AllFreeNovel
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Me? I was the elder in this situation?
“Go get Novek,” Coach told Gary, who trotted off to do what he was asked. It was crazy to me that the coach was letting Novek get away with such prima donna behavior, but when a kid was getting millions and millions of dollars to play a game, you knew the balance of power was going to be lopsided.
When Novek got back on the ice, Coach put the whistle to his mouth and blew hard, getting everyone’s attention.
“Take it away,” he said to Liv.
“Cody and I are going to race,” she said to the team. “You all know damn well I shouldn’t have any hope of coming within a sniff of him. So I’m going to show you what technique can do for your speed. Not just muscle. Technique.”
“This should be good,” Novek muttered.
“I’m going to give her a head start,” The rookie piped in. “Five lap advantage to ten.”
Fifty percent? It was going to be tight.
“Yeah, but no tricks,” she told the kid. “No bumping me or anything when you pass me. Give me a minute to warm up.”
She skated out onto the ice while everyone else took a seat on the bench to watch the show. Rookie was shaking his head like he couldn’t believe he was about to race a girl.
I hated to break it to him, but he was going to get beaten by a girl and that was going to make me feel better about having been beaten by a girl.
He pushed off the boards, but I grabbed him by the back of the jersey and pulled him back towards me.
“Check her and I end you, rookie,” I growled, as visions of her flying across the ice flashed in front of my eyes. “You skate. That’s all.”
“Of course, Captain,” he said with a huge smile on his face. “I’m not going to hit a girl.”
I joined the team while the coach served as the official race starter.
Ron was giving me the side eye. I could feel it.
“What’s wrong, Ron? Too much Taylor Swift to start your day?”
He shrugged. “You seem a little invested in the figure skater.”
“Invested? What the hell does that mean?”
“Don’t know. Just feels like you’re watching her all the time.”
Was I? Probably.
She fascinated me in so many ways. The way she laughed, the way she moved. The way she was surprising everyone around her. The woman was out to prove something all the time, and it felt like I understood her on a deeper level despite not knowing her very long.
This was a problem.
Ron was a problem.
Novek was a problem.
Which meant Liv was a problem.
The coach blew the whistle and Liv took off while O’Rourke, yes, I knew his real name, just kept skating in tight circles until she’d gotten in her lead. Then he took off.
The boys cheered as O’Rourke sailed past her in the straightaways, but Liv lowered her body weight like a speed skater and crushed him in the corners with the precision of her crossovers.
It was close. Like super close. One more lap and he would have had her. But she - and her technique - pulled it out in the end.
Coach blew his whistle and in victory she started doing alternating fist bumps, with alternating leg kicks. The boys went quiet in horror. It was like watching someone dancing really badly at a wedding. You felt awful for them because they didn’t seem to know how stupid they looked, but at the same time you couldn’t look away.
