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“You’ve already said that. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…”
“Up and at ’em,” he calls over his shoulder.
“I don’t even know why I’m here,” I yell at his back. “You shoot fine from both sides of the net. What do you need practice for?”
“Scoring from the left side needs work.” He glances toward the other end of the rink with a frown. “It still doesn’t come as naturally as scoring from the right side.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “If only there was somebody who’d practice with me.”
I glare at him.
“You… are fucking annoying,” I finally say.
He salutes me and slaps the puck my way again. “I live to serve.”
I shake my head and groan. “Fine. Ten minutes.”
Ten turns into twenty.
I finally have to trip him to get him to stop.
He goes down with a satisfying, “Oof.”
I’d revel in my victory, but right as I’m about to move away, his hand shoots out, he grabs a hold of my ankle, and I topple down next to him.
We’re both panting, lying side by side on the ice, eyeing the ceiling.
“You didn’t really need my help, did you?” I finally ask.
“I mean, I do need help.” He glances at me from the corner of his eye. “Just preferably from somebody who doesn’t suck so bad.”
I let out a gasp of outrage while he laughs, and then I push myself up on my elbow and look at him. Before I can think better of it, I press my lips to his.
“Thank you,” I say when I pull away. “It was a good distraction.”
I lie back down. His arm is under my neck, fingers casually playing with my hair.
It’s awful.
“Cold?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
But it’d probably be reasonable to take some preventive measures just in case. So I inch closer to his big, warm body a bit at a time. There’s a small curl at the corner of his lips, and then he pulls me flush against him in one quick swoop.
And we just lie still for a little while.
When I stir and say, “Now my ass is starting to go numb from the cold,” he laughs, gets up, and pulls me to my feet.
We go to the bench and take off the skates.
“What’s the deal with your birthday?” he asks, handing me his water bottle. “I mean, why do you hate it so much?”
I take a slow drink and also take my time swallowing, because I don’t really want to talk about it, but then I do anyway.
“It’s when the paternity test results came in.”
“Ah,” he says as if everything suddenly makes sense.
“Yeah. He—John—was supposed to pick me up from school. We had this tradition. Every year, on my birthday, we went to the arcade. We had this jar in the kitchen, and we’d all gather loose change in there the whole year, and then we’d go to the arcade and play until we ran out of money. I was sitting outside, waiting for him. He never showed up. Neither did Mom. They were too busy yelling at each other at home, I guess. A little preview of the years to come.” My eyes focus on Ryker’s chest. “He moved out the same evening, and that was pretty much it.”
