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“Whatever.” He shoots the puck to a passer. Once it bounces back, he makes a tight swing with his stick and bags it where the goalie’s third hole would be.
I take one of the pucks from the pile and skate around the goal with it. Max watches me until I disappear behind him. He repeats his exercise while I skate all the way to center ice. My original goal was to do some skating drills until I grew tired enough to sleep. Between jittery nerves about tomorrow’s game and this weird air with the Bolts’ captain, it’s been impossible to sleep.
Pretending I’m on a breakaway, I go from zero to max speed in a short burst. I’m better at skating than puck-handling, so I put more thought into the latter. Max doesn’t get out of the way even though he sees me coming. As if he’s the goalie, I shoot around him and bag it in the net.
“That’s right, baby!” I raise my hands as I glide around the net. “Cut the check.”
He snorts.
“Your career as a goalie is over, Cassiano.”
“Look, I’ve been here for a while already. I’ll just leave the equipment here for you and go.”
I brake in his way. His hair is tousled, and a strand curves down his forehead. His cheeks are flushed from exercise, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his skin. Like me, he’s just in training clothes and skates, no pads. But he still looks enormous.
And yet it’s clear he’d rather be anywhere but here, facing a five-foot six girl.
“I get it. Right now, you would probably rather watch an open-heart surgery than look at my face.”
He recoils. “That’s not it?—”
“Well, thank goodness. I may not be fit for a beauty pageant, but I don’t look that bad.”
“Tinker Bell.” There’s a growl in his voice that sends tingles down my spine. Pleasant ones. “What do you want?”
“To apologize, you fool.” I have to take a deep breath when I, myself, recognize that’s not the right way to go about it. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say all week, but you’ve been avoiding me.”
Max snags one glove between his elbow and his side. With his freed hand, he musses his hair even more. “I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve just been busy.”
“Oh yeah? Busy enough to walk the other way?”
Even though his eyebrows plunge in a mighty intimidating way, the increasing redness of his face gives him away. “That—It’s because I remembered I had something else to do.”
“And what was that?” I lift a puck with the blade of my stick and bounce it in the air. “What was that very important thing?”
Max’s chest expands dramatically as it takes in air before draining it all the way. “What was it that you wanted to apologize for?”
On the one hand, I want to give him crap like he used to give me. But on the other hand, I know that would lead to me finding him even cuter than I already do. And that would be too much for my heart.
So, I say, “I lashed out at you, even though it wasn’t you I was mad at. So I’m sorry about that.”
If not for the occasional blink, I might have confused him for a museum art piece instead of a living, breathing human. His expression is as serious as if he were in an exam, tasked with a problem that he alone is responsible for solving. Max tucks his tongue against his cheek.
Finally, he speaks. “No, you were right. I should’ve checked with you first. I was focused only on me and what I felt was right or wrong. Did those guys ever show up around you again?”
Not to be dramatic, but someone is playing pin the tail on the donkey with my heart right now. And I know exactly what’s stabbing at my heart repeatedly: his kindness.
The weight of this realization weakens my knees, and I drop to a crouch, trying to make myself smaller and tucking my chin against my chest so he doesn’t see my face. All the heat of my body has traveled there in a second.
I see him kneel on the ice from the corner of my eye. Vaguely, I remember once vowing to make him kneel before me. But the feeling was completely different back then.
“Tinker Bell? You okay?”
No, I am not okay.
However, I lift one hand. “Give me a second. I’m trying to not embarrass myself.”
“Okay?”
