AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Better?”
“Much,” I confirmed. “Did you get a skating coach or something?”
“No, we can’t afford that. I hung out at the rink when the figure skaters were getting coached,” he said. “You can learn a lot if you listen and watch.”
“That’s smart. Figure skaters are great with edge manipulation and body position. Dad sometimes has some come in to teach his players a thing or two.”
“Maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to play for him.”
“Keep up the hard work, and you’ll play where you want,” my dad chimed in, stepping up behind Cillian.
“Yes, sir.”
“Now leave my daughter alone.”
Cillian flushed, and I chuckled. Dad liked to come across as a hard ass, but he was a big cinnamon roll.
“Yes, sir,” Cillian repeated, then took off.
Conversations with him were similar the following few years. Brief and revolved around his improving skills. He wanted my approval, I supposed. Though I didn’t understand why.
I didn’t go with Dad to the camp when I was fifteen, opting instead to take a trip with my grandparents and Willa to San Diego. The beach sounded better than Grand Forks, North Dakota, for my summer before high school. That meant I didn’t see how much Cillian Wylder had improved. It must have been great though, because the following year, he moved to Seattle to play center on my dad’s WHL team.
Cillian scored two goals in that first game with the Timberwolves. After, he looked for me while I waited outside the locker room for my dad.
“Am I good enough for you to go on a date with me Isla Cole?”
“You know you’ve never even told me your name, right?”
“Cillian Wylder, but I think you already know that,” he answered, eyes sparkling at me. He’d been a cute boy, but he was past that now. At sixteen, he was getting handsome, chiseled and defined in ways guys were when they spent all their free time working out, instead of partying in the woods with cheap beer and cheaper joints.
“Do you have a death wish, Wylder?”
“No, I asked your dad first.”
“So, you’re either brave or stupid. What did he tell you?”
“He said, and I quote,” he said, using his fingers to emphasize the word, ‘‘‘You can fucking try but she’ll probably eat you alive for having the audacity to ask me before you ask her.’”
“He’s not wrong.” Dad always knew me well, but he also taught me well. “Ask me again after your next game, and we’ll see if your playing can earn a shot with me or not.”
“Deal.” He extended his hand out for me to shake. I grasped it with a smirk and a shake of my head.
The motherfucker scored a hat trick the following game.
“Dinner tomorrow?” he asked after the game.
“Why me?” We had been acquainted in a strange way for six years, but all added up, our conversations never lasted more than an hour tops. He knew nothing about me other than who my dad was, which made me suspicious of his intentions.
“Why not you?”
“Answer the question, Wylder. Or it’s a no for me.”
“You were the first one, other than my mother, who saw potential in me,” he said, his thumb nervously pulling at his bottom lip. “Yes or no, Isla Cole?”
The words were enough, but the anxious gesture was what tossed me over the edge I’d been teetering on. I was just a normal girl, nothing particularly special or outstanding, yet I made this beautiful, talented boy’s confidence waver.
Such small things wreaked havoc on a young girl’s confidence and heart.
