Page 82 of Home Ice

“It’s not a hard question.” I nudge him. “Kasen?”

“Chocolate, okay? I get chocolate.”

I can only stare at his outburst. Then I break down laughing. “Wait. Tell me that you didn’t order some random flavor so we wouldn’t be the same?”

“It was weird.”

“Why is that weird?”

“Because I don’t even know you. I don’t want to order the same ice cream flavor as you.”

“Kasen.” I barely know where to start with how ridiculous that is. “The majority of people like chocolate. It’s, like, the universal flavor. Are you kidding me?”

“I panicked.”

Without a word, I take his ice cream and replace it with my chocolate one.

“What are you doing?”

“Swapping,” I say, feeling more relaxed than I have all day. “You can eat the basic one, and I’ll have the one that tastes like ass. Problem solved.”

He gives me that narrow-eyed assessing look, but I ignore it and dig in. I barely had any of mine because I was so fucking nervous, but that problem is long gone now.

No, the problem is that he’s right. This … isn’t nice. I force it down, though, because now that I’ve started, I notice him follow my lead.

“So, what about you?” I ask, finally relaxing. It’s easier to potentially embarrass myself when he went first. “Are you dating anyone?”

“Nope.”

“Do you want to?”

“Nope.”

Right. Good talk. Shit, it’s like one step forward and one step back.

“I practice too much for that.”

“How often do you practice?” I ask, latching onto it.

“Every day. M-mom”—he struggles over the word—“worked late. So I’d hang back. Work out. Skate. Whatever.”

“Dedicated.”

“I want to go all the way.”

I remember that. From when I was too young to know how unlikely it would be, right up until I was drafted. Mom and Dad made me finish out my degree before I went to St. Louis, but it’s always been hockey for me. “I get that,” I tell him. “I was exactly the same way. First one there, last one to leave. I never questioned if I could do it, I just did.”

“Right.”

“I don’t mean it in a cocky way. I mean that hockey was my passion. It was like if I wasn’t playing, I was wasting my life. So I played. And I practiced. And I dragged Barrett to the rink every damn weekend. I got good, then I got really good, then, well …” My name got to the right people, I was drafted, and the rest is history. “Hockey just … answers something inside of me, you know?”

His voice scratches as he replies. “Yeah. I do.”

I look up, meeting his eyes and the all-too-familiar glare. This time, there’s something else looking back at me than straight up animosity. Our physical similarities are obvious, but I think for the first time, it’s hit us both how alike we really are.

Barrett loves hockey, but it was never in the same way I did. It was never that way for anyone else.

“I really love the sport,” I say.