“You’re not fine!” He said gruffly, closer to me than I expected him to be, and I shrieked when I sensed him right behind me a second before his body was in my path and then I was falling over his dropped shoulder.
“Damnit, Travis.” I screeched as he stood up, carrying me over his shoulder off the ice. “You’re a Neanderthal.”
“And you’re terrible at accepting help.”
“Help?” I cried, slamming my hand against his back and cursing as he adjusted me on his shoulder again, putting his hand on my upper thigh, precariously close to my no-no zone. “You’re not helping me! You’re bossing me around.”
“So I can help you!” He argued, tightening his hold on my thigh and making my body go haywire. Why did I have to wear my skinny jeans? I could feel the heat of his hand right below my ass, and my mouth watered at the dominance in it. “I can’t stayand help you tonight, but I can help you next week.” He flipped me over his shoulder, and I landed on my feet with a huff.
“You—?” I stammer in confusion.
“Next week, after practice. I’ll help you.” Travis put his hands on his hips and stared at me. Even with my skates on, I barely came up to his chest.
“Why?” I squinted my eyes at him, waiting to figure out what his motive was. “Why would you do that?”
With a shrug, he backed up a step. “Because your daughter deserves to have someone out there on the ice with her.” He said, my shoulders deflated. Whether he meant it or not, that one sentence made me feel even guiltier.
“Gee, thanks.” I whispered as he walked away as if nothing had happened at all.
I walkedalong the upper observatory deck of the rink, watching the chaos going on below. It was Friday night, and the Tiny Tot Hockey team was in full swing practicing — and I meant that term loosely.
Very fucking loosely.
Six-year-olds rolled around on the ice, throwing themselves into dog piles and playing tag willy-nilly, ignoring everything the coaches said.
Well, not coaches.Parents.
They were the worst coaches ever. Kids never respected their own parents at that age, and then you gave them skates, sticks, pucks, and friends, and it got even worse.
I leaned my elbows on the metal railing, watching with a grimace. Most of the kids on the ice wouldn’t be back next year. Either they weren’t interested in the sport at all, or their parents would be unwilling to pay hundreds of dollars in fees and gear for them to fuck off.
And of the ones who came back, only half of them would ever actually be any good at the sport.
I clocked a few of those kids skating laps around everyone else at breakneck speed, some held a stick, some managed to pass the puck around as they went. Those were probably the only ones who had a chance to do something on the team.
As I scanned the ice again, I caught a player on one end of the ice and my eyes ended up stuck on the teeny-tiny little kid, dwarfed in a jersey three sizes too big, hanging to the top of their skates as they did circles around the net.
I wasn’t sure why, but there was something about the way they skated that kept me entranced. It was almost as if their feet didn’t touch the ice at all; they just walked above it.
It wasn’t textbook skating at all, but it was—fast.
And clean.
The kid stopped and turned to go in the other direction, aimlessly circling the net with zero direction from the coaches or other parents, in their own world.
But then I caught the name on the back of the jersey, and I cursed myself for not figuring it out on my own at first.
Blake.
As in Frankie Blake.
“Emmie!” A loud, sharp voice called from below me, and I leaned over the rail, looking down at the glass where a fierce woman beat on it, yelling to the tiny kid on the ice being ignored by the grownups. “Go ask for help! Emmie!”
Frankie put her hands on her hips and bowed her head, frustrated as her daughter wasted time on the ice, invisible to the coaches who were too busy either chasing after the good kids or trying to wrangle the hooligans treating practice as playtime.
And Emmie just slipped through the cracks.
Full of potential and natural skill.
