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“I can help. What do you need, Steph?”
“Nachos,” Steph replied without turning around as she rang up the next customer. “Popcorn, hot dog, and a bottle of water. Nachos with no jalapeños.”
“Got it,” Belle replied. “So, it’s easiest to start with the popcorn because that’s closer to the counter,” she explained to her newbie. “You can scoop and set that down.” She grabbed a container and scooped popcorn into it before she placed it next to Steph. “Then, you can move on to the nachos. It’s one bag of chips. They’re kept in the warmer, remember?”
“Yeah,” the girl said.
“And the cheese is how many pumps?”
“Two,” she replied.
“Right. So, you do that, and I’ll grab the water and the hot dog.”
Belle went to work and turned her head to see that the temp had pulled a bag of tortilla chips out and had dumped them into the container. Belle grabbed the hot dog bun from the warmer under the hot dog machine, put it in the white container that looked a little like a coffee filter, and added a hot dog before she put the whole thing into an aluminum foil packet and passed that and a bottle of water to Steph.
“What else?” Belle asked when the temp added the nachos.
“Still need those salt and vinegar chips.”
“Right. Sorry.” The temp turned to the chip rack and grabbed the right chips for Steph, handing them over.
Belle helped them get the line down as she heard the recognizable beginning of Swan Lake over the loudspeakers for at least the tenth time that night.
“Every time,” she muttered to herself as she left the stand, walked around the whole Ice Park, and ended up back in the arcade just in time for the machine to break down with her needing to fix it.
By the end of the night, Belle was wiped, but her dad was happy, and that was what mattered to her. They’d made more money that night than at any other event they’d hosted, and with only needing a few temps and a couple of security guys because there were a lot of people at the venue and they served beer, they didn’t have a ton of people to pay. As Belle sat down in her office, which was the office next to her father’s, she glanced at her cot and thought about just sleeping here tonight. Chandler’s words about sleeping in her bed and not in her office hit her then, and she wondered how the woman had done tonight. She’d been too busy to stop and watch her skate, and she hadn’t paid much attention to how everyone was ranked at the end of the night. She decided to skate some of her exhaustion away and then go home. They were closed, so she could have her ice back now and get in an hour, at least, before she needed to call it a night to be back tomorrow morning and do this all over again.
After getting changed, Belle carried her skates out to the bleachers, slipped them on, laced them up, and took the ice. She simply skated around for a while, letting the cool air hit her face and wake her a little before she attempted any kind of real figure skating moves. When she went for a simple toe loop, though, she hit the ice before she looked up at the ceiling, grunted, and decided to stay sitting for a minute. Maybe she was more tired than she thought.
“Toe pick?”
Belle looked over toward the bleachers and saw Chandler Wolfe standing there.
“Forget all about that because you play too much hockey now? Maybe you got hit too many times, so you’ve got some head injury or something. You can’t even land a toe loop now?”
Chandler was smiling, so Belle knew she was only teasing.
“Shut up.” Belle chuckled. “I’m just tired. I wasn’t paying enough attention.”
Chandler walked out on the ice and promptly sat down in front of Belle, who looked at her in confusion.
“Not worried about freezing that skinny ass of yours?” Belle asked.
Chandler smiled softly and replied, “No, I think I was born with ice in my veins.” She looked around the Ice Park. “I don’t really get cold all that often.”
“Me neither,” Belle revealed. “What are you still doing here? We’re closed. Did you pay for ice time again, and my dad forgot to tell me again?”
“No, I was sort of camped out in the changing room. I didn’t want to go back to the hotel with my sister, who was being reasonable, I guess, but also kind of a bitch, so I told her to go, and I sat in there for a while until I realized everyone else had gone. I came out here and saw you. I thought you’d gone home when I didn’t see you running around anymore.”
“I was in my office, contemplating crashing on my cot.”
“And you decided to skate instead?”
“I usually skate when everyone’s gone. It’s the only time I get the ice to myself.”
“And that’s important to you?”
“Well, yeah. It’s the only time I can really clear my head. Hockey helps – playing in goal, specifically – but I’ve always had this problem with excess energy and keeping my mind focused. Skating does that for me. I can usually focus on the jump or the spin, but not tonight, I guess. Probably just too tired. I had to run around all night, and I got here early to skate before everyone else, too. I guess I could skate when we have an open skate night, and I’ve done it a few times, but I feel bad about taking the ice from people who are paying for it, you know? So, I try to stick to myself for a bunch of reasons, I guess.”
