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7
PHOEBE
“What are you doing in there?”
When I got to the rink this afternoon, I heard a racket coming from the supply closet. And when I peek in, who should I find on the ground, sorting through the supplies, but Hunter Landry?
Hunter looks up, exasperation on his face. “Audrey’s got me sorting and organizing all the stuff we need for our first classes tomorrow,” he says. “This stuff is a mess, totally disorganized. I’ve been here for over an hour on my hands and knees.”
“Where you belong,” I mutter under my breath.
His eyebrow quirks. “What was that, Phoebe?”
I smile. “Nothing. You must be hearing things.”
I step inside the large storage closet to survey his work. There’s a couple large boxes of unorganized pads and other equipment, and it looks like he’s organizing all the padding to make sure each student due here tomorrow has all the right pieces.
“I thought I’d just be teaching skating, not organizing the supplies,” he grumbles. “Don’t they have other people to do that?”
“This is a small, non-profit community rink,” I reply. “We don’t have a gigantic staff.”
“Do you have an actual job here? Or you strictly volunteer?”
I shake my head, leaning against one of the walls, looking down at him on the floor as he checks through a list of what he needs to find. “Just volunteering.”
I have a class here today, in about an hour. Not part of the program to teach hockey like the Ridley guys are doing, just regular ice skating lessons. I came early to get some ice time in for myself.
“As part of a class? For credit?” he asks, rustling through one of the boxes beside him.
“Some people just volunteer because they want to, Hunter. Not because they’re looking to get something out of it.”
“Thanks for the morality lecture, Saint Phoebe of Pennsylvania. Are you going to help me out here, or just give me a hard time?”
“Hmm,” I muse. “Just give you a hard time, I think.”
He chuckles. “Figures.”
I go to leave the closet to put my skates on and get in some rink time, but he looks up, making eye contact. “Hey, Phoebe?”
There’s a strange look in his eyes. Serious, when he’s usually anything but.
Lines of uncertainty furrow in his forehead, like he’s debating whether or not to say what he has on his mind.
Which is also strange, because Hunter is the last person in the world to ever think about holding his tongue. When he has something to say, appropriate or not, he says it.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“You never mentioned why you transferred back here from Maine.”
My chest hitches, an unpleasant tension prickling over me. Involuntarily, I feel myself folding my arms across my chest in a defensive posture.
“Was I supposed to?” I ask, the words coming out harsher than I intended.
Hunter looks at me for a moment, a mixture of concern and disappointment mingling in his ocean-blue eyes. Then, he shrugs his head to the side. “Guess not. Your business.” He gets back to his work with the supplies while I walk out of the closet.
Anxiety still coils through my body just from his question. It’s not exactly a secret, what happened to me, but I’m not shouting it from the mountaintops, either. The last thing I need or want is for people to shower me with fake sympathy just because they feel like they have to.
I’d much rather Hunter play his time-tested role as obnoxious jerk, than see him look at me with pity in his eyes.
