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So unexpected.
I think that’s my favorite part.
“Is this where you ran when you were growing up?” She puts her hands on her hips and bends at the waist before straightening up and balancing on one leg to stretch out the toned muscles of the other.
I laugh, shaking my head. “Nah. I ran for football, but only where they told me to. How long, how far. Never anything more. Same with hockey. It wasn’t until I was coming home on breaks from college that I started running out here.”
When I started needing excuse after excuse to get out of the house.
Harlow cuts me one of her sidelong looks, and I have to remind myself that we’re not in public so pulling her into my chest isn’t on the table. And my T-shirt’s soaked through with sweat, so… gross.
“What?”
“Tell me about the football. What happened there?”
I grin and grab her hand, leading her down to the shore where the water laps gently against the stretch of small stones nestled between piled boulders at either side. Guiding her around the rocky bend, we come to the sheared-off slab of a boulder high-schoolers have been calling “the bed” since my parents were kids. Probably longer.
I help her up and then hoist myself onto the level top, leaving a few inches between us. The sun glitters gold on the lake in front of us, and I lean back on my arms, letting the stone cool my overheated body.
“So basically, no one saw the hockey thing happening. It was sort of an accident and one I’m pretty sure my dad hasn’t forgiven himself for yet.”
Harlow laughs and leans back, mirroring my pose. “This sounds good.”
“Yeah, local football legend raises hockey pro. Family can’t live down the shame.”
“Okay, so tell me about it. But keep in mind I don’t speak jock, so you’ll have to dumb it down for me.”
“Ha, pretty sure I don’t have to dumb down anything for you.” But I do need to keep my eyes off that bare stretch of skin between her shorts and tank. Damn. “Here’s the short version. I was athletic, energetic. You know how it is with kids. They do all those tyke-level sports, getting a taste of everything.”
She wrinkles her nose. “My father isn’t really into sports. I played the piano and clarinet.”
And her mom passed away when she was young. I feel like an ass.
“Well, I was a kid who took to all of it. Mostly because I had an overload of energy and my mom was willing to run all over Enderson to help me burn it off. But the expectation was always that I’d play football like my dad. Only problem was, football’s a fall sport and once it ended, I was climbing the walls.”
“Hockey’s a winter sport?”
I smile. “Yeah, it is. There are other winter sports too. Thing is, the basketball coach made the mistake of asking my mom out in high school.”
Harlow’s eyes go wide. “He didn’t dare!”
“Right? Needless to say, there was no way in hell William Grady’s kid was shooting hoops.”
“Why not something else?”
“Mom’s favorite cousin played hockey. So, I hit the ice.”
“And that was the day the football died?”
“Hardly. I played both sports into high school. My dad still thinks I could have gone all the way with football.”
She turns to me, squinting in the morning light. “You don’t think so?”
“Nah. I didn’t want it with football the way I did with hockey. I had a lot of the components you need to win. But if it’s more than the win you’re after, you have towantit. You have to want it more than anything else, because there’s a cost to getting it, and there’s only the one way that payoff works out.”
I can see her absorbing what I just told her. Weighing it in a way I don’t see with most people.
“Was it hard to choose?” Her voice is quiet, thoughtful. “Knowing what your dad wanted for you wasn’t what you wanted?”
