Porch Glider

Nora Jensen has a plan for everything. Senior year? Mapped out. College applications? Done. Feelings for Cole Whitaker, Millbrook High's infuriatingly charming hockey star? Absolutely, categorically, not part of the plan. But when Cole shows up at her locker with that look — the desperate one he'd never admit to — and says you owe me one, Nora finds herself agreeing to the most ridiculous favor of her life. One family dinner. One fake girlfriend. Simple, clean, transactional. Except nothing about Cole Whitaker turns out to be simple. Not the way he remembers her coffee order without being asked. Not the way he describes his favorite color as pre-game ice, before they turn the main lights on. Not the way he looks at her on the porch after dinner like she's something worth keeping — and she's supposed to be pretending he isn't looking at all. Nora made a deal. She just didn't read the fine print. The part where fake dinners turn into real conversations. Where negotiated terms start feeling a lot like feelings. Where the boy you agreed to pretend to love somehow becomes the one person you can't imagine pretending about. The rules were simple. Don't hold his hand. Don't look at him like you like him. Don't fall. Two out of three isn't bad.

All the relatives knew I had a "backward cousin." For my birthday, she gave me a grocery-store pound cake. When I ran a marathon, she presented me with a pair of worn-out canvas sneakers. At my graduate school acceptance party, she even sent a funeral wreath of white lilies with a sash that read "In Sympathy," wishing me an early departure to the afterlife. In my previous life, I slapped her so hard she tumbled down the porch steps. My brother took her side and plotted revenge, falsely reporting to the university that I had cheated on my SATs. My admission was revoked. "You're so modern. You know how things work," he sneered. "Plenty of people take a gap year. Just apply again." My father also defended her, cutting off all my financial support. "You've had so much schooling. You're so educated," he said coldly. "Support yourself." Alone in a city eighteen hundred miles from home, I fought to survive. I called my brother and my father again and again—only to be blocked. I delivered food while renting a room and studying to reapply. At my lowest, my hands were raw and cracked from frostbite, scrambling for delivery shifts at four in the morning just to earn a small bonus. Worn down by the cold and exhaustion, I suffered cardiac arrest at twenty-three and collapsed in a snowdrift in that unfamiliar city. No one ever came to claim me. This time, I chose to let it go and accepted the wreath with a gracious smile. To fully integrate myself into this family. After all, what is a moment of pride compared to a lifetime's inheritance?

Ava “Run, Ava! Run and never come back.” It was only in that moment when I looked into Harper’s eyes that I could see the hatred she felt for me for the first time. Her canines were protruding and her long claws were shining in the moonlight. It was in that moment that I realized Harper loved Daniel just as much as I did. I wasted no time and turned around and ran. I knew if she wanted to kill me she could. I thought about Daniel and how much I loved him, then the memories of the past couple of months flooded my mind. The man I loved became cruel. He treated me as if I was just there to produce an heir. As though he would kill me rather than love me. I wouldn’t be able to return to ice-skating. I would never become the world champion. With all my dreams shattered, I stepped onto my grandmother’s porch hours after escaping in the hopes that she would take me back. Daniel “Where the hell is she, Harper?” I gripped her throat so tightly that she couldn’t breathe never mind speak. Harper had set Ava free. There was a very real possibility that I would never be able to find Ava which meant I would never be able to see my son. Harper had done that. All because she wanted the power and prestige that came with being my mate. “Let her go, Daniel!” My father’s voice echoed past me and I whipped around to glare at him. I could see it in his eyes. He was the one who put Harper up to this. I needed to find Ava. I needed to bring her and my son home.