolan was introduced. Nolan Chadwick Astor. It was a long, important-sounding name. I wondered if his mother was waiting for him to grow out of the long hair and inappropriate comments phase and grow into his name or if she’d given up hope.

Logan was last. “Logan ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald!” The crowd went crazy, pounding on the glass, stomping on the floor, climbing on their seats, and I had to pause taking pictures to look around because I really thought they’d bring the house down. The noise vibrated through me as I stood there, and I smiled as I lifted the camera up and snapped a picture of the crowd first, and then Logan as he skated out on the ice. It got louder when he was in full sight. Unlike his teammates, who did a wave and stood in line, Logan skated around the ice and waved. It was then that it hit me. He really was popular. He really was sort of famous. And yeah, he was arrogant, but not as arrogant as you’d expect someone with this kind of following to be. When he skated toward my section, I braced myself, pressing my face to the camera and holding it tighter, as if it would somehow fall out of my hands at the sight of a close-up. I took a breath. I needed to calm down.

This was Logan, for God’s sake. When he reached us, people pounded on the glass. I stood closer to it and snapped, snapped, snapped. I didn’t want to miss him if he went by really fast. Suddenly, it seemed almost quiet, as if the crowd around me was waiting in anticipation of something. When I blinked into the little window of the camera, I saw his face right in front of me, staring into the lens—into me. I licked my lips, and he gri

It happened in an instant. So quickly I was sure nobody really caught it, but I did, because it was clearly for me. I smiled wide, resisting the urge to throw the camera down and walk onto the ice to jump on him. He winked and skated away.

“Well, I guess you can say you definitely don’t have issues anymore,” Max said. “What was that kiss thing?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head, still smiling.

I stayed for another hour and from the looks of it, the other people weren’t leaving any time soon either. Logan and his team were working on some drills with no signs of stopping. Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was almost seven thirty and started packing up. There was no way the paper would need more pictures than what I took. The a